Witching for a New Enlightenment: Reclaiming Futures in Education

The systems of international education we know today are not neutral. They are rooted in inherited frameworks that trace back to the Enlightenment period of the 17th and 18th centuries. These frameworks, born in Europe, continue to shape what counts as “knowledge,” how progress is measured, and who is imagined as the ideal learner. Universalism, rationality, meritocracy, and individualism still permeate curricula, policies, and classroom practices.

Yet the Enlightenment was paradoxical. While it advanced ideals of liberty, reason, and progress, it also created hierarchies that excluded vast swaths of humanity. Philosopher Immanuel Kant, for example, described Enlightenment as “humankind’s release from its self-incurred immaturity” — but his writings also included deeply racist classifications positioning white Europeans at the pinnacle of civilisation (Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 1798). The same moral code that proclaimed human rights was used to justify colonisation, enslavement, and the pillaging of Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

These are not just historical abstractions. In education today, Enlightenment legacies are alive: universalism that minimises difference, individualism that pits students against each other, and progress narrowly defined by academic achievement. These frameworks allow schools to celebrate “excellence” while quietly reproducing othering and systemic exclusion.

Looking Back to Look Forward

Globally, we see both resistance and regression: the rise of fascist movements, a backlash against diversity and inclusion, and censorship of histories of racism and oppression. At the same time, urgent global challenges — climate collapse, forced migration, deepening inequality — cannot be solved with individualism or exclusion.

Middle schools are uniquely positioned at this crossroads. Young people in these years are forming their identities and asking who they are and where they belong. If we continue to offer them only frameworks of the past — rationality without empathy, progress without equity, universality without nuance — we risk preparing them to uphold systems that do not serve them or the world they will inhabit.

What we need is a new Enlightenment for education: one that is anti-racist, feminist, anti-ableist, queer-affirming, Indigenous-honouring, and deeply relational.

Witching in Education

In the Czech Republic, where the ELMLE conference will gather in Prague, history reminds us of the silencing of women and those who lived outside patriarchal norms. Across Central and Eastern Europe, witch trials persecuted women whose knowledge, independence, or difference was deemed threatening. These histories echo the Enlightenment, where ideals of reason and progress were tied to white male voices while others were cast as irrational or expendable.

Today, “futures thinking” dominates educational discourse — yet the voices most elevated in this space still belong predominantly to men. When men project into the future, they are lauded as visionary; when women do, they are too often branded ambitious, intimidating, or irrational. Invoking “witching” in education is a metaphorical reclaiming: a call to project futures while centering perspectives once silenced, disrupting systems of power, and rooting education in relational, equitable ways. Our students deserve nothing less than educators bold enough to conjure just, inclusive, and humanising futures.

From Cabinets of Curiosity to Communities of Care

The Enlightenment’s “cabinet of curiosities” provides a vivid lens. These collections displayed artifacts, animals, and even human remains taken from colonised lands, framed as celebrations of curiosity and discovery, yet reducing living cultures and beings to objects of spectacle. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, so-called human zoos were staged in European cities, including Prague, where African men, women, and children were put on display. Curiosity became exoticisation, appropriation, and othering.

Schools risk echoing this dynamic when diversity is treated as a showcase rather than a structural commitment. Flag parades, cultural days, and food fairs may look celebratory, but if they exist without dismantling inequity, they reduce students’ identities to spectacles. Instead of cabinets of curiosities, we need communities of care: spaces where difference shapes school life and students’ identities are honoured as integral, not performative.

Redefining Universality

Universality — the belief in universal truths, rights, and progress — is another enduring Enlightenment legacy. Too often, universality was defined by a small group and imposed on others. True universality cannot mean sameness or assimilation.

Targeted universalism, developed by john a. powell and the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, offers a path forward. It begins with a universal goal — for example, all students thriving — but recognises that different groups face different barriers. Each group may require targeted strategies to reach the shared outcome. True universality means every student has what they need to thrive, even if the supports look different along the way.

For international middle schools, this means asking: What does each student need to feel belonging, learn deeply, and lead courageously? How do we remove structural barriers that hold some back while privileging others?

Rethinking What It Means to “Do Good”

During the Enlightenment, European men defined “goodness” in ways that aligned with their own values, often weaponising morality to justify conquest. Charles Mills argues in The Racial Contract (1997) that ideals of justice and equality were never meant for all — they were racially exclusive.

In education today, we see echoes of this when inclusion is treated as benevolence rather than solidarity. Doing good cannot be about bringing students into existing systems on our terms. It must be about changing the systems themselves.

Goodness isn’t a permanent state but something we create together — it’s the sum of how we keep showing up with accountability, humility, and transformation.

Practical Steps Toward a New Enlightenment

Interrogate and decolonise the curriculum
Audit whose knowledge is centred and whose is absent. The ISADTF’s Humanising Pedagogy reminds us that learning and teaching is never neutral — it either reproduces exclusion or cultivates dignity, belonging, and shared power. Make space for historically marginalised voices, indigenous histories, and multiple knowledge systems, and ensure students’ lived experiences shape what is taught.
Rethink success and assessment
Move beyond narrow academic measures. Value collaboration, empathy, creativity, and contribution. Design assessments that honour multiple ways of knowing.
Reimagine school culture and policies
Examine who current rules serve and who they marginalise. Build systems of accountability where power is shared across staff, students, and families.
Ethically renew international education’s promise to students
UNESCO’s Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education (2021) calls for education to emphasise cooperation, solidarity, and collective well-being — preparing learners to build inclusive and sustainable futures.
Embrace targeted universalism in practice
Set universal goals for belonging and thriving, but design targeted strategies for different groups of students. Equity means ensuring everyone has what they need to flourish.
Prioritise ongoing reflection and learning
Commit to professional development that engages bias, privilege, and systemic oppression. Make space for discomfort as part of growth.

Why This Matters Now

Students are watching. They notice contradictions between what schools claim to value and what they reward. If we continue relying on frameworks rooted in outdated Enlightenment ideals, we leave them unequipped for the crises of our time.

But if we embrace curiosity not as spectacle but as solidarity, compassion not as charity but as justice, and courage not as bravado but as transformation, we can cultivate citizens ready to build something new.

A Call to Witching

The Enlightenment was never universal — but the next Enlightenment can be. It will be defined not by a few men in salons and academies, but by communities of educators, families, and young people daring to imagine otherwise.

Perhaps what we need is not another age of reason, but an age of witching: reclaiming knowledge, power, and perspectives that patriarchal and colonial systems sought to suppress. If the old Enlightenment placed people in cabinets of curiosity, the new one must build circles — or covenants — of belonging. If the old Enlightenment universalised through exclusion, the new one must universalise through equity.

This is how we cultivate curious, compassionate, and courageous citizens. This is how we reimagine education for our time. And the future begins now.

References

Aow, A. (2022). What it means to be and do ‘good’. Council of International Schools. https://www.cois.org/about-cis/news/post/~board/perspectives-blog/post/what-it-means-to-be-and-do-good

Blanchard, P. (2008). Human zoos: Science and spectacle in the age of colonial empires. Liverpool University Press.

International Schools Anti-Discrimination Task Force [ISADTF]. (n.d.). Humanising pedagogy guidelines. International Schools’ Anti-Discrimination Task Force, Humanising Pedagogy Committee.

Kant, I. (1798/2006). Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view (R. B. Louden, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.

Mills, C. W. (1997). The racial contract. Cornell University Press.

powell, j. a. (2020). Targeted universalism: Policy & practice. Othering & Belonging Institute, University of California, Berkeley. https://belonging.berkeley.edu/targeted-universalism

Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. (n.d.). Slavic witchcraft: A living tradition. Smithsonian Folklife Magazine. https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/slavic-witchcraft

UNESCO. (2021). Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education. UNESCO. https://www.unesco.org/en/social-contract-education

You can join Angeline in her pre-conference workshop, “Leading Inclusive Change: with Compassion, Connection and Collaboration”

Angeline will facilitate two session topics during our main conference:

Humanising Pedagogy
Becoming a Totally Inclusive School: the Role of Language

Angeline is an international educator, author, consultant and pedagogical leader. She has undertaken multiple roles within schools, as a teacher, curriculum coordinator, accreditation coordinator and professional learning and development coordinator. Angeline leverages these experiences to support collaborative learning communities with enhancing inclusive mindsets and systems, designing humanising pedagogical approaches and achieving shared inclusion and intercultural goals. Angeline is an advocate of intersectional inclusivity, coaching, concept-driven learning and teaching and contributes as an active citizen on social justice issues through her advocacy across multiple networks and work with the Council of International Schools. Her co-authored book, Becoming a Totally Inclusive School: a Guide for Teachers and School Leaders was published by Routledge in November, 2022.

