God planted the vision for Iron Academy in Dr. Hahn within the first 18 months of working in Christian education in 2003. It became obvious that Christian schools (and all high schools) are graduating boys into the world. Furthermore, most colleges are graduating boys. Worse, most women marry boyish males who they hope and pray will become godly men soon. None of that should be true! The first and most important reason for Iron Academy is to ally with intentional Christ-following families and their churches to build godly young men BEFORE they leave the home.
The second reason we started Iron Academy was to build an educational environment optimized for young men’s unique learning preferences. 70% of American valedictorians are now women. Likewise, 70% of doctoral students are women. Women are thriving academically. Men are not. The reasons behind this are not complex. Simply put, men and women are different: physically, emotionally, psychologically, and cognitively. American classrooms are set up for average female learners, not male learners. Young men are not well-suited to sitting still hour after hour, class after class without any physical stimulation. Young men benefit from tangible connections between learning and doing real-world things. Young men more often like competition. Young men normally need more movement. Young men mature physically and emotionally at different rates than young women and need to be treated accordingly. Young men are often utterly distracted from primary educational objectives by the opposite gender. In sum, middle and high school classrooms across the nation entirely fail to optimize learning for young men.
Iron Academy’s reasons to exist harmonize perfectly. God created young men to be different from young ladies. Training needs to reflect that in the home, in the church, and in the school. Our spiritual environment focused on biblical manhood allows us to reveal God’s perfect design for manhood within each student while appealing to their male learning preferences. It is a beautiful, God-given design for helping families build God-honoring young men and exceptionally educated learners who are maximally developed for a life of leadership, self-discipline, and service.