Ramón Javier, Head of George Jackson Academy NYC, on why brotherhood beats competition every time
“We believe in boys. They’re boys. I’m not trying to make them men. We want to preserve boyhood for them. There’s a lot of love in our school. We’re not yelling at them, there’s no detention, but we hold them accountable. The foundation is love for the boys.”
Ramón Javier (he/him/el) is head of school at George Jackson Academy, a middle school for boys serving low-income families on Manhattan's Lower East Side. His own story runs right through the school's mission. A lifelong New Yorker who grew up on welfare in Section 8 housing in Washington Heights, Ramón won a place through Prep for Prep, the same educational access programme that shapes so much of GJA's work, and went on to a five-day boarding school in Westchester, then to Williams College and Columbia. He spent two decades in prestigious independent schools including Trinity and Packer Collegiate before taking up headship at GJA four years ago. In this conversation, Ramón reflects on the formative experience of living between two very different worlds, what brotherhood really means for the boys in his care, and why he is unafraid to say that AI worries him.
🎙️ Episode highlights
He explains the unusual model behind GJA, where every family receives financial aid and around 90% of the school's $3.3 million budget is raised through philanthropy every single year.
He reflects on why the school focuses solely on the three years of middle school, a time when he believes boys make the choices that shape the whole trajectory of their lives.
He describes what brotherhood looks like in practice: boys taught to compete with themselves first, to celebrate and applaud each other, and alumni who keep coming back years after they graduate.
He shares the most formative experience of his own life, living in "two universes" as a boy of colour from a poor family attending a boarding school in Westchester, and how learning to navigate both worlds made him who he is.
He makes the case for strong, youthful male role models on his faculty, and why those relationships carry an additional level of meaning for boys.
His controversial opinion: AI is going to make people stupid, because it takes away the chance to make mistakes and grapple deeply with ideas.