Fourteen-year-old Tammy, dressed in a fashionable grunge style with a long flannel shirt and messy black hair, confidently enters Principal Catherine DeSalvo’s office for their scheduled meeting. Tammy, who is tall and thin, settles herself into a rigid chair as DeSalvo observes her appearance. "You have your feet on the floor and a pleasant expression. That’s excellent!" DeSalvo remarks. "But please rest your hands on your lap." The teenager obediently places her hands on her thighs. Tammy is aware that she is in trouble on this spring morning because the previous day, she had left her class abruptly and began using a hallway couch as a trampoline.
According to DeSalvo, this incident rates a 4 out of 5 on the "difficult behavior" scale because Tammy had refused to follow instructions to return to class. DeSalvo documents the event on a square gray card that records students’ responsible and irresponsible behavior. Following the required act of expressing remorse, Tammy signs a contract accepting her punishment: an in-school suspension. Over the next two days, she will eat lunch alone, complete extra homework assignments, and study during her class breaks. Having agreed to the punishment, she dutifully walks down the hallway to formally apologize to her teacher.
This visit to the principal’s office is not the typical experience. However, Wegner Middle School is not an ordinary school. It is situated in Boys Town, a renowned residential treatment facility founded in 1917 by the Reverend Edward J. Flanagan, a bespectacled Roman Catholic priest immortalized in a classic film starring Spencer Tracy.
What started as a small collection of dormitories and spacious dining halls on a remote plot of Nebraska farmland has grown into a vast residential-treatment facility that provides housing, food, and education for troubled young boys and, since 1979, girls as well. In fact, 40 percent of the current residents are girls. Flanagan’s initial venture, which began with a modest $90 loan, has now become a nonprofit institution with an annual budget of $100 million and satellite locations in 16 places across the United States. This generous budget, drawn from social-service agencies, public donations, and reserve funds, ensures that no child in need will have to pay for their stay.
The young individuals who have come to this particular area of Nebraska over the years represent the evolving faces of America’s children in the 20th century. During the first half of the century, the 8 to 18-year-olds who arrived at Boys Town were primarily homeless and impoverished. Many of them had lost their parents either in World War I or to the devastating influenza epidemic that ravaged American cities and towns in 1915. Boys would arrive from Kansas, South Dakota, or California, wearing worn-out coats and torn sweaters, specifically seeking out the man dressed in a black suit who ran Boys Town.
All 550 current residents of Boys Town are here voluntarily, but they were referred by social-service agencies, frustrated parents, or the juvenile courts. Orphans make up only 2 percent of Boys Town residents today. More than half of the children coming here have experienced sexual abuse. Eighty percent have faced emotional or physical neglect. A significant number have struggled with substance abuse. One in four has attempted suicide, and there are two current residents who have committed murder.
The children at Boys Town today bear a striking resemblance to Tammy. (The names of minors in this article have been changed.)
Since its incorporation in 1936, Boys Town has established its own fire station, post office, and police force. It now consists of 76 single-family homes and a fully functional farm. The organization has also constructed two churches and a conference center, which serves as a platform to raise awareness about their educational program for visitors from outside the town.
Within one of the spacious meeting rooms of the conference center, a group of around twenty-four teachers from public schools in Wyoming, Texas, South Dakota, and Kansas are being introduced to the methodology of Boys Town. A team of educators is conducting a workshop on "the well-managed classroom," a program that focuses on developing social skills for teachers at different grade levels. This workshop is just one of the 220 professional development seminars that the center holds annually for educators and administrators. Since 1990, Boys Town has conducted thousands of trainings across 49 states. The topic being discussed at the moment – effectively dealing with unruly students – is one of the center’s most popular subjects.
Thomas Dowd, the director of the center, advises the teachers not to nag or criticize their students excessively when they behave inappropriately. He suggests that the initial interaction with a disruptive child should begin with a compliment to capture their attention. This compliment can be as simple as thanking the student for making eye contact, a gesture that demonstrates respect. Dowd then recommends a series of conversational steps: describing the inappropriate behavior, providing a reason for changing their actions, asking for confirmation that they understand what they did wrong, and issuing an appropriate consequence. Finally, he suggests ending the conversation with another compliment, such as "thanks for listening."
Dowd concludes by stating that the entire teaching interaction can be compared to a sandwich. Positive statements serve as the bread, while the corrective conversation acts as the filling. The trainers reassure the teachers, who seem unsure about this approach, that this method has already been tested on the young people attending school in Boys Town. Students like Mark, who had to defend himself by fatally shooting a rival; Jill, who ran away and lived on the streets after her mother was incarcerated for murder; and Patricia, a 16-year-old who had been sexually abused by her grandfather since the age of 9. If this method can help these children focus on their studies, the trainers believe that it can certainly be effective for most public school students as well.
This is the hope of the South Dakota teachers in attendance. Kellie Holmstrom, a teacher from the small town of Yankton, believes that the three-day course is worth the investment of the $345 fee if she can acquire strategies to manage the chaos in her second-grade classroom.
The emphasis on the principles discussed earlier remains prevalent even today. The current executive director of Boys Town, the Reverend Val J. Peter, asserts that "Life has failed our children not at the end, but at the very beginning". He believes that children need to connect with a power greater than themselves.
Father Edward J. Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town, also insisted on teaching students a vocational skill. This was particularly important because many of the original Boys Town youths did not have homes to return to, and Father Flanagan wanted to ensure that they could support themselves once they left the facility.
