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Every 4-year-old in California can now go to school for free in their local districts. The new grade is called transitional kindergarten — or TK — and it’s part of the state’s effort to expand universal preschool.
In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state legislature moved to expand transitional kindergarten in a $2.7 billion plan so that all 4-year-olds could attend by the 2025-26 school year. (Prior to this, TK was only available for kids who missed the kindergarten age cutoff by a few months). While it’s not mandatory for students to attend, districts must offer them as an alternative to private preschool.
As a free option, it can save parents a lot of money. Parents also must weigh how sending their kids into a school-based environment compares to a preschool they might already know and like, as well as other needs like all-day care, and how much play their child does.
One big question we’ve heard: What do kids actually do and learn in a TK classroom? Educators say it’s intended to emphasize play, but what does that mean?
To help parents get a better sense of this new grade as they make their decisions, LAist reporters spent the day in three different classrooms across the Southland. Here are five things we saw children do.
For many students, transitional kindergarten is their first introduction to a formal school preschool setting. Crystal Ramirez sent her 4-year-old to TK at Marguerita Elementary School in Alhambra, so he could get used to the rhythm and rigors of school.
“I didn’t wanna put him straight into kindergarten when he was five, six, so he at least knows a routine, already,” she said. “Now, as soon as he sees that we’re in school, he loves it.”
TK students, like other elementary school students, follow a schedule: morning bell, recess, lunch, second recess and dismissal. They’re also learning how to listen to instructions or stand in a line. Some are learning to go to the cafeteria for lunch.
“ I wanna make sure that their first experience in a public school setting is one that is joyful, where they feel loved, where they feel welcomed, where they get to really transition nicely into like the rigor of the school,” said Lauren Bush, a TK teacher at Lucille Smith Elementary in Lawndale.
Claudia Ralston, a TK teacher at Marguerita Elementary, said it can be hard for young kids to get up early and leave their moms and dads. But seven weeks in, many of her students have learned their routines already. She helps with the morning transitions by turning on soft instrumental music in the classroom, and allowing them free play until they regroup on the mat to discuss the day.
“They’re four years old. I want them to feel safe at school, know that this is a special place for learning and that they play,” she said.
In TK, social-emotional learning is a big part of the curriculum. That’s a fancy word, but it just means they’re learning how to be in touch with their emotions
At Price Elementary in Downey, the teacher has her kids give an affirmation: “I am safe. I am kind. I matter. I make good choices. I can do hard things. All of my problems have solutions!” (They also have these sentences on classroom wall signs.)
The children also learn how to interact with their peers. In some schools, there are no assigned desks so the kids can learn how to share the space.
“ They’re able to problem solve. They’re able to use communication to get their needs, regulating their emotions. They do better than students who come in without this experience,” said Cristal Moore, principal at Lucille Smith Elementary.
On the playground, a student named Ava told teacher assistant Lizbeth Orozco that another student pushed her.
“How did that make you feel?” Orozco asked.
“Mad!”
Orozco encouraged Ava to express her feelings to her classmate.
“ We give them options of how to solve a problem and then they go in and solve it themselves,” Orozco said. “If they need extra help, they always come back and we can help them.”
Arguing over toys can be a common occurrence in a TK classroom. At Price Elementary in Downey, educators help kids work through a solution. On a recent morning, one 4-year-old used two tongs to pick up paper shapes in a sensory bin, leaving another kid upset.
“What’s the rule about sharing?” asked Alexandria Pellegrino, a teacher who gives extra support for one TK classroom.
The boy handed over a tong to his peer. “Thank you so much for being a good friend,” Pellegrino said.
“[It’s] about being kind friends and making friends and using our manners. So we do build that foundation at the beginning of the year,” said Samantha Elliot, the classroom’s lead instructor.
At the end of the day in Alvarez’s Lawndale TK class, she counts up the stars next to each student’s name earned throughout the day — earned for positive behavior like being kind, solving problems, trying something challenging, or showing effort in other ways. Ten stars earns a small prize from the treasure chest.