You can connect with Angeline @ https://www.angelineaow.com/

The Cabinet of Curiosities: Unlocking Student Agency with Empathy-to-Impact

Many schools have strategic plans around service learning, sustainability, global citizenship, or student leadership. But very few schools have clear approaches that any stakeholder can use to actually put these plans into practice with fidelity.

At Inspire Citizens, we use what we call the Empathy-to-Impact Approach. This is a way for tens of thousands of students and thousands of educators to ensure that learning doesn’t stop at caring, but moves into meaningful action. It gives students a chance to explore their curiosities, their talents, their interests, and how they want to make a difference in the world. When schools adopt a shared approach like this, we do a service to our students: we empower them with the tools and strategies they need to take action, make a difference, and believe that their learning matters.

Empathy-to-Impact is like reaching into a Cabinet of Curiosities. Students can pull out something that sparks empathy and wonder, and then step back out into the real world to investigate, apply skills, take action, and reflect. This article will walk readers through how to use Empathy-to-Impact to transform learning into real world action

(Throughout this article, feel free to visit the links provided to access a deeper step by step walk through, resources and strategies, visuals and toolkits, and examples of how other schools and educators have used these resources)

https://inspirecitizens.org/e2i25

Step 1: Start with the Why

Empathy-to-Impact begins with identifying an important ‘why’. We ask:

What do I care about? What am I curious about?

This could be a Sustainable Development Goal, a local community issue, a matter of belonging or well-being, or an issue of social justice. This could be educator selected, or student selected depending on the context.

Whether in a curricular or student-initiated context, we need to give students the space to clarify their why before diving into investigation. As educators, we can design provocations, simulations, or activities that spark empathy and curiosity. For students, we can allow time to reflect on what matters to them.

“Once we have actually identified a ‘why’ or plucked out a curiosity from the cabinet, then we have to focus on investigation.”

https://inspirecitizens.org/Care25

Step 2: Investigate and Authentic Awareness

Once students know their why, they need strategies to investigate further. They can use interviews, observations, surveys, media analysis, data collection, or a root cause analysis to unpack the issue.

In curricular contexts, these strategies should be paired with mini-lessons and skill development. In leadership or service programs, students can use them to talk with stakeholders, understand the perspectives of others, and adapt their plans.

“When they identify their curiosities, we can investigate to pull these curiosities out of the cabinet.”

https://inspirecitizens.org/Aware25

Step 3: Apply Skills to Make a Difference

Curiosity and investigation lead to meaningful action when students apply the right skills. In a curricular context, this means using the standards and outcomes embedded in the unit:

Argumentative writing (topic sentences, embedding quotations, flow of ideas, etc.)
Math models such as y = kx
Science and geography standards around human-environment impact

In leadership or service contexts, this includes project management, collaboration, and communication. Students succeed when we clearly outline the skills they need and give them the support to apply those skills to their chosen issue.

If students identify what they care about or are curiosity about, they learn key skills while investigating that issue, and then they use their knowledge, skills, and understandings, to begin taking action, transferring their knowledge to novel contexts using their learning to DO… then we get deeper engagement from our students, but they also feel hopeful and empowered because they see their purpose in the learning and the potential that their agency holds. So, it is imperative that we give them an opportunity to take action with this learning.

“As students ‘acquire’ the object from the cabinet of curiosities, we don’t just want them to put it back, we want them to use it to engage with the world. So we allow opportunities for them to practice and use the object.”

https://inspirecitizens.org/Able25

Step 4: Act with and Learn from Others

The next step is identifying possible community partners and taking action that benefits all parties involved. In teaching, this means helping students connect with community assets and partners, and choosing effective forms of action. This can be done in the curriculum by providing voice in choice or a ‘menu of actions’ that students could take with their learning.

An example with argumentative writing:

Publish a feature article that teaches parents about….

Use your writing to create a video or media piece that inspires change in our advisory lessons

Collaborate with an NGO and use your arguments to create social media campaigns that the NGO can post as content on their online platforms.

This is the same ‘assessment’ for argumentative writing and doesn’t add much more work for educators or students, but the piece does not end up in the garbage after an educator has ‘marked’ it. Student learning instead, has the potential to inspire and create change in the real world.

Not all actions are equal. Fundraising or donation drives can be meaningful, but often represent a lower level of complexity and impact. If we want students to do more, we have to equip them with strategies and opportunities that make deeper impact possible. Challenge them to use a community assets map and any of the other 16+ types of action, and the possibilities are endless.

“The fourth step is figuring out who we can ‘learn from and act’ with as a means of enacting what we are curious about.”

“If we don’t provide students and educators with the skills and techniques, then we can’t really expect people to do something meaningful with what they’re curious about.”

https://inspirecitizens.org/Impact25

Step 5: Reflect for Growth

Finally, we must make sure that students reflect. This can be linked to school values, ATLs, learner profile attributes, or a school’s portraits of a learner. Reflection should happen at least two or three times in a learning journey so students can connect growth to who they are becoming.

Students can reflect on how they are growing as people and as changemakers, and whether their actions had real impact or were more investigative or theoretical. Reflection turns posters on the wall into living attributes of learning and character, and character traits that live in our students for generations to come.

https://inspirecitizens.org/Reflect25

There is No Conclusion to Curiosity, but There is to a Blog Post

One way to support curiosity and interact with the many ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’ that exist in our diverse world experiences is to use the Empathy-to-Impact approach. This allows any educator to level up a learning experience, whether in the classroom, a leadership program, or a service project, so that students move from curiosity to meaningful action, and from caring to making a difference.

If we take the great work that we are already doing and we are more intentional about adding a WHY and a WHAT NOW to existing teaching and learning, we have the potential to shape thousands of lives through our respective careers and we give students the skills to contribute to a better present, and a more harmonious future.

You can join Aaron in his pre-conference workshop, “Inspire Citizens’ Empathy to Impact Approach: A curriculum enhancing approach to level up global citizenship, reciprocal service learning, and education for sustainable development”

Aaron will facilitate two session topics during our main conference:

Inspired Student Leadership

Inspire Citizens’ Empathy to Impact Approach: A curriculum enhancing approach to level up global citizenship, reciprocal service learning, and education for sustainable development.

You can connect with Aaron @inspirecitizen2

Aaron Moniz is the Co-Founder and Director of Inspire Citizens. Aaron helps schools around the world to develop whole school implementation programs for service learning and education for sustainable development as a means of developing global citizens.

Aaron uses the Inspire Citizens’ Global Impact Schools Self Discovery Tool and Whole School Global Citizenship Roadmap to conduct strategic visioning and goal setting to articulate best practice professional learning approaches and personalize them to the unique context of each school. Aaron also uses the Inspire Citizens Empathy to Impact Approach to enhance curriculum at any grade level or subject area, and he helps schools to design K-12 scope and sequences, scaffolding the development of service learning and active global citizenship.

Alongside the Inspire Citizens team members, Aaron also helps to develop student leadership programs, and supports the Inspire Citizens Global Citizenship Certificate; an online professional development program for global educators. Aaron is also the Director of the Inspire Citizens Foundation. Aaron believes that schools can become centers for community impact and strives to help schools see the large-scale impact that they can have by slightly optimizing their existing systems and centering on global citizenship education.

Enduring Approaches to Student-Led Learning

In my teaching career, I was fortunate to spend time in lower, middle, and upper school classrooms. I guess I’m drawn to change, young adult novels, and loud bus rides because most of those years were with sixth through eighth graders. I appreciated the opportunity to observe agency across students, often the same students, as they navigated growth from elementary to high school. And I took note: a lot shifted in content and curriculum, but the foundations for student agency stayed constant.

Given all the world has thrown at us in the last four years, and all the ways (much admired) teaching communities have flexed and adapted, I’m reflecting deeply on what endures in our middle school classrooms. I’m observing the systemic approaches–regardless of changing technologies, grade levels, and initiatives–that ensure our students grow as agents of their own learning.