During the 1920s and 1930s, some of the young men at Boys Town learned how to operate printing presses and published regular editions of Father Flanagan’s Boys’ Home Journal. Other children were taught skills like repairing broken tractors, plowing fields, baling hay, fixing plumbing, and crafting birdhouses out of wood. Father Flanagan even established a tiny Boys Town bank and printed paper money so that the young men could learn about the value of saving money. By earning "dollars" through their good works, the boys could purchase items like plastic combs, Hershey’s chocolate bars, and Sugar Daddy candies.
Father Flanagan’s intention was to keep the boys actively engaged in productive activities to prevent them from getting into trouble.
However, by 1975, more boys than ever were being admitted to Boys Town, and "mischief" had evolved to mean drug overdoses, suicide attempts, and even gunfights. The officials at Boys Town recognized the need for a complete structural change in the facility. Father Flanagan’s successors replaced the large and stark dormitories with smaller group homes, which still exist today. They hired foster-care couples known as family-teachers to care for eight boys or girls in each residence. Researchers from the University of Kansas developed a behavior program that focused on structured dialogues between the family-teachers and the residents. While the program proved successful, officials were disappointed to find that the children’s well-behaved manners deteriorated by the time they reached the school campus. With the assistance of the same researchers, Boys Town educators developed a similar code of conduct for the school setting. The result was a series of dialogues that resembled those rehearsed by public school teachers in a recent workshop. In 1979, school and home environments were formally linked, so that undesirable behaviors at school would lead to disciplinary action at home.
The ultimate goal of Boys Town is to teach children to take responsibility for their actions. Andrea H. Christe, who oversees the education-training program at Boys Town, explains that it is essential to explain the expectations to hold students accountable. This teaching technique, which supplements the standard curriculum, aims to instill values such as respect, hard work, and self-control in students. However, some teachers who were introduced to the method during the workshop criticized the classroom dialogues, claiming that they would create students who relied solely on their instructors’ prompts to behave like automatons. Despite this feedback, Christe defends the formal terminology used in the dialogues, likening it to the language used in 12-step or other treatment programs. She argues that it fosters a sense of belonging to a special community and suggests that teachers can modify the language to make it more kid-friendly.
While some educators question the specific words used in the Boys Town etiquette, others question the approach itself. The social-skills approach requires students to master "greeting skills," which include making eye contact, shaking hands, and stating one’s name in a pleasant voice tone. However, one educator, Lil Manthei, a Cherokee teacher at a Cheyenne River Reservation school, disagrees with the constant eye contact requirement. In her culture, Native Americans bow their heads and avoid direct eye contact as a sign of respect. Therefore, looking directly at someone would be considered disrespectful in her community.
When children arrive at Boys Town, they are given a card that adults use to track their behavior. Points are assigned for both appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and in order to earn privileges like watching TV or having snacks, children must accumulate 10,000 points each day. If they fail to fulfill their responsibilities or are uncooperative, they may lose some privileges. Rachel, who has been at Boys Town for over three years, believes that the strict system has improved her as a person."There have been many changes in me," she says. "Before coming here, I used to think it was okay to be in a gang. I was too quick to violence." She points to a picture of her 13-year-old cousin who was recently killed in a gang-related incident. Next to the photo is a large poster of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "Now, I think before I act," Rachel says. Despite not having this behavioral coaching at home, some educators who have implemented the Boys Town approach say it can greatly improve students’ behavior."It has completely transformed how kids behave," says Jane Humphreys, the elementary coordinator for the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District near Houston. Since the district began using this teaching method in 21 elementary schools three years ago, suspensions and referrals to the principal’s office have significantly decreased. "We used to have disruptive classrooms with kids throwing tantrums and causing chaos," recalls Humphreys. "This program is really making a difference." Boys Town officials also highlight the research conducted on this approach. A study compared two elementary schools in Houston between 1993 and 1995, one implementing the Boys Town method and the other using standard discipline techniques. The results showed that the school using the Boys Town approach reported significantly fewer instances of physically and verbally aggressive behavior. Teachers also reported that students were more attentive in class and exhibited fewer disruptive outbursts. The study found that this positive behavior continued as the students progressed to higher grades. However, for Catherine DeSalvo, the principal of Wegner Middle School, the real measure of Boys Town’s success lies in how its students lead their lives outside of the institution. She explains that over 80 percent of Boys Town students graduate from high school, with alumni going on to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, and business leaders. One particularly notable success story comes from a graduate in 1985. In 1993, 26-year-old Michael Dopheide was involved in a train accident, where he displayed bravery and rescued trapped passengers. In media interviews following the incident, Dopheide credited his years at Boys Town for teaching him perseverance in the face of challenges.The social issues of child abuse and neglect, poverty, and violence that lead young individuals to Boys Town are not expected to change in the near future, according to child advocates. Additionally, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could reduce federal funding for child-care services, Medicaid, and welfare programs for disadvantaged children and families. However, with a reserve fund of $500 million and ongoing support from state and local government agencies, as well as private donors, Val Peter, the executive director, believes that Boys Town will continue to produce responsible citizens for many years.Inside the bustling cafeteria on a recent Friday afternoon, Peter is leading a ceremony to welcome Boys Town’s newest members. Nine teenagers stand against a wall adorned with life-size photographs of the original Boys Town residents. The present-day group, consisting of six boys and three girls, is dressed neatly in white shirts and ties or colorful spring dresses. At Peter’s request, they raise their right hands and recite the Boys Town pledge in unison: "I will be a good citizen of Boys Town. I will work hard, pray hard, and play well." As he goes down the line, Peter clasps each teenager’s hand and presents them with a certificate of citizenship. This ritual serves as a message to the newcomers that they are now part of something much bigger than themselves.
