Diane Roberts, Consulting Director of the Gurian Institute, was previously the Principal of a High School in Maryland that inculcated Gurian Institute theory and strategies and saw powerful and profound results. She has provided us with that story today.

Diane will be one of the speakers featured at our GI Summer Training Institute in June. To learn more and to register, please visit https://gurianinstitute.com/events/gurian-summer-institute-2026/. We hope you will reach out to us at info@gurianinstitute.com to help your school achieve these sorts of results. Now here’s more from Diane.

When I became principal of a Westlake H.S. in Southern Maryland, I noticed something during my second year in the building. Our incoming ninth grade boys were more aggressive. Quicker to disengage. Skipping classes. Accumulating referrals for disrespect. Fights were becoming routine. Teachers were frustrated. Data confirmed what our hallways were signaling.

At first glance, it looked like defiance.

But leadership requires a second look.

As we studied the data more closely, we realized many of the boys generating the highest number of discipline referrals were also struggling with literacy. They were sitting in classrooms where independent reading, complex vocabulary, and sustained focus were daily expectations, and they did not yet have the skills to navigate them confidently.

When a young man cannot read fluently at the level required, he has limited options. He can withdraw quietly. Or he can perform. Many of ours performed.

There was another layer.

Some boys who were fully capable of excelling were disengaging for social reasons. In certain peer circles, being academically strong was not valued. When the perceived leaders of a group were also the ones struggling most with literacy, achievement became socially risky. If the leader cannot read well, public excellence threatens the hierarchy.

So capable boys hid, because they chose being a part of the popular crowd over brilliance.

Then March 13, 2020 arrived.

We sent students home thinking it would be temporary. We did not know they would not return for the remainder of the year and most of the following one. What we did know was this: whatever gaps existed would widen under isolation and stress.

During that season, I joined the Maryland Taskforce for Achieving Academic Equity and Excellence for Black Boys. For the first time, what I was seeing in my building was being acknowledged at the state level. Boys were leading in disciplinary actions and trailing in academic performance statewide. Black boys led both categories. This was not isolated. It was systemic.

Through the Taskforce, we engaged with Michael Gurian and the Gurian Institute and grounded our response in brain-based research. We studied how stress elevates cortisol and suppresses the prefrontal cortex, the very part of the brain responsible for impulse control, organization, and decision-making. We examined how boys process verbal instruction differently and require movement to anchor learning. We explored how connection lowers defensiveness and increases academic risk-taking.

We stopped asking, “Why won’t he comply?” and started asking, “What is his brain communicating?”

And sometimes, what it was communicating sounded like rhythm.

In the DMV, Go-Go music is percussion-driven, call-and-response, deeply embedded in the culture of Washington, D.C. It moves through you. So when a young man started drumming on his desk, he was not always trying to disrupt instruction. Often, he was regulating himself the only way he knew how.

Instead of escalating into power struggles, we redirected.

We normalized movement and built in brain breaks. We equipped classrooms with fidgets. We encouraged structured competition and collaborative learning. We coached teachers to move beyond the traditional secondary model of sage on the stage and design student-centered classrooms even at the high school level. We encouraged softer lighting in classrooms by turning off the harsh overhead lights and using lamps. Reading spaces were added. Games entered instruction strategically.

At the high school level, teachers love their content. I had to challenge us to love the students first.

We strengthened literacy supports without shame. We created systems to teach organization and time management explicitly. Administrators kept water and snacks available because regulation is difficult for a dehydrated or hungry brain. When students were sent to the office, we focused on stabilization before consequence. Discipline without regulation is simply punishment.

The work was steady and intentional. Eighteen months of coaching, modeling, and recalibrating expectations. We did not lower standards. We adjusted the environment so more students could meet them.

Gradually, culture shifted. As literacy improved and belonging increased, it became safe to be smart. Capable boys stopped hiding. Academic effort no longer threatened social standing. AP enrollment increased — not because we mandated it, but because we removed the cultural penalties attached to achievement.

Discipline referrals decreased. Attendance improved. Students began challenging one another to do better. It was no longer impressive to disrupt instruction or carry on hallway feuds.

The building felt different. We still had challenges. Adolescence does not disappear because adults become informed. But the dominant emotion shifted from tension to pride. From guarded to hopeful. From fear to school spirit.

The drums did not stop beating. We simply learned how to listen differently and lead differently because of it.