Abel and Thriving
By Christopher Seeley, Head of School, St. Thomas Choir School
We’ve been reading a lot lately about the crisis among men and boys in the United States. News coverage, editorial pages, and demographic studies point to ways in which men and boys are spiraling into depression and despair, violence and addiction, disillusionment and disenfranchisement. It’s hard to argue against this reality, for we see with our own eyes that the lives of men and boys seem to be far more fragile and more on the edge than in previous generations.
At the same time, girls and women are making significant gains in their potential and lived experiences. Lest we think that there is a zero-sum game in effect, we must acknowledge that girls and women are not gaining ground because boys and men are losing ground. Even in this world of finite resources, our society must ensure that every person, regardless of sex or gender – and absent a binary framework – can and should have what they need to lead productive and fulfilling lives. But the fact remains that American women are realizing their potential to greater effect, while American men are under greater social, economic, and existential threat.
Many boys today feel like they are losing out, like they have fewer opportunities, and that the rest of us don’t expect much of them. Worse than that, boys often feel that the deck is stacked against them. Some feel they will never have the cards to play life’s game – they have no ante, no stack of chips, not even a way of buying in to sit at the table. We need to counter this sense of unfairness before it is borne out in experience with specific skill- and confidence-building, with overt demonstrations of belief in boys’ abilities and potential, with a willingness to know and to love boys for who they are, and with a commitment to challenging them to be their very best selves.
In schools, we often focused on building up the reservoirs of what students know. We know now that the purpose of education ought to be the building up of those things that students can do. I‘m not arguing that understanding important things is somehow newly irrelevant. I am positing that knowing what to do in the face of challenge, and that being able to discern how to solve a problem are the foundation for being able to live well in our modern context. We can always learn more stuff, and we have Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia as useful cheat sheets for those things we may not easily recall. But the real challenge of today is not to learn to do more, but to discern how to be more. We have to equip young people with the skills to accomplish even those things that seem just beyond reach. We must also help them develop the habits to ensure they will be the good people they ought to see in themselves.
Let’s not pretend that life is not hard. That is the reality that many face, and we shouldn’t minimize the fear or deny the struggles of the individual. However, we should prepare boys and men to face their struggles with humility, determination, confidence, and care. The virtue of rugged individualism and the concept of the self-made man – though enduring in popularity – are foundational elements of the despair that many feel when they aren’t able to meet challenges and persevere. These mythic notions of selfhood add to American boys’ and men’s sense of failure and often fueling the anger toward others or hatred of themselves that leads too often to substance abuse, violence, self-harm and death. We can and must interrupt this cycle; we need to cultivate in men and boys the habits of mind and skills they need to exercise their agency, to realize their potential, and to make meaningful contributions to our society.
Too many boys and men in our society bear what is named in the biblical narrative of Genesis as the mark of Cain. We have known the tragedy of potential unrealized, of dreams dashed in poor communities as well as communities of color, and across generations. It is no more important that we are also witnessing an increase in the same tragic conditions in white and affluent communities today. That we are also witnessing an increase in tragedy in white and affluent communities is no more or less important, because tragedy and the cost of despair lead to similar ends whether in the streets traveled by Proud Boys in rural towns or by Boys in the Hood in big cities. That we observe the same cycle of despair that is often followed by destruction proves that the problems aren’t just based on misguided and undisciplined individual choices, but perhaps an inhospitable and mistaken society.
Thus, we all pay a very high price when boys become men who do not thrive. In Genesis, we read that after Cain rises up and kills his brother Abel he is cursed, marked for life, excommunicated, and left to wander the earth. Abel’s taking by force what he could not otherwise realize for himself was his ultimate downfall. Cain’s killing his brother was – he thought – his only recourse against what he perceived as unfairness; fratricide, he reasoned, was the only cure for his envy and pain. Yet Cain only compounded his suffering, and the tragic murder of his brother did nothing to tame his insecurity. Cain’s life endured, but his misery was magnified. And we see the full effect of Cain’s legacy in boys and men today. Decades ago, Michael Thompson wrote Raising Cain to alert us to the crises boys face early on and throughout their lives. Recent pieces in the New York Times by David Brooks and Michele Goldberg remind us that the tragic causes and effects of these crises continue. Cain, in misery, lives on. What I am presenting here is that we need to write a new narrative; Abel ought to be given new life, too.
Let us imagine the life Abel might have led, caring for his family – even for his covetous brother – and setting himself and all with whom he came into contact on a path of security, safety, and common purpose. What if Abel had been nurtured and supported in his young life and had had the opportunity to realize all the good that resided in him? What if he had developed the habits and skills that would have led to a productive and fulfilling life? He would have thrived, and I bet that others around him would have prospered, too. In Genesis, Abel’s blood “calls out to God from the ground.” Even in death, Abel had something to say. He wasn’t calling out for vengeance; he was announcing the loss of his opportunity to do and to be something more.
I am fortunate to work at a school that offers an important example of how we can build up boys to be confident, caring, and meaningful contributors to their communities. At Saint Thomas Choir School in New York City, our students are choristers in the Saint Thomas Church Choir of Men and Boys. The boys live, work, learn, and play in a small residential community, and they sing five services each week and a half-dozen concerts in a professional Episcopal church choir.
The church supports ninety percent of the operations of the school and families pay on average just under nine thousand dollars against an annual tuition of a little under nineteen thousand dollars each year. Encompassing grades three through eight, the boys are the core of the church’s choir, and they are a band of brothers who learn and grow together during some of the most impressionable years of their lives. We present the boys with great challenges in music, in the classroom, in athletics, and in their communal life, and we equip them with the skills to meet those challenges squarely.
The boys live away from home for nearly nine months of the year, but they are nurtured in a community that knows them and loves them, and that offers them experiences and opportunities that they cannot find in any other school in the U.S. I realize that the experience of learning and singing Anglican music across a span of four hundred years and of singing 25 pieces each week is exceptional and cannot – and should not – be a model for every young boy’s school experience. And singing soprano is, in itself, a fragile and short-lived thing in the life of a boy. But the cultivation of an environment of care, the development of the skill and ability to do great and challenging things, the confidence and empathy necessary to live well in community can and should be at the heart of every boy’s upbringing and development.
Saint Thomas Choir School boys know that what they do matters, that they matter, and that as their lives continue, they have the ability to accomplish many things for themselves and for others. No child deserves anything less, and we know and see what befalls many boys who lack these essential offers of nurture, clear demonstrations of care, and necessary building blocks of self-worth. I’m not suggesting that we need to upend our society and find ways to finance a high-priced boarding school education for every boy. That is as unnecessary as it is impractical. The good news is that understanding and empathy, nurture and love don’t cost nearly that much.
Christopher A. Seeley is Head of School at Saint Thomas Choir School in New York City. A lifelong educator, he believes in the transformative power of education and the ways in which those who are educated well can transform the lives of others.