Prioritizing Belonging

The only starting point in students leading learning is establishing the conditions for belonging. “Students’ sense of belonging matters. It matters in promoting deeper learning and equity. It matters every day, in every classroom, in every school.” (Equity and Voice: How a Sense of Belonging Promotes Students’ Agency by Alison Lee and Meg Riordan) Cultivating belonging sets the conditions for students to feel safe enough to make choices, to take risks, and to drive next steps. And when students are taking those actions, belonging becomes self-sustaining; students themselves partner in fueling belonging-rich spaces. As educators, this means invitational spaces and intentional design: From participation, discussion, and collaboration norms to modeling vulnerability, building trust, and deepening self-reflection.

Moving Beyond ChoiceChoice boards and student selected topics are pedagogical moves with merit. And without the scaffolding of enduring systems, they become mere choices and not developed agency. In “Part 1: What Do You Mean When You Say ‘Student Agency?’”,

Jennifer Davis Poon shares three lastling components that shift students into the role of learning co-designers and not just choice-makers: Agency-empowered students set learning goals, initiate action towards those goals, and reflect on progress towards goals. Agency begins with students knowing their learning targets deeply and in having an active role in how they achieve them. As educators, we’re called to articulate meaningful skills with clarity, to plan for personalized learning pathways, and to develop valuable feedback ecosystems that invite students to tell their learning stories.

Embracing the Complexity

When we’re clear on what student-led learning is, we gain clarity on what it’s not. And it’s not tidy. It’s not one-size-fits-all. It doesn’t follow a linear trajectory. And it’s definitely not a checklist. It’s ongoing opportunities to converse, to seek student perspectives, to design, and to reflect. “[Agency] is a multi-faceted skill and disposition—invoking past, present, and future. It is students’ abilities to set advantageous goals, initiate action toward those goals, and reflect and redirect based on feedback, all the while internalizing the belief they can have agency” (Davis Poon). Designing for agency is perhaps the most important work we do in our middle schools. It is disruption and change resistant. It is a lens to leverage and respond to innovations–like AI–for what really matters. It is complex work, and it is valuable work.

Dr. Anindya Kundu defines agency as “a person’s capacity to leverage resources to create positive change in their lives.” Intentional, foundational moves to design for belonging, cultivate enduring systems, and embrace the complexity of human-centered approaches support our middle school students in growing as changemakers in an ever shifting world. And for middle school educators, wise people already used to being consistent in the midst of change (and keeping our senses of humor in the midst of loud bus rides), there’s no better time to nurture agency rich environments that ensure our students thrive.

Becky Green loves that she gets to learn from students and educators around the world as the Associate Director of Professional Learning with the Global Online Academy (GOA). Since 2016 she has coached, facilitated, designed, and led across their professional learning and student programs. But first and foremost, Becky is a middle school teacher having spent two decades in international and public school classrooms.

She cares deeply about ensuring students thrive beyond school walls, and whether it’s supporting transitions to competency-based learning, partnering purposefully with AI, facilitating portrait of a graduate processes, or reimagining learning design, Becky prioritizes joyful, relational, student-centered experiences.

Just Emotion, or a Mental Health Issue?

We’ve Done Awareness – The Future of the Mental Health Conversation is Greater Specificity

When working with pupils aged ten to fourteen, one of the first questions I ask them is how they would know if a friend had good mental health. This question tends to give them pause. They’ve generally had lessons, by this stage, about mental illness. They have a range of vocabulary to describe various states of poor mental health and know about symptom spotting. But positive mental health? Generally, they’ve had fewer occasions to think about that.

What invariably happens is that eventually one of the class raises their hand and gives the answer: ‘They’d be smiling and/or happy’.

This is a great opportunity for me to explain two things. The first is that it is a mistake to conflate good mental health with constant happiness. As human beings, we experience a range of emotions and not all of them are pleasant. Sadness, anger, nervousness, stress, guilt, shame – they’re all part of life’s tapestry and entirely normal.

The second is that, counter-intuitive as it may sound, a person appearing to be happy all the time is potentially a symptom of mental health struggles. Some people put on a mask to avoid confronting the reality of anxiety, depression or suicidal ideation with their friends and colleagues.

For me, a person can be described as being in a state of good mental health if they have the ability to do the following four things:

Sit with emotion

We live in a world where there are hundreds of things we can use to distract ourselves. We’ve trained our brains to chase the temporary highs we get from junk like caffeine, sugar and likes on social media. All of these can be a distraction from what we’re really feeling and, in the moment, preferable to confronting our pain.

But negative emotions like the ones listed above don’t simply go away if you ignore them. They demand to be worked through. By distracting ourselves, we ensure that they will come out at another time, probably when it’s less appropriate (for example, shouting at someone who doesn’t deserve it, or having a panic attack out of the blue).

Recognise when the emotion has become ‘too big’ to handle alone

Sometimes, we need help in order to work through a life event or a complex response. Recognising when we are at that stage and when we need to reach out for help is key.

Learn from the Experience

Ultimately, the reason we have emotions that don’t feel pleasant is because it’s our body’s attempt to teach us a lesson. Sometimes, this isn’t possible – the reasons we feel sad or angry are completely outside of our control. A bereavement, for example. Other times, though – and this is particularly true where guilt and shame are concerned – there is a learning opportunity. We can ask ourselves ‘how will I amend my attitude or behaviour so I can avoid feeling this way again?’

Move on in a Timely Fashion

Learning from the unpleasant experience is part of processing, which ultimately allows us to move forward and prevent dwelling.

I see my job – which involves visiting schools and colleges throughout the world delivering workshops and conducting research on issues related to mental wellbeing – as giving young people the tools they need to achieve these four things, where possible. I also hope the interactions we have allow them to make vital distinctions between difficult or challenging emotions and mental health issues that require professional support.

Here in the UK, the years 2010 to 2020 were ones of intense awareness-raising around mental health by charities and in media. Successive governments promised (but ultimately failed to deliver) ‘parity of esteem’ between physical and mental health – i.e. mental health issues should be treated with the same urgency and be given the same resources as their physical counterparts.

Unfortunately, this period coincided with the decision to impose austerity measures which meant mental health services were stripped back in most communities. This ultimately led to a ‘bottle necking’ effect, whereby everyone was talking about their mental health more but, unless they had the necessary wealth to access private care, they were unable to get support.

It also led to an unhelpful conflation of different phenomena. After all, mental health is an enormous umbrella term which can cover a huge range of issues – just as ‘physical health’ can apply to anything from a stubbed toe to cancer. Teachers began reporting that their pupils were refusing to do homework or exams because, they said, it negatively impacted their mental health. What they meant, usually, was that the prospect made them anxious. Without help from a qualified professional, however, there was no real way to tell whether this was symptomatic of an anxiety disorder or just the normal, everyday stress, which most people experience.

That is not to say that the latter doesn’t require attention. It’s a mistake, in my opinion, to start wanging on about ‘resilience’ at this point and to label young people a generation of ‘snowflakes’ (which was, irritatingly, the path chosen by several prominent figures in our media). Children and teenagers need help to navigate so many unfamiliar experiences; whether that be advice, access to a creative or physical hobby which helps them work through gnarly emotions, or a community of people who share common interests. It is simply that not every challenge requires clinical intervention.

The future of the mental health conversation, I have believed for some time now, is one of greater specificity. After all, if I said I was having ‘problems with my physical health’ it would be ludicrous for me to expect the person on the receiving end to understand precisely what I meant by that, or how they could help. The same principle applies, here.

As educators or those with responsibility for young people, we can begin by seeing mental health disclosures as an opportunity for further investigation: As the beginning of a journey, rather than its end.

Natasha Devon MBE is a writer, activist and broadcaster. She tours schools and events throughout the UK and beyond, delivering talks and conducting research on mental health, body image, gender & equality. She presents on LBC (one of Britain’s most popular speech radio stations) every Saturday and writes regularly for newspapers and magazines, as well as appearing on television. She has a monthly column in Teach Secondary magazine.

Natasha is a Fellow of The University of Wales: Aberystwyth. She is an ambassador for charities Glitch UK and The Reading Agency, as well as a patron for No Panic. She is a certified instructor for Mental Health First Aid England and eating disorder charity Beat.

She has written non-fiction titles ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Being Mental: An A-Z’ for adults and ‘Yes You Can: Ace School Without Losing Your Mind’ and ‘Clicks: How to Be Your Best Self Online’ for young people aged 12+. Her debut YA novel ‘Toxic’ was published in July 2022 and is about coercive control in friendship. The sequel ‘Babushka’ was published on 5^th October 2023.

Find out more at www.natashadevon.com.

