Building Men Program Expands to SCSD Elementary Schools
Be a man, not the man.It’s the message middle and high school students in the Building Men Program have been hearing for years. Thanks to an expansion of the program, this past school year, elementary students at Franklin, Huntington, Meachem, Salem Hyde, and STEAM at Dr. King are also receiving this encouraging lesson – and others.
“I thought we needed a program aimed at the young men in our school,” STEAM at Dr. King Teaching Assistant Mered Billue explained. “A lot of the young males in our community don’t have a mature role model in their lives. A lot of times, they are left with a role model that isn’t attainable – a celebrity, an athlete, or a You Tube star. We have kids who think that’s the way to go about life and having a future. I wanted to show them that there are people in the district who come from the same community they do who can be role models and who want to work with them to help them reach a level of maturity that they’d like to reach.”
Mr. Billue contacted his principal, and ultimately Superintendent Davis, who connected him with Joe Horan. Starting in January, the Building Men Program at Dr. King began meeting twice a week after school, with about 15-20 students regularly participating.
Each week, students focus on a new theme from a provided Building Men Toolbox. Themes range from self-respect and character building to perception, maturity, and more.
“The kids really have a sense of pride being in a program like Building Men,” Mr. Billue shared, noting that they even have a female in the group this year. “Our program truly is all-inclusive – we want our students to learn attributes that will help them better themselves. In today’s society, you have kids at a young age who are going through identity searching and you don’t want to shun that – we always want to be inclusive. We also stress the importance of having a handle on the community we live in. We encourage our students to say something if they have friends or family members who are going down the wrong path. We have real discussions about the things our community faces and how we can address them.”
At Meachem, Cameron Littlejohn leads a Building Men Program for 4th graders after school, four days a week. As a former SCSD student himself, Mr. Littlejohn said he knew the impact this program could have on his elementary students.
“This is a natural fit for me,” he said. “I can relate to our kids. I would have benefitted from a program like this as a student – and some of my friends would have even moreso. I approach it with the attitude that I’m trying to pass along the useful information that I think would have helped me at their age. What could I say to these kids now that I would have listened to at their age? Growing up, we think we know it all. We don’t listen to adults. So I try to come at this from a student’s perspective and flip it on its head. It makes it easier for them to want to soak up all this information and take something away from it. It makes them feel like they have someone they can talk to, and a place to go where they can be safe and feel comfortable.”
Students enjoy playing sports together or working out, having help as they complete homework, and group discussions centered around their weekly themes and questions they deep dive into.
What’s something you’re good at? What’s something you’d like to improve at? How do we make good decisions? How can we fix certain situations?
“I like the activities we do in Building Men, like basketball and workouts,” Dr. King 5th grader Zyier Burton said. “They teach us how to behave, but with fun activities.”
“Building Men is fun because it helps us learn how to be positive and not give up,” Randiyel Santos added. “It feels good when I’m here because we get to do fun things. It makes me want to behave better because I want to make [our advisors] proud!”
The supportive environment often leads students to open up in a way they don’t in their ordinary school day, leading them to build connections with each other – and their advisors – in a way that ripples to positively impact the entire school community.
“Building Men helps me treat people better,” Meachem 4th grader Haneef Watson shared. “It helps me make better choices in school and in life, because I feel like as part of Building Men, we should be an example of making good choices.”
“Building Men is good for me,” classmate Anthony Harvey added. “It helps me a lot because it makes me more productive. It helps me be better mentally, socially, and physically. Our advisors teach us how to have self-discipline and control and how to work together as a team.”
We look forward to seeing how the Building Men Program will continue to positively impact the lives of young men in the Syracuse community!
