Last week a local newspaper had the front page “How we stop this kid from becoming a monster”. The article’s subheading read: “Calls for DV lessons at all schools to address menace of toxic masculinity”.

The headline and image were poor choices and have been heavily criticised by other media outlets for demonising masculinity as toxic and implying that violence was the default setting for boys. Furthermore it insinuates that boys are natural born predators who need to be trained out of becoming monsters.

The crux of the article was about the need in Western Australian Schools to teach respectful relationships programs to children to arrest skyrocketing levels of violence against women in the community.

This article was a vindication of the hard work Aquinas has put into developing our K-9 Character Education curriculum over the past five years. Through the Character Education program, we enable our students to understand, care about and act on core ethical values such as respect, justice, civic virtue, and responsibility for self and others. The curriculum is scoped and sequenced with the essence of Gospel Values throughout.

The Making New Friends program runs from K-6 in the Junior School and aims to build connections with neighbouring girls’ schools. This program provides enjoyable and engaging opportunities twice a term for our boys to play beside, learn with and respect their female friends. The Program aims to support lifelong respectful relationships between boys and girls who come together first in friendship, where they learn to belong. Self-worth, regardless of appearance, gender or achievement, is encouraged through carefully planned age-appropriate activities that support our core values.

This year, the Junior School have begun using The Resilience Project to further develop boys’ character by focusing on three virtues: Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness. These have all been proven to cultivate positive emotions and promote respectful relationships. Through learning about and practicing these virtues, boys develop greater kindness, emotional literacy, all of which improve their ability to connect with people.

In the Middle School all boys participate in our Veritas course, which is solely focused on building boys into good men who have a positive sense of their own masculinity. It has been developed to align with the different ages and stages of development of adolescent boys.

In Year 7, boys study the lives of some famous Aquinas alumni, examining the character traits that make them good men. They also complete a unit on emotional literacy, learning about the difference between emotions and feelings, managing their emotions, and how to identify facial expressions and body language to understand a person’s emotional state. This enables boys to show empathy, understand conflict (the sources of and approaches to it), appreciate what makes a real friend, the difference between a friendship fire and being mean on purpose, and how to deal with each situation.

Year 8 expands on the concepts of Year 7 by having a more community orientated focus. Boys undertake a unit of work called Inclusivity education where they examine cultural diversity in Australia, racism and how to stand against it, awareness of disabilities and how people can be more inclusive with the language they use, understanding gender, examining what is gender-based violence and the forms it can take, and how to respond to gender-based violence.

The College’s Odyssey program, a Male Rite of Passage, encompasses the Year 9 Veritas curriculum with the focus on teaching and providing the skills required to be good men with a sense of positive masculinity. In Year 9 boys look at the concept of “The Man Box”, societal pressures that have traditionally stereotyped men into what is now known as toxic masculinity, examine the relationship between “Man Box” behaviours and poor mental health, reflect on how the “Man Box” has a strong correlation to male violence, and examine preventative measures society and individuals can take to stop violence against women, objectification and sexual harassment, how to call out disrespectful behaviour towards women, examine the research into the impact of viewing pornography on men’s attitudes towards women, the levels of intimacy in different relationships, what is consent and how to know it is given.

Reading how the Western Australian government is listening to violence prevention groups calling for respectful relationships programs to be mandated into all schools across the state, makes me proud to have been involved in building a curriculum at Aquinas that is already, well and truly, a leader in this field in Western Australia.

Mark Weston

Director of Character Education and Leadership