Even the so-called best of our modern schools offer suboptimal conditions for boys. Warren Farrell and John Gray’s The Boy Crisis (2019) substantially treats the topic, as does the older War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers (2015). We all experience manifestations of the boy crisis in our daily lives and in the news.

A hopeful sign can be seen in a new Catholic boys’ boarding school in Kansas. St. Martin’s Academy boasts a new-old educational vision that engages boys’ bodies, minds, and souls. Their model “combines classical academics with a practical work program on a sustainable farm.” A link to the school’s website is included below, but first check out these highlights from it:

• The school states a commitment to “nurture authentic masculinity,” which “demands perseverance in pursuit of the arduous good.” To wit, “boys at St. Martin’s will do hard things everyday to counteract our deeply rooted human tendency toward softness and sloth.”
• If the words softness and sloth bring to mind “screen time,” here is what the school says about that: “St. Martin’s replaces screens and the noise of pop culture with the great outdoors and with folk music and poetry — giving mind and heart the time and space to acclimate to the deeper beauty of God’s creation.”
• St. Martin’s describes its students as “young men in motion, with field, forest and stream offering a theatre for both study and play.”

Have a look for yourself. The link: https://saintmartinsacademy.org/