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Jonathan Gaines posed a question to a small group of students at Lucy Addison Middle School in Roanoke: Are you a man or not, and what does it mean to be a man?

"I'm a man because I don't hit girls," one boy responded.

Another said: "I'm still a child because I have a lot to learn."

"I'm a man because I don't talk back to people and stuff."

"I think I'm not a man yet because I don't have a family to take care of."

"I'm not a man because I'm 14."

"I'm still a child because I don't own my house."

Gaines is a doctoral student at Virginia Tech and an Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity member, but two evenings a month he wears a different hat. He is a mentor to a group of black male students who attend Addison's community learning center after school. Gaines travels from Blacksburg every other Tuesday to host the hour-long program, "Men of Distinction," which is modeled after the fraternity's "Go to High School, Go to College" initiative.

Gaines and Rodney Saunders, another mentor, spoke on a recent Tuesday afternoon about five characteristics it takes to be a man: respect, responsibility, discipline, humility and courage.

During the course of the hour, the boys become distracted; they start to talk and cut up and show off for one another. Gaines and Saunders constantly remind the young men to be respectful and pay attention. Some of the students ask to be excused to the restroom or the water fountain. They try to seem disinterested, detached or too big for the lesson. But when Gaines calls on each one to stand up -- which he does to everyone in the classroom -- each boy states his name and grade and answers a question. Some answers are filled with insight.

"A man is someone who really tries to take care of himself and others," said sixth-grade student Elijah Williams. "He makes sure his kids have everything. ... He takes care of his mother, and he helps out the community."

Willard Terry, the community learning center's site manager, said Gaines' program is invaluable because "a lot of our boys don't have men at home they can talk to."

It is hard to grab and hold the attention of 20 middle school boys at the end of the day, but it is time well spent for Gaines.

"I always feel like they're going to pick up on at least one thing," he said.

And if the young men walk away with just one thing they can use, Gaines said it is worth his time. He knows firsthand because an Alpha brother mentored him when Gaines was a middle school student in Charlottesville.

"In the words of Frederick Douglass, 'It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men,' " Gaines said.