All the World’s a Stage: Using Theater Techniques in the Classroom

Richard M. Cash, Ed.D.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” (As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII, William Shakespeare)

I was one of those students who wasn’t a top performer in reading or math. Physically, I wasn’t built for sports. So, my trajectory through junior and senior high school was to pursue the arts (music and theater). Going beyond high school, my options were limited to the arts. I am proud to say I achieved a bachelor’s degree in theater, with honors!

After years of suffering for my art, I decided I needed to change directions. I went back to school and earned a post-baccalaureate degree in education. I figured, where else was I going to get a captive audience!

Little did I know I would be relying heavily on my theater training. Theater teaches you how to be focused, solve problems, think critically and creatively, work as a team, and self-regulate to achieve a goal—many of the skills and attitudes we expect our students to develop in today’s classroom.

Using the techniques of theater in your classroom gives kids a safe place to try new things, make mistakes, and learn from others. Along with developing creativity, theatrical tools teach problem-solving, critical reasoning, and collaboration. Kids also learn risk-taking skills, affective resilience, nonverbal responsiveness, and social mindfulness.

Theater activities encourage students to think on their feet without the fear of being wrong, because the number one rule is “there are no mistakes, only opportunities.” Through using movement, pantomime, improvisation, role playing, and group discussion, students develop greater communication skills, social awareness, confidence, problem-solving abilities, and self-concept. The goal is to guide children to a greater sense of self-fulfillment and personal and social acceptance.

Actors have five tools they use to communicate: voice, body, imagination, concentration, and collaboration. Teaching students how to build their own toolbox of strategies can benefit them in learning and communication processes.

Voice: The ability to use your voice to be heard and understood
Articulation is critical in being heard and understood. All actors routinely go through diction practice. Our students must be articulate to project ideas and communicate effectively with others.

Start with simple practices such as: Sally sells seashells south of the seashore or Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Move on to more complex sound reproductions such as tongue twisters (repeated numerous times as fast as possible):

Unique New York
Red leather, yellow leather
She says she shall sew a sheet

And then move to more difficult and longer statements: She stood on the balcony, inexplicably mimicking him hiccuping, and amicably welcoming him home.

While working through these diction activities, have students concentrate on their breathing, being sure to breathe from their diaphragms. Focus on breathing deeply. Also pay attention to lip and tongue movement—really work those muscles.

For more diction strategies, click here.

Body: The ability to use your body to communicate messages
Actors use their bodies to project characters, emotions, and ideas. The use of the body in communication is extremely important—it’s called body language. Poor body language can communicate the wrong messages, whether in verbal or nonverbal interactions. To help students develop this language, start with basic physical stretches. Not only will stretching help your students loosen up, it can also release stress.

If you are into yoga, teach your students the poses. Or ask your physical education teacher to share with you stretches students do in gym class. You can also use the “shake and stretch” method. Starting at the top of the head:

Shake and stretch each body part individually.
Shake and stretch body parts in pairs (head and arms, shoulders and feet).
Shake and stretch up high and down low.
Shake and stretch wide and thin.
Shake and stretch fast and slow.
Shake and stretch without bending your knees or elbows.

Another fun way to warm up your body is to draw the alphabet with different body parts. Ask the students to use their nose to draw the letter B. Now, ask them to use their ear to draw the letter Z. And so on.

For more movement activities, click here.

Imagination: The ability to come up with different ideas
The best ideas are formed through an expansive imagination. Imagination is the ability to come up with novel and unique ideas through different ways of thinking. Creative thinking is one of the most powerful tools of imagination. The strategies of fluency and flexibility are a great place to begin.

Fluency is the ability to come up with a lot of ideas. To develop students’ fluency, start with simple steps such as asking them to list everything they can think of that is green within one minute (you can use any color you wish). Have them share their lists with a partner and compare and contrast the lists. Do it again with another color or shape. Routinely asking kids to do this simple activity can open up their minds to thinking more expansively. Wait for unique ideas to pop up—for example, the kid who writes envy when asked to list things that are green.

You can expand this idea to your content by asking kids to list things that are “independent,” or any other concept you are working on. You can also have your students draw pictures of what the concept looks like. Seeing what kids list or draw gives you an idea of how well they understand the concept.

Flexibility is the ability to think of things in a new way. I used to have a “junk bag” in my classroom full of strange and common objects (like a wooden spoon, an electrical outlet cover, an extension cord). Look around your house or school for those odd-looking objects to put in your junk bag. Using one of the objects, ask kids to think of the item as something that it’s NOT. So, for the wooden spoon, kids may say it’s a microphone, a baton, a sword, a magic wand, and so on. Being a flexible thinker helps in finding unconventional ways to solve problems by using what is available.

For more ideas on building imagination, click here. I also have many more ideas for developing creative thinking in my book Advancing Differentiation: Thinking and Learning for the 21st Century.

Concentration: The ability to stay focused
Our students are being raised in a very concentration-challenged environment. With technology, everything is at their fingertips immediately—there is no need to persevere or wait. While technology has made our lives more efficient, its downside is that it has made us want instant gratification and has decreased our ability to concentrate for long periods of time.

Concentration is a learned skill, and you can teach kids to stay focused through engaging activities. To build concentration, find a time during your day for kids to go “off the grid”—no gadgets, tablets, phones, or computers. During this time, go old-school: Use thinking or memory games or crossword or jigsaw puzzles, or have students put a list of words into alphabetical order (use similar words such as adjustments and adjusting so that kids alphabetize beyond the first few letters).

Also have your kids put their heads down on their desks. Tell them to sit up when they think one minute has passed. Monitor your kids, listing when kids sat up and how close they came to one minute. Practice this activity over time to see how close kids can come to the one-minute time.

For more ideas for building concentration, click here.

Collaboration: The ability to work with others to get things done
We are all in this together. The best ideas come when people work together. No actor does it alone—even in a one-person show. Many people contribute to the production. Each person has a role to play in making the show a success. So, too, in the classroom. When students work together with purpose, great things can happen. Working collaboratively takes practice. Just like in a Broadway musical, everyone has a role to play to make the production a success.

One activity that can build collaboration and teamwork is having small groups of students go on a scavenger hunt. Have your students look for things hidden around the classroom or school. Use a list of clues that lead to more clues and ultimately to hidden objects. Consider using information students learned during lessons to help them find the items. (For example, your clue might be, “The date of the Boston Tea Party.” The answer to this is 12/16/1773, which can lead kids to room 1216 or 1773, where the next clue is located.) Group the students based on each having a special talent or a different area of knowledge—so that collectively they can find the objects. Another idea is to give each member of the team a specific job to do—so that collectively they can find the object.

For more ideas on building collaboration and teamwork, click here.

Knowing how actors learn, practice, and apply their skills can be an exceptional way to help students be more confident, self-aware, and productive. Who knows, maybe you will spark the next Viola Davis, Dame Maggie Smith, Sidney Poitier, or Sir Lawrence Olivier!

Dr. Richard M. Cash is an award-winning educator and author best known for his work in differentiation and advanced learners. Over his 3-plus decades in education, his experiences include teaching, curriculum coordination, and program administration. Prior to his education career, Richard was an actor and children’s theater director. Currently, he is a widely respected education consultant with nRich Educational Consulting, Inc. (www.nrichconsulting.com). His consulting work has taken him throughout the United States, and internationally.

His areas of expertise are educational programming, rigorous and challenging curriculum design, differentiated instruction, 21^st century skills, brain-compatible classrooms, gifted & talented education, and self-regulated learning. Dr. Cash has authored books on differentiation, gifted learners, and self-regulation for learning.

Dr. Cash may be reached at: www.nrichconsulting.com $C:\Users\Dr.RichardM\Desktop\nRich-logo-print.tif$ richard@nrichconsulting.com

1-612-670-0278

Snowploughs, Snow boots, and Supervised Struggle

–Martin Griffin

Recently I was reading an interview with a famous UK TV presenter in which she told a story about raising her son. In it she revealed something of her parenting style; something I found quite alarming at the time. If it rained in the afternoon as her boy was due to get out of school, she said, she’d send money to his bank account and text him to get a taxi home so he didn’t get wet.

This was my first encounter with what is now commonly referred to as snowplough parenting. Snowploughing replaces helicoptering – hovering around toddlers in playgrounds – when children reach middle level education. The snowplough parent aims to solve every conceivable problem their child might have ahead of time, ensuring a blissfully effortless existence.