“If we don’t get something today are we going to get mad?” Alvarez asked the class.
“No!” they responded.
“I’m not going to cry!” one boy piped up, followed by his classmate and a “Me too!” from another student.
“That’s [a] positive attitude,” Alvarez said. “Because tomorrow you can get more stars!”
In Elliot’s TK class, students use their own little lightsabers to trace letters in the air.
“They’re learning the letter, the sound, and then a little action to go with it. They’re wiggling and moving and they’re also learning those letter sounds and they don’t really realize, so it’s incorporating instruction,” she said.
There’s no mandated curriculum in TK, but instruction is supposed to align with the state’s Preschool/Transitional Kindergarten Learning Foundations. “Kindergarten is basically where the state standards go and kick in. There are standards in TK, but it’s a little bit different,” said Tom Kohout, principal at Marguerita Elementary.
Students might put playdough into letter molds, or the teacher might pull out toys from a bag that all start with a letter “E.” Kids will play with little plastic toys that connect — or “manipulatives” — that can help them recognize numbers and patterns.
“It’s play with a purpose,” Ralston said. “They’re just being introduced to the numbers, the colors, writing. But again, we’re not doing worksheets.”
Molding pretend cakes with kinetic sand. Connecting small LEGO bricks. Cutting playdough. It might not seem like much, but children this age are still learning how to use their bodies.
“Tearing paper is really hard and it’s a really amazing fine motor skill for them because the same muscles you use to tear paper are the same muscles that you use to hold a pen or a pencil,” said Lauren Bush, a TK teacher at Lucille Smith Elementary in Lawndale.
“You see kids playing with dinosaurs. I see kids sorting by color, doing visual, you know, eye hand coordination and visual discrimination. I see them using their fine motor skills,” she said.
At lunch, kids learn how to open up a milk carton or open a packaged muffin. At PE, they learn to balance on a block or walk in a straight line — learning spatial awareness.
“They’re learning how to run, stop, things like that and playing because their bodies are so young,” said Principal Kohout.
For some kids, it might be the first time where mom and dad aren’t there to help carry their backpacks or help them go to the bathroom. TK is meant to help focus on their independence, though aides can help.
TK classrooms are also usually set up with play centers, so kids can have the choice to explore on their own.
“ I want them to be independent, to be able to solve their problems, you know, with assistance,” Ralston said.
Samantha Elliot, the TK teacher in Downey, says she encourages kids to talk to their teammates first to figure out an activity before going to a teacher.
“It’s just gaining the confidence and building that independence from basically the start of the school year,” she said.
Parent Crystal Ramirez has already noticed a change in her 4-year-old this year since starting school. “ [He’s] socializing a little bit more, talking a little bit more, trying to express himself as well.”
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This blog was kindly authored by Naomi Lumutenga, Executive Director and co-founder of Higher Education Resource Services (East Africa).
Despite commendable interventions in recent decades, a gendered leadership gap persists at varying levels within higher education institutions. In 2024, women led 27% of the top 200 universities in the US; 36% in the top UK universities; 55% in the Netherlands’ top 11; and 29% in Germany’s top 21. In contrast, female leadership was far less common in Sub-Saharan Africa: only two of Ethiopia’s 46 universities, two of Tanzania’s 60, and six of South Africa’s 26 public universities were headed by women. While some may argue that comparisons with Western institutions are unfair due to their longstanding systems, the disparity highlights persistent structural barriers to gender parity in university leadership. Shifting focus from individual to organisational transformation can deliver change. As an example, long-standing financial systems have been leapfrogged. Currently, it is quicker to wire money to and within many African countries, compared to Europe or the USA. Linear comparisons along time periods, to effect change, do not, therefore, tell the full story; the real focus should be on the political will from within universities to acknowledge the value in and shift leadership towards gender parity.
