A
teacher noticed that a boy seemed a bit off, so he approached him and inquired if anything was on his mind. The boy confided that earlier, when arguing about an issue with a classmate, he had not been respectful of his peer’ s views. Instead, he had belittled them. When the teacher asked this boy how that had made him feel and what he could do to make it better, the boy replied,“ Not good,” and“ I can go back to him, apologize, and let him know that even if I don’ t agree with him, he has a right to his views, and I respect them.”
Another boy, dealing with a family issue, had been acting out at school, doing his own thing, being distracting. The teacher asked him to stay back after class and engaged him in conversation for 20 minutes, during which he revealed the
“ It quickly became apparent that not only would this‘ accountability work’ provide boys with agency, it would also promote their moral development.”
personal issue. This connection led to a discussion about growth and progress, about reflection, with the boy realizing that there are positive ways to manage stress.
We are seven years into our thinking about the Teaching Boys Initiative at Saint David ' s School™, which began with the mission of the school and was driven by the dual imperatives to capture and share the wisdom of our master teachers, and to ensure that we focused on the evidence-based science of how boys learn best in each of the subjects and disciplines we teach and how best to teach them. This effort led to the development of our customized Saint David ' s Framework for Best Practices in Teaching and Learning for Boys™, which forms the foundation for our school ' s fully embedded professional development program, TBI— supporting and engaging our faculty from their first day at the school forward.
Dr. Reichert, Mrs. MacNeille, Dr. Gilbert, and Dr. O’ Halloran at the November 2025 PA Meeting about the school’ s Accountability as Moral Formation Self-Study.
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