The problem this creates for teachers compounds year-on-year. Why? Well, firstly snowploughing suffocates the development of the characteristics necessary for academic success, and crucially, creates a cultural expectation that is the school’s job to snowplough as well. The parent arranges life in the domestic context – removing issues around money-management, tech and connectivity, even walking through the rain – but it’s expected the school does the same in the educational context; tests shouldn’t be too hard, one-on-one sessions should deal with specific difficulties, lessons should be universally entertaining but also bespoke to each child, an issue was vividly illustrated by a recent GCSE student of mine. Approaching me at the end of a lesson he said, “Sir, I’d like to start revising
soon. So when are you going to put the extra lessons on?”

And we’re also dealing with a second challenge; the seemingly-daily expansion of what parents define as a problem. Helping your child to get started on their homework gradually becomes doing the homework for them, which morphs into complaining to the school that the thought of homework makes your child unhappy.

Which brings us to the question – what can we do? Having been a middle and high school teacher, at Key Stage 3, 4 and 5, for over twenty years, I’d like to make a case for replacing snowploughs with snowboots. Where one sweeps aside potential problems before they emerge, the other helps pupils suit-up and tackle them. I’m not advocating a let-‘em-get-on-with-it-and-turn-a-blind-eye approach; what I’m suggesting is that we create supervised struggle. We can do this as classroom teachers, designing a task that occurs in the middle of a lesson – a task we build-up to and carefully framework, but one that pushes students to operate at the very edge of their ability – or we can take a more holistic approach, leading struggle across a longer period of time and multiple subjects; modelling project-management tools and guiding their use over a fortnight for example.

Whichever approach we choose, we should be explicitly sharing the strategies pupils need for study at and beyond our level, rather than micromanaging every minute of their school experience. We hope to be sharing some of these tools and approaches at ELMLE’s January conference.

Martin Griffin and Steve Oakes–

Martin Griffin and Steve Oakes have a combined 40 years’ experience teaching post-16 students as classroom teachers, heads of faculty and senior leaders. They are the authors of The A Level Mindset (Crown House, 2016), The GCSE Mindset (Crown House, 2017) and The Student Mindset (Crown House, 2019). You can learn more about their work with the VESPA model online and on Twitter @VESPAmindset.

You can join Martin and Steve in three sessions during our main conference. These sessions include:

Divers and Thrivers: introducing non-cognitive skills in middle level education

‘Clear is Kind’: coaching students in positive study behaviours

Teaching middle school students how to revise

Bridging the Executive Function Gap in the Classroom in 47 seconds a Day (8 mins)

**Bethany Febus** is a Professional Certified Life Coach specializing in ADHD and Executive Function in Seattle, Washington, USA. Bethany is passionate about supporting her clients in understanding the way their unique brain works so they can develop supportive strategies and systems that are interesting and relevant to who they are. Her work with families includes improving skills around academics management, time awareness, planning, collaborative problem solving, emotional regulation, organization, social skills and more. Bethany trains and mentors coaches at the ADD Coach Academy, an internationally recognized coach training program.

If you are a fan of TikTok, and an educator, you may have come across reels of the middle school science teacher Maddie Richardson, or “Miss R.”, teaching her middle school students ⁸. She teaches science, but she includes a mini Social Emotional Learning (SEL) lesson as a “brain break” in her classes every day. Despite my ambivalent feelings about TikTok, stumbling onto little gems like Miss R. has been revelatory for me. As a certified ADHD coach, I’m inspired by this simple but impactful integration of SEL into the classroom.

As an ADHD and Executive Function Coach, I work with students to help them understand their brains better and to create personalized strategies and structures to meet their personal and academic goals. We focus on building skills in planning, prioritizing, organizing, problem-solving, and time management. This is what we usually mean when we refer to “Executive Function Skills”. However, there are additional executive function skills that I also work on with my clients
that are even more integral to student success, but that are often seen as less important in academics. These include emotional regulation, self-awareness, working memory, self-talk, social skills, self-monitoring, and motivation. The demand for my services has grown tremendously over the last couple of years as the stress of the pandemic has pushed students to the limits of their ability to cope and their ability to mask their challenges.

I sometimes work with my client’s teachers to better support their learning needs, and I often find their teachers at a loss as to how to help them. They often have exhausted their usual repertoire of support systems. I believe that this is partly due to a pervasive misunderstanding of how executive functions develop and impact student’s success. We tend to assume many of these skills are developmentally consistent across children, and we make assumptions about what students “should” be able to do based on their age ¹². While a majority of children develop executive functions along a consistent timeline, many children need more support to bridge the gap between expectations and performance¹. Worldwide statistics estimate close to 6% of children may have developmental delays of 3-5 years in executive functioning ^{11, 1}. In the US it is estimated to be almost 10% ^{10, 1} . These numbers do not even include students whose executive functions may be impacted by lack of sleep, anxiety, depression, or a multitude of other life stressors.

For example, here are some factors that might impede a hypothetical 7th grader’s ability to succeed in math class:

A 7th grader walks into class after the bell rings, walks right past the turn-in bin without turning in their math packet, slumps down into their chair loudly, and then proceeds to stare out the window without taking out paper or pencil.

The teacher feels frustrated by what seems like disrespectful behavior and is worried about the pattern that seems to be developing with this student. They hold back their criticism and prompt the student to get out their supplies.

The student looks annoyed and snaps back “I know, I’m getting it!” They slowly pull out their notebook, and then loudly ask their neighbor if they can borrow a pencil. The teacher’s resolve crumbles.

Does this sound familiar? When we peel back the layers of this student’s experience and identify which executive function skills might be lacking, we can see the reasons that they are struggling:

They take an inefficient route through the halls to their locker (planning/working memory/problem solving).

When they get to their locker, it takes three tries to get their password right (focus, working memory, fine motor skill challenges).

When they get their locker open their mind goes blank (working memory, situational awareness). They grab their math book and nothing else (working memory, future thinking, planning) They ignore the bag of pencils that have been sitting in there since the first day of school.

The bell rings which sends a burst of cortisol through their system. Fearing they will be late again (emotional regulation), they slam their locker shut and tell themselves how stupid they are and how they will never get anything right (emotional regulation, verbal working memory).

When they enter the math class, everyone looks at them, which makes their stomach flop and their face flush (emotional regulation). They are flooded and shut down². Even without the shutdown, they may not have had the situational awareness required to remember to turn in their homework.

They are so stuck in negative thoughts and fears that it feels to them like they have just sat down when the teacher prompts them to get out paper and pencil. The prompt reaches their limbic system like a threat to which they react reflexively.

What does this have to do with Miss R. and her TikTok’s? Miss R. introduces Social Emotional Learning topics to her students that include the effects of lack of sleep on the brain, responsible decision making, making failure a norm, and more. Each lesson is about the length of the average TikTok video, 47 seconds. And from the enthusiastic voices of the students in the background, she has their full attention. I am not suggesting that every teacher start making TikTok videos with their class. What I love about this model is that it shows that it doesn’t take a lot of time to meet the needs of a variety of students. Some teachers are already finding ways to implement executive function education and support⁹. According to researcher and SLP, Sarah ward, those teachers have seen an increase in self-esteem and autonomy in their students as a result⁹. I believe this could be done on a large scale without curriculum changes. Teachers could weave this learning into their lessons and the classroom culture regularly.

Not sure where to start with your own classroom? We know that when students are regulated, they are more able to take in information and learn from it⁵. If educators could do one thing to support our students with executive function challenges, it would be to see the connection between emotional regulation and execution¹³. Help them find ways to get out of fight/flight (which many are otherwise trapped in all day long) and back into their learning brain. We can do this in many ways including modeling conscious breathing, mindfulness and considering sensory needs or sensitivities and movement needs. We can model and teach a “pause” before action. Dr. Russell Barkley, a well-respected executive function expert, says that students with executive function challenges need to “repeatedly practice self-monitoring, self-stopping, seeing the future, saying the future, feeling the future, and playing with the future to effectively plan and go toward the future⁶.” The key to supporting executive functions is to make them explicit and repeated. Your whole class may not need this, but they will all benefit from it, and they will all grow in empathy and self-awareness when they understand the various challenges and skills of their classmates.

If a student isn’t meeting behavioral or academic expectations in the classroom, ask yourself, “why?”, and “why now?” Peel back the layers and see if there is a way you can include the whole class in the scaffolding. We can help students to understand that their inability to meet expectations in the moment is merely because of a skill they have yet to learn. Rather than telling themselves “I hate writing, I can never think of something to write about”, they might think “I couldn’t pick a topic today because my ‘decider’ was all worn out after picking a book, so I asked Miss Lara if she could narrow down the choices for me or let me have the night to think about it.” Giving language to the challenges they are facing helps students build self-awareness and ultimately independence⁴.