Our organisation, (Higher Education Resource Services East Africa) addresses gender equality in universities, as these institutions shape future leaders. Prestigious institutions like the University of Oxford have produced multiple prime ministers and policymakers across the globe, as the recent HEPI / Kaplan Soft Power Index demonstrates. In East Africa, notable alumni of Uganda’s Makerere University include past and serving national leaders like veteran Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Benjamin Mkapa (Tanzania); Mwai Kibaki (Kenya); Paul Kagame (Rwanda); Milton Obote (Uganda); and Joseph Kabila (Democratic Republic of Congo). However, Makerere University (unlike the University of Oxford) has never had a female Vice Chancellor.
The structure and landscape of such institutions matter because they model frameworks and practices for the communities they serve. The persistent unequal representation triggered the work of HERS-EA that culminated, in part, in our recent publication.
Findings from our unpublished study conducted in 2024 across 35 universities in East Africa illustrated the situation starkly. This study was conducted by Makerere University in collaboration with HERS-East Africa, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The aim was to analyse the underlying barriers that prevent women from progressing into leadership and, for those who advance, from thriving. While some of the findings might be culturally unique to East African contexts, the majority were acknowledged, at the annual Engagement Scholarship Consortium conference in Portland, USA (October 2024), as being relevant to any higher education institution. In Japan, for example, there is evidence of cultural pressure exerted differently when women seek promotion; as Kathy Matsui asserts, women decline promotional offers for fear of how they might be treated when/if they get pregnant.
Our study of premier universities in East Africa found that, despite gender equality policies, female leadership remains rare: only two of seven top universities had a female Chancellor (a ceremonial role), none had a female Vice Chancellor, and just one had a female Deputy Vice Chancellor (who was nearing retirement). With respect to enrolment, while most institutions claimed gender parity at admission, few tracked or reported gender disaggregated data at graduation or PhD completion, and evidence of tracking progress was limited.
PhDs, research leadership, and grant management are important for university leadership, so we highlighted these areas and addressed implicit institutional norms. Drawing on these lived experiences, we concluded that gender discrimination in university leadership persists through biased job criteria, age limits, and interview questions. Other barriers include a lack of accountability, inadequate strategies against sexual harassment, and poor support for women to complete PhDs.
Co-created recommendations included trialling an adapted equivalent of the non-punitive Athena Swan Charter, which develops a culture of self-assessment while mitigating potential backlash. The Athena Swan Charter was initiated in the UK in 2005, and it is gaining global traction. It provides a sliding scale of progression towards gender equality, from bronze to silver and gold. Other proposed interventions included providing writing bootcamps with childcare and research advisors present, away from family and other distractions. Aspects of the quota system and structural frameworks in Scandinavian countries were discussed, but while lessons can be learnt from these transformational shifts, the real stumbling block is the lack of political will for changing norms rather than individual women within East African institutions. However, change is possible. Rwanda’s post-1994 Genocide national policies include quotas, and they are revised every three years to assess progress towards gender equality in all sectors. Currently, women hold 61.3% of the total seats in parliament, and they occupy 66% of the total seats in cabinets. Overall, Rwanda is now considered one of the best achievers in the world for gender equality. Perhaps lessons can be learnt from Rwanda’s progress that can give us all reason to hope.
After decades serving in the Marine Corps and in education, I know firsthand that servant leadership and diplomacy can and should be taught. That’s why I hoped to bring 32 high school seniors from Texas to Washington, D.C., this fall for a week of engagement and learning with top U.S. government and international leaders.
Instead of open doors, we faced a government shutdown and had to cancel our trip.
The shutdown impacts government employees, members of the military and their families who are serving overseas and all Americans who depend on government being open to serve us — in businesses, schools and national parks, and through air travel and the postal service.
Our trip was not going to be a typical rushed tour of monuments, but a highly selective, long-anticipated capstone experience. Our plans included intensive interaction with government leaders at the Naval Academy and the Pentagon, discussions at the State Department and a leadership panel with senators and congressmembers. Our students hoped to explore potential careers and even practice their Spanish and Mandarin skills at the Mexican and Chinese embassies.
