The first time I remember someone getting stabbed was in the film Pay It Forward, when seventh-grader Trevor stood up for another boy and was killed in a Las Vegas middle school. I was 12 years old. I was so upset by the scene that I started shaking. I missed the end of the movie.

The most recent time was an early morning two weeks ago, when I read the news that a 14-year-old named Devan Bracci-Selvey had been stabbed and killed outside a school in Hamilton. The following night, I did a presentation for the grade nine boys in a high school near his. I spoke about Devan briefly. The boys knew his name.

Between these two moments is a culture of violence that weaves through every boy’s adolescence just like it wove through mine. There are times when it’s as tangible as my 12-year-old heart pounding in the dark: The death of Devan Bracci-Selvey. Jack Meldrum. Jesse Clarke.

Other times, it’s just a thread connecting one day to the next.

“Boyhood immerses boys in violence. Whether overt in the form of fighting and bullying or more implicit and in the background, threat and force are always present. […] Against the steady drone of male violence and intimidation, acts of open hostility, aggression and hurtfulness represent flare-ups—the boiling over from a constant simmer. But underlying the eruption of more extreme acts of violence are the thousand cuts each boy endures in boyhood.” — Michael Reichert

Yesterday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation published a series of articles representing an in-depth investigation into school violence in Canada. The headline ‘I thought he was dead’ accompanied by shaky cellphone footage of an almost-fatal assault brought an ache that I couldn’t ignore.

I’ve seen videos like this in the hands of boys that I know. I’ve seen bruises and split lips and watched them carry stories of fights like trophies that were heavier than they expected. I thought of Devan Bracci-Selvey, but I was remembering the preadolescent voice of a boy telling me that holding his own in a fight was his best chance in high school. Seeing him sucker punch a teenager twice his size. Trying to figure out what to say to keep him safe.

I clicked to an article about Saunders Secondary School. Mission. Fraser Heights. My heart pressed against bones that have never been broken.

I’ve read the statistics. In a study by Alfred University, 59% of high school students said they knew about hazing going on, but 92% of them said they wouldn’t report it. In the Mission Research survey cited by the CBC, 40% of boys reported being physically assaulted at school. In a report published by The Men’s Project last year, 34% of boys had experienced physical bullying in the past month.

The statistics tell a clear story, but nothing tells the story more clearly than boys themselves. As I wrote in an article about hazing last year, boys largely aren’t talking about their experiences with mentors and educators who can help them end ongoing cycles of violence—and it’s time we changed that.

“When we talk about the rules of being a real man, those rules aren’t just handed to us on a sheet of paper. They’re pounded into us daily.” — Mark Greene

There are countless reasons why boys keep experiences of violence between themselves, but the reason I’ve heard most often when speaking openly with them is fear. Boys are afraid of being further victimized by perpetrators, or of facing repercussions for their involvement from the authorities; so they choose silence. They take self-defence classes and trade intimidation like it’s the legal tender of school parking lots. Meanwhile administrators proclaim zero tolerance and educators try to figure out what to say to the preadolescent boy who sucker punched a teenager twice his size.

Part of the problem is that while there are often policies relating to instances of physical violence on school grounds, policies are only really as effective as the people upholding them. In one of the articles published yesterday, Taza DeLuna recounted an attack in grade nine and the subsequent response from his school. “The vice principal just told me to wash the blood off of my head,” he said, “which was probably one of the least-comforting things that you could say to somebody who’s bleeding, concussed and really scared.”

Boys give up on administrators and educators who fail to adequately recognize the immersive danger of boyhood violence. That’s when they fall silent, and that’s when school interventions reach their limit. That’s when boys get hurt.