At the end of each lesson, Miss R. encourages students if they aren’t proficient at the lesson topic yet, “that’s ok, you are in middle school, let’s take a deep breath and let it go…And if you brought any stressors, depressors, or anxieties with you today, I want you to let them know you will be with them later … all you have to worry about right now is science and it’s not going to be that bad” The same message can be said to teachers. Maybe you are already doing all the suggestions I have listed and more. If so, Bravo! But, if you haven’t yet understood the role of executive functions in your student’s ability to access the curriculum, and you have blamed their behavior on something else entirely, or you have given up on a couple of students completely, I want you to take a deep breath and let it go. As neuroscience changes how we understand the brain, we are all still learning how to effectively support our students, and all you have to think about right now is being the amazing teacher you already are and know it’s not going to be that bad. In fact, it could be pretty amazing!

¹Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D. Dedicated to Education and Research on ADHD (n.d.) The Important Role of Executive Functioning and Self-Regulation in ADHD© Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D. [factsheet] http://www.russellbarkley.org/factsheets/ADHD_EF_and_SR.pdf

²Brown, T. (2014). Smart but Stuck: Emotions in Teens and Adults with ADHD. Jossey-Bass.

³Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (29 Oct. 2020) Activities Guide: Enhancing & Practicing Executive Function Skills. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/activities-guide-enhancing-and-practicing-executive-function-skills-with-children-from-infancy-to-adolescence/.

⁴Jacobson, R. (2021, August 15). Metacognition: How Thinking About Thinking Can Help Kids. Child Mind Institute. https://childmind.org/article/how-metacognition-can-help-kids/

⁵Shanker, S. (2017, July 4). Self-Reg: How to Help Your Child (and You) Break the Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage with Life (Reprint). Penguin Books.

⁶Barkley, R.A. (2012) Executive Functions: What they are, how they work and why they evolved. New York: Guilford

⁷Shaw P, Eckstrand K, Sharp W, Blumenthal J, Lerch JP, Greenstein D, Clasen L, Evans A, Giedd J, Rapoport JL. (2007 Dec 4) Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is characterized by a delay in cortical maturation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.;104(49):19649-54. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0707741104.

⁸Richardson, M, [@themissrproject]. (2022, September 2) Day 17 – #teamwork and #commucation also happy Space day #nasa #artemis1 🚀 (launch on Saturday) #teacher #sel #leadership #teachersoftiktok #wholebrainteaching [Video].TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@themissrproject/video/7138930747238567214?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1

⁹Ward, S. (2014, July 12) A Clinical Model for Developing Executive Function Skills Sarah Ward https://www.efpractice.com/_files/ugd/78deb2_0ee2dbd06e384650a209f48d9101ac3d.pdf

¹⁰ Danielson M, Bitsko R, Ghandour R, Holbrook J, Kogan M, Blumberg S (2018 January 24) Prevalence of Parent-Reported ADHD Diagnosis and Associated Treatment Among U.S. Children and Adolescents, 2016. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 47:2, 199-212, DOI: 10.1080/15374416.2017.1417860. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5834391/pdf/nihms937906.pdf

¹¹Willcutt EG (2012) The prevalence of DSM-IV attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a meta-analytic review. Neurotherapeutics. 2012;9:490–499. doi: 10.1007/s13311-012-0135-8.

¹²Sippl A (nd) Executive Function Skills By Age: What to Look For Life Skills Advocate [blog] accessed 2022 08 13 https://lifeskillsadvocate.com/blog/executive-function-skills-by-age/

¹³Barkley R (2012) Self-Regulation and Executive Functioning Theory Burnett Lecture Part 2 ADHD

How can we protect kids? By knowing that sex education and grooming are not the same.

By Justine Ang Fonte, sexuality education teacher and Leah Carey, sex and intimacy coach and host of the podcast “Good Girls Talk About Sex”

As sex educators, we are deeply concerned about the recent effort to paint our work as “grooming” or “sexualizing” children. In fact, our goal is the exact opposite: to make sure children have the skills needed to repel the tactics used by predators.

In May 2021, conservative commentator Candace Owens accused one of us of being a pedophile. “[S]he should have to register as a sex offender,” Owens tweeted to her 3 million followers.

The crime? Acknowledging to first-graders that it’s normal to be curious about their genitals.

In today’s fractious political climate, critics argue that in giving children accurate, scientifically based information about their bodies, we are either preparing them to be molested or are predators ourselves.

In March, Tucker Carlson called it “common sense“ to not talk to children younger than third grade about their genitals because it is “disgusting and probably illegal.”

This line of reasoning is gaining traction every day, whether in Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, which critics have called the “Don’t Say Gay“ law, or a New Jersey school district announcing it would limit sex ed instruction to a single 35-minute period on the last day of school in grades 2, 5 and 8.

That is hardly enough time to cover basic anatomy, let alone the other things we believe young students need: an understanding of appropriate boundaries and how their body communicates danger signals to them.

The rhetoric has grown so fevered in recent weeks that we wanted to get perspective from someone on the front lines: Rahel Bayar, a former sex crimes and child abuse prosecutor.

She is the founder and CEO of The Bayar Group, an organization that works with schools to prevent sexual misconduct and child abuse.

“What I saw as a prosecutor was kids who didn’t come forward, or when they did come forward, they would say things like ‘My tummy hurts’ or ‘My tummy itches,’” Bayar said. “What they really meant was their vulva, not their tummy.”

Without the correct language for their anatomy, adults don’t understand what children are trying to say.

“One of the biggest pieces of abuse prevention is to teach your children the correct anatomical names for their body parts and not attach any type of shame or embarrassment to them,” Bayar said.

When kids learn that anything “down there” is shameful, they are less likely to come forward because they’re afraid of getting in trouble for admitting that someone touched them.

So the question of the moment is: How is sex education different from grooming?

“My God! Why is that even a question?” Bayar laughed. “Grooming typically involves secrecy … which is one of the reasons why we teach the difference between secrets and surprises. Secrets have no ending and surprises do. We start teaching kids that at a very, very early age because secrets are what people who groom children use to silence them.”

Grooming preys on fear, shame and silence. Sex education seeks to dispel them through transparency.

Lessons for young children include correct anatomical terms for body parts including genitals and having control over their “body bubble,” or zone of privacy.

The goal is to help children recognize and repel predatory behavior by understanding their body’s warning signs of danger: things like sweating when it’s not hot, trembling when it’s not cold, a racing heart when you haven’t moved, or feeling like you have to urinate when you just went to the bathroom. Then they practice different ways of saying “no” and “I don’t keep secrets with adults.”

Children don’t need to hear the words “sex” or “predator” to learn basic safety skills that can repel groomers.

While children may not yet be able to verbalize why these lessons are important, there is no scarcity of adults with stories to tell about how lack of appropriate education harmed them as children.

On the podcast “Good Girls Talk About Sex,” everyday women discuss their sex lives, including their earliest introduction to their own body. In over 100 interviews conducted since 2019, more than 25 percent of interviewees report that they began exploring their own genitals by age 5. But for many, this exploration was shrouded in the type of secrecy and shame we’re seeking to eliminate.

Lynn, age 49 at the time she was interviewed, had no access to information about her body at home or school. “I was so uninformed about it that I reached down between my legs … and my fingers sort of fell into my vagina,” Lynn recounted. “I thought that I wasn’t finished at the bottom. I thought I had a birth defect.” For over a year she believed she was dying. This fear of her own body, coupled with lack of accurate information, left her susceptible as a teenager to grooming by men 20 years her senior.

As uncomfortable as it may be to think about, skilled predators have an especially insidious tool: manipulating the child’s body so the abuse brings the child a sense of physical gratification. As Bayar noted, “We have to acknowledge the fact that our bodies have physiological reactions to touch and at different ages, that means our bodies respond in different ways.”

Cathy, 52 at the time she was interviewed, was molested from age 6 to 11.

“My first memory of sexual pleasure was very confused because I was having pleasure but it was during abuse … There wasn’t sex ed and I felt ashamed. I wasn’t sure why my body was responding the way it did.” For decades, it was hard for her to decouple the concepts of sexuality and abuse, so even masturbation was fraught. “I had associated sexuality with abuse or power struggles, and not having control over my body.”