The students not only missed out on the opportunity to connect with these leaders and make important connections for college and career, they learned what happens when leadership and diplomacy fail — a harsh reminder that we need to teach these skills, and the principles that support them, in our schools.
Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.
Senior members of the military know that the DIME framework — diplomatic, informational, military and economic — should guide and support strategic objectives, particularly on the international stage. My own time in the Corps taught me the essential role of honesty and trust in conversations, negotiations and diplomacy. In civic life, this approach preserves democracy, yet the government shutdown demonstrates what happens when the mission shifts from solving problems to scoring points.
Our elected leaders were tasked with a mission, and the continued shutdown shows a breakdown in key aspects of governance and public service. That’s the real teachable moment of this shutdown. Democracy works when leaders can disagree without disengaging; when they can argue, compromise and keep doors open. If our future leaders can’t practice those skills, shutdowns will become less an exception and more a way of governing.
With opposing points of view, communication is essential. Bridging language is invaluable. As the adage goes, talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. Speak in his own language, that goes to his heart. That is why, starting in kindergarten, we teach every student in our charter school network English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.
Some of our graduates will become teachers, lawyers, doctors and entrepreneurs. Others will pursue careers in public service or navigate our democracy on the international stage. All will enter a world more fractured than the one I stepped into as a Marine.
While our leaders struggle to find common ground, studies show that nationally, only 22 percent of eighth graders are proficient in civics, and fewer than 20 percent of American students study a foreign language. My students are exceptions, preparing to lead in three languages and through servant leadership, a philosophy that turns a position of power into a daily practice of responsibility and care for others.
Related: COLUMN: Students want more civics education, but far too few schools teach it
While my students represent our ILTexas schools, they also know they are carrying something larger: the hopes of their families, communities and even their teenage peers across the country. Some hope to utilize their multilingual skills, motivated by a desire to help the international community. Others want to be a part of the next generation of diplomats and policy thinkers who are ready to face modern challenges head-on.
To help them, we build good habits into the school day. Silent hallways instill respect for others. Language instruction builds empathy and an international perspective. Community service requirements (60 hours per high school student) and projects, as well as dedicated leadership courses and optional participation in our Marine Corps JROTC program give students regular chances to practice purpose over privilege.
Educators should prepare young people for the challenges they will inherit, whether in Washington, in our communities or on the world stage. But schools can’t carry this responsibility alone. Students are watching all of us. It’s our duty to show them a better way.
We owe our young people more than simply a good education. We owe them a society in which they can see these civic lessons modeled by their elected leaders, and a path to put them into practice.
Eddie Conger is the founder and superintendent of International Leadership of Texas, a public charter school network serving more than 26,000 students across the state, and a retired U.S. Marine Corps major.
Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].
This story about the government shutdown and students was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
Thirty states now limit or ban cellphone use in classrooms, and teachers are noticing children paying attention to their lessons again. But it’s not clear whether this policy — unpopular with students and a headache for teachers to enforce — makes an academic difference.
If student achievement goes up after a cellphone ban, it’s tough to know if the ban was the reason. Some other change in math or reading instruction might have caused the improvement. Or maybe the state assessment became easier to pass. Imagine if politicians required all students to wear striped shirts and test scores rose. Few would really think that stripes made kids smarter.
Two researchers from the University of Rochester and RAND, a nonprofit research organization, figured out a clever way to tackle this question by taking advantage of cellphone activity data in one large school district in Florida, which in 2023 became the first state to institute school cellphone restrictions. The researchers compared schools that had high cellphone activity before the ban with those that had low cellphone usage to see if the ban made a bigger difference for schools that had high usage.
Indeed, it did.
Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.
Student test scores rose a bit more in high cellphone usage schools two years after the ban compared with schools that had lower cellphone usage to start. Students were also attending school more regularly.
The policy also came with a troubling side effect. The cellphone bans led to a significant increase in student suspensions in the first year, especially among Black students. But disciplinary actions declined during the second year.
“Cellphone bans are not a silver bullet,” said David Figlio, an economist at the University of Rochester and one