Looking for a Few Good Men

There are quite a few signs that boys in the United States are struggling in our current educational system. One measure of this is the declining percentage of young men pursuing a higher education.

The percentage of college freshmen who are male has been steadily declining for decades. Today, only 39 percent of young men who have completed high school are enrolled in college, down from 47 percent in 2011, an alarmingly steep rate of decline. In 1980, 50 percent of college graduates were male. In 2023, only 42 percent of college graduates were male, and just 39 percent of those earning a master’s degree and 46 percent of those earning a PhD were male.

Struggling in the Workforce

Not only are males struggling in school, workforce participation for males of prime working age is also trending downward, and average real earnings for men in their professional prime have declined 30 percent since 1980.

What are men doing with their lives? Surveys and social science studies show a marked increase among men in their prime earning years in time spent on “leisure activities” such as video games, online gambling, and pornography consumption, along with dramatic increases in substance abuse. In the last decade, there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of men in their professional prime who are declaring disability—either psychological or physical—preventing them from gainful employment. In short, more and more young men in the prime of their lives are giving up.

Struggling in School

It is worth underlining the areas where boys are most struggling in school. Boys seem to be doing fine in subjects that primarily require developing cognitive skills or memorizing facts, such as math and science. Where the data indicate that boys are struggling the most is in life skills. More and more, boys lack the ability to think ahead, self-regulate, and pursue goals that don’t afford them immediate gratification. Elementary school boys are not failing because they can’t do math, they are failing because they can’t tie their shoes.

As others have pointed out, this challenge is, at least in part, attributable to a delay in the brain development of boys relative to girls. But, delayed brain development alone is insufficient in explaining the problem, for this biological reality has remained constant while the performance and well-being of boys has declined.

The data above, it seems to me, point us to a deeper cultural problem, of which the academic and workforce problems are ultimately symptomatic. In general, people in our contemporary society are quick to paint a picture of toxic masculinity, but slow to even begin discussing what authentic, healthy masculinity looks like. To many ears, even speaking of there being such a thing as a real man or a manly way to live sounds too problematic. As the evidence of struggling boys and floundering young men suggests, however, the opposite is true: our society cannot afford to not talk about what it means to be a man.

Helping Boys Become Men

Without an understanding of manhood, a young man will be without a stable, life-orienting direction. In the absence of such a direction, whatever pleasure happens to be most salient will guide his decisions. For a boy to become a man is not simply a question of time, but the result of focused effort on his part and that of those in his life responsible for his personal growth. Focused effort requires sacrifice, which a boy will embrace only if such sacrifice has a clear and attractive purpose. If a young boy is to be motivated to go through the difficult business of denying himself a present comfort or pleasure, he must see that such a denial is ultimately for the sake of something truly worthwhile, something that he deeply wants—otherwise the easier, more pleasurable option will always win the day. And what a boy deeply wants is to be a man. He may not know what exactly that means, but he knows that he wants it.

What can educators do? While there are many pieces to the puzzle, here I will limit myself to two:

1. We need to transmit a clear and attractive image of masculinity;
2. We need more good men in the classroom who can transmit this message not only in words, but also by their example.

The fact that the prefrontal cortex of boys is not fully developed makes it all the more important that the ideal of manhood be communicated not in abstractions, but in images and examples. Boys need to see what a real man is before they are able to begin the process of becoming one. If we are not attentive to the imagination of boys, our frustrated words of correction will fall on deaf ears.

Many, perhaps most, boys lack enough positive male role-models and mentors in their lives. The entertainment industry, by and large, tends to portray men as either criminals or dolts—Don Juans or wimpy kids. Other common societal measures of male worth that our boys quickly come to learn are ultimately just as empty and alienating, whether it be judging masculine achievement primarily in terms of athletic success, sexual prowess, or financial power.

Positive Masculinity

As educators, we have to transmit an understanding of masculinity that is overwhelmingly positive. Our goal has to be not the transmission of negative rules (don’t do this, stop doing that), but the transmission of a culture (a way of seeing the world and relating to those in it). We need to go from a two-word admonition system—“be quiet!” “stop running!” “Stop playing!”—to a three word aspiration—be a man.

But, for this appeal to have any resonance, a boy must see what it means in the one who is saying it. He needs to see that to be a man he must learn to control himself, so that he can generously give of himself. He needs to see that a man is both tough and loving, both confident and humble. He needs to see that a man is neither a “nice guy”, who lacks the strength to defend the true and the good against those who attack it, nor a barbarian, who lacks the discipline to stand up against his own unvirtuous urges. We need a few—really, many—good men to become teachers, to help parents raise their sons to become men such as this.