Both of these women — and so many more — would have been well served by basic education about their bodies as children. Although we hear the most about disclosures of assault from women and girls, sexual abuse occurs across all genders. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys in the U.S. experience child sexual abuse. Because there is a social prohibition on boys appearing “weak,” their abuse experiences are even less likely to be reported.

Melissa Pintor Carnagey, founder of Sex Positive Families, said in a conversation with us that “informed kids grow into empowered and prepared adults who are better able to have healthy relationships, know their bodies and to be safer along their journey. Sexuality education is the resource that helps them get there.”

In the current climate, how can you make sure that all children receive the education they need and deserve?

Vote.

Too often we vote for the national races at the top of the ticket, then gloss over elections happening closer to home. Decisions about sex ed are being made at your local school board and on the city, county and state level.

Before going to the voting booth, learn how candidates view the need for dedicated time to teach children about consent and anatomy, and vote accordingly.

Whether or not your school embraces sex education for all students, you can also help kids get the information they need at home. Work with your school’s PTA to offer parents workshops from sex educators who can provide tools to communicate with children about sex with less anxiety.

There is a #MeToo generation of adults who struggle to have effective conversations about these life-saving topics, but this can stop with Gen Z. We, as their trustees and caregivers, can equip our children with at least one tool that has been proven to protect them: sex education.

Originally posted on NBC’s THINK: Opinion, Analysis, Essays

How Educators can Help Middle Schoolers Thrive in Turbulent and Calm Times

**Phyllis Fagell-Key Note Speaker at ELMLE Connect (Porto)**

In a conversation last spring with Cindy Conley, a principal at Irving Middle School in Springfield, Va., she told me that yet again, she was surprised by something her post-lockdown students were doing. At an end-of-year celebration for eighth-graders, a group of boys began playing duck, duck, goose. Soon, more than 50 boys were playing the game, one that is usually enjoyed by much younger children. “That never happened pre-pandemic,” she told me. “But some of these kids left in sixth grade and came back as instant eighth-graders, and I don’t think I anticipated how much the elementary part was still in them.”

Throughout the pandemic, I’ve written articles about how educators, coaches, parents and other adults can preserve middle schoolers’ well-being as they navigate a vulnerable phase and growing up in turbulent times. It’s a double whammy, but I think we’re entering a new phase. While educators initially were caught off guard by some of the trickle-down effects they saw on children when they returned to in-person schooling, they now have more realistic expectations and a better understanding of what children need to be successful. The last few years have upended conventional notions about what students can or should be able to do by a certain age or grade, and that’s a good thing. I’ve yet to meet a middle schooler who performs better because they think they’re “behind” or lacking in some way.

While it may be particularly important to meet middle schoolers “where they are” when they’re contending with uncertainty and disruption, that’s always been true for tweens. And the best way to help a child do well is to help them do well – in other words, to set them up for success. In a recent article for The Washington Post, I talked about how adults can set kids up for a “better year,” but many of the tips I included are timeless. Here are some “evergreen” ways that educators can help middle-school students learn, connect with others and maintain a strong sense of self, regardless of what’s happening in the world.

Let go of the notion of ‘normal

Middle schoolers are sensitive to criticism and peer approval, and they can feel blindsided if they struggle in unexpected ways, whether they don’t complete an assignment or panic when they need to present in class. To help kids stay positive when things go awry, “interrupt the concept of normal,” said Christopher Emdin, a professor of education at the University of Southern California and the author of “Ratchetdemic.” When we spoke, he encouraged adults to let kids start each year fresh, to dream about how they want things to be. Ask, “‘When you went through school before, did you like it all?’” he said. “No. Based on what things were before, how do you want it to be now?’”

Even subtle changes to students’ physical spaces “can radically change the learning experience,” Emdin told me. When he was scholar-in-residence at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 2021, he partnered with students to build prototype post-pandemic classrooms. “I wanted them to feel like it can’t look like what it looked like before.” They swapped out fluorescent lights for blue bulbs, brought in planters of grass and piped in music. The idea is to ensure they see school as special, comfortable, and beautiful, “so that you start training the mind to see the educational work as fun,” Emdin explained. “When you bring in flowers and grasses, change the lighting, the sounds, the seating, it invokes relaxation and helps kids associate reading or homework as, ‘This is when I’m chilling.’”

Take their emotional pulse

Check in regularly with students. Ask questions such as, “What were your highs and lows this week?” “In an ideal world, how would you adjust the workload or the way you demonstrate your learning?” and “How can I best support you?” Explicitly acknowledge that the past few years have been tough, added Jason Ablin, a former principal, school consultant in Los Angeles and the author of “The Gender Equation in Schools.” “Say, ‘We want you to feel great about going to school every day, and if you feel like things are going off the rails, we’re here for you.’

It’s helpful to know a child’s baseline stress level, said Michelle Hoffman, a licensed counselor at Granite Academy, a therapeutic school in Braintree, Mass. If a student tells you they’re worried about a test or a fight with a friend, ask them to rate the stress on a scale of one to five. The number itself is less important than what it tells you about their perception of the situation and their capacity to cope with it, Hoffman explained. “Once you have a basis for comparison, you can have a conversation about what might lower their stress,” she said. Validate their concerns, even if they seem overblown. You might feel the pandemic is over and students should be able to handle more pressure, but “stress is additive. Kids are resilient, but they’ve used up their reserves,” she said.

When you know what’s troubling a student, you can help them reframe the situation and think about next steps. Emily Kircher-Morris, a counselor in Missouri and the author of “Raising Twice-Exceptional Children,” recommends walking children through the best-case, worst-case and most-likely scenarios, then devising a plan. If they’re worried about missing an assignment, for instance, Kircher-Morris might ask: “Who can you go to for help? How can you communicate with them?” If the issue relates to social anxiety, she might suggest they talk to the teacher about a way to ease into giving a presentation. For instance, maybe they first present to the teacher and a classmate, or perhaps they pre-record their presentation.

Students often feel powerless because they have little control over things such as when they eat lunch at school or whether they take math in sixth grade. You can give them back a sense of agency by having them set and work toward personal goals. Encourage them to commit their goals to paper, because research shows that people are 42 percent more likely to reach their goals if they write them down and monitor their progress regularly. Every year, Larry Haynes, the principal of Oak Mountain Middle School in Birmingham, Ala., recruits 35 professionals from the community to mentor eighth-graders. At the end of each grading period, the mentors meet with their mentees to discuss their report cards, their progress and their goals. Afterward, the students write their goals on a reflection sheet.

“I tell them to display their goals in a prominent place where they will see it, because that keeps it fresh in their mind and serves as a motivator,” Haynes told me, adding that he always tells the students about Thomas Holloway, a former student who stated in middle school that his goal was to play football at West Point. “Thomas graduated from West Point in 2014,” he tells them. Setting goals also can ease students’ anxiety related to events in the news. To help them, shift the focus away from the state of the world and back to their own lives. “If you zoom out to space and everything on Earth looks tiny, then it can seem like there’s no meaning to any of it, and that can feel really overwhelming,” Kircher-Morris told me. “But if you zoom back in, you get to decide what your meaning and purpose is.” That could be a goal such as doing better in a class or sitting with a new friend at lunch.

Offer structured fun, directed social time

After the turmoil of the past few years, many children are focused on friendships, but their skills are rusty. Research shows that connecting with others can improve mental health, and middle schoolers need the practice, but they may need an assist. If they’re too anxious to socialize, do structured icebreakers and other get-to-know-you activities in class. Suggest they participate in structured activities, such as an after-school club that reflects their interests. The idea is to find low-pressure opportunities where kids can practice making eye contact and resolving conflict. Haynes offers alternate activities for kids at school dances, for example. He might have board games in the cafeteria or a kickball tournament outside.

Affirm that they’ll be fine

“We talk about kids almost in monthly terms: Academically they should be here, their social-emotional development should be here,” Ablin told me. “But when things are as disrupted as they have been, we need to see kids where they actually are; be calm, loving and thoughtful about that; and really believe that, eventually, the child will be just fine.” That means letting go of the idea that students have “fallen behind.” As Ablin noted: “It diminishes children and kills the joy in learning. When we say, ‘You’re not where you’re supposed to be,’ we’re also saying, ‘You’re not who you’re supposed to be.’”

If you adopt that attitude, it takes the pressure off of you, too. When educators set reasonable, attainable goals, students tend to do the same. Plus, emotions are contagious. If you dial down the pressure you put on yourself, your students are likely to “catch your calm.”

*Tips drawn from an article I wrote that ran in the August 18, 2022 issue of The Washington Post

A School’s Role in Delivering Sexuality Education

By Miguel G. Marshall, Sara Silverio Marques, Justine Ang Fonte, Amy Patel

(an excerpt from NAIS Sexuality Education: An Overview for Independent Schools)

Perhaps the chief role of independent schools in the context of sexuality education is to bring to the surface the core values of their communities and discuss how those values align with their missions and how those values may influence discussions and curriculum around sex and sexuality at their school.

An additional role that independent schools can play that intersects with sexuality education is developing media literacy. According to research on the health effects of media on children and adolescents (Strasburger et al., 2010), a century ago to be “literate” meant you could read and write. In 2009, however, it meant having the ability to decipher a bewildering array of media and make sense of them all (Strasburger et al., 2010). In the context of 21st century media literacy, it is important for educators to strive to be reliable sources of accurate, non-judgmental information, and have a willingness to engage in direct, honest conversations with students (Goldfarb & Lieberman, 2016). Providing a forum for the discussion of sexuality education is important because of the fundamental role human sexuality and relationships play in the independent school goals of developing character and inspiring high-achieving students. As we have discovered in our research, sexuality, in and of itself, intersects and overlaps with character-development, values, and achievement.

Schools are also wrestling with finding time (and money) to support programs outside the traditional core subjects. Health education and sexuality education curricula may be interpreted as competing with the ultimate mission of core academic schooling. This challenge is not unique to independent schools; it also impacts public schools (Hall, McDermott Sales, Komro, & Santelli, 2016).

Further, independent schools always consider the role that families play. Families may identify a range of knowledge associated with sexuality that they find developmentally inappropriate for children. Although such information is often influenced by religious values and cultural backgrounds, it may not be the case with all families (Robinson & Davies, 2017). Additionally, cultural context and background affect how individuals receive and interpret messages about sexuality (Goldfarb & Constantine, 2011). This information is important to keep in mind when engaging families around the topic of sexuality.

No matter what approach to sexuality education an independent school chooses, the following prompts can start discussion.

1. Consider where you and your school stand on issues about gender, power, trust, hierarchy, and human nature.

● Do your or your school’s stances influence your perceptions about sexuality education? If so, how?

2. Consider the Circles of Sexuality

● What topics does your school already emphasize or discuss with students? Where are the gaps?

● How might the circles integrate with ongoing efforts in social and emotional learning (SEL) and faculty professional development?

○ Recall the SEL framework includes: a. Self-awareness

■ Self-management

■ Social awareness

■ Relationships skills

■ Responsible decision-making (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2017)

3. Consider whether your school helps develop values and educates for character? What are these values? Do they apply to sex and sexuality? Do they apply to human development?

4. Consider, as a community, the ethnic, racial, cultural, personal, religious, and moral concerns and undertones of sex, sexuality, and sexuality education.

5. Consider how a school’s mission statement influences inclusivity and exclusivity of difference and different types of peoples.

6. Consider intersectionality and how students’ diverse backgrounds and experience may affect their personal beliefs, values, and knowledge about sexuality (Breuner et al., 2016).

● According to the Independent School Diversity Network, “intersectionality” (or intersectionalism) refers to intersections between different groups of people identifying in various -isms or social identifiers; the interactions of multiple systems of oppression or discrimination. Find more information about this topic from: http://www.isdnetwork.org/what-is-diversity.html and https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/10/intersectionality-the-many-layers-of-an-individual/.

7. Consider how school dress codes reflect a social focus on adolescents’ dress as an expression of sexuality (Fortenberry, 2014).

8. Considering the role of values:

● Where do your own values come from? (Think of the role of your family, friends, media, religion, school, politics and other factors.)

● Have your own values changed over time?

● To what extent are your values implicit and taken for granted? To what extent are they the result of careful reflection?

● Do you think of values as having universal validity? Or do they apply only within cultures or traditions?

● Can schools avoid teaching values? If not, what sort of values should they teach, and how should they teach them?

● What values (either explicit or implicit) underpin any program of sex education familiar to you?

● Make a list of your own sexual values. Now write another list for someone you know well whose personality differs from you. How much common ground is there between the two of you (Halstead & Reiss, 2003)?

9. Regarding the implementation of sexuality education lessons and curricula, consider:

● Skills development in finding information or resources to make it easy to pursue new information when needed or when interest arises;

● Assigning homework or supplemental individual assignments that allow students to explore a topic of interest to them;

● Conducting activities that help students identify personal values, or start connecting topics learned in class to personal behaviors or situations they may encounter; and

● Including time in the curriculum for student questions and integrating these topics into subsequent activities to cover topics of intrinsic interest to your students. (Silverio Marques, 2014)

● Teens, Health, and Technology: A National Survey conducted by the Center on Media and Human Development, School of Communication, Northwestern University gathered a nationally-representative sample of 1,156 U.S. adolescents. Data from this survey showed that 43 percent of teenagers have viewed pornography online, 27 percent have viewed how to play alcohol drinking games, and 25 percent have viewed how to get tobacco/nicotine products (Wartella et al., 2015).

● Consider the role that your school may play in pedagogically addressing the viewing of negative health information online (e.g., pornography, how to play alcohol games).

10. Consider:

● Where does sexuality education fall within the broader context of the school mission and curriculum?

● Where do conversations need to happen to reflect on human sexuality prior to implementing a curriculum or program?

● Does your school want to use an established curriculum, develop its own, integrate concepts into existing classes, or adapt a curriculum to your needs?

● There are different ways to incorporate health and sexuality education into the school setting, including:

○ Health classes

○ Transdisciplinary projects

○ Guest speakers

○ Using literature from authors representing a diversity of sexual identities

○ Having a “wellness day”

○ Hosting workshops for parents

○ Conducting professional development for faculty

Ultimately, it may be our school communities’ values — moral, ethical, religious, or otherwise— and what we want for our students that determine our approach to sexuality education. Indeed, “moral education (and values education more broadly) is inextricably bound up with sex education, just as it is with education in general” (Halstead & Reiss, 2003). “The key questions now are what sort of values schools should teach in sex education, and what approach they should adopt” (Halstead & Reiss, 2003)? What values a school community espouses and how a school goes about cultivating and representing those values is unique to every independent school.

REFERENCES

Breuner, C. C., Mattson, G., Committee on Adolescence, & Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2016). Sexuality education for children and adolescents. Pediatrics, 138(2), e1–e11. doi:10.1542/peds.2016-1348

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2017). What is SEL? Retrieved July 1, 2017, from http://www.casel.org/what-is-sel/

Fortenberry, J. D. (2013). Puberty and adolescent sexuality. Hormones and Behavior, 64(2), 280–287. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2013.03.007

Goldfarb, E. S., & Constantine, N. A. (2011). Sexuality Education. In Encyclopedia of Adolescence (pp. 322– 331). Elsevier. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-373951-3.00086-7

Goldfarb, E. S., & Lieberman, L. (2016). Sexuality Education During Adolescence. In J. J.Ponzetti, Jr. (Ed.), Evidence-based Approaches to Sexuality-Education: A Global Perspective (pp. 218–236). New York: Routledge.

Hall, K. S., McDermott Sales, J., Komro, K. A., & Santelli, J. S. (2016). The state of sex education in the United States. The Journal of Adolescent Health, 58(6), 595–597.doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.03.032

Halstead, J. M., & Reiss, M. J. (2003). Values in sex education: From principles to practice. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Robinson, K. H., & Davies, C. (2017). Sexuality education in early childhood. In L. Allen & M. L.

Rasmussen (Eds.), The palgrave handbook of sexuality education (pp. 217–242). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_11

Silverio Marques, S. (2014). Developmentally-Appropriate Sexuality Education: Theory, Conceptualization, and Practice (Doctoral dissertation). University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1665572178

Strasburger, V. C., Jordan, A. B., & Donnerstein, E. (2010). Health effects of media on children and adolescents. Pediatrics, 125(4), 756–767. doi:10.1542/peds.2009-2563

Wartella, E., Rideout, V., Zupancic, H., Beaudoin-Ryan, L., & Lauricella, A. (2015). Teens, Health, and Technology: A National Survey. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University. Retrieved from http://cmhd.northwestern.edu/wp- content/uploads/2015/05/1886_1_SOC_ConfReport_TeensHealthTech_051115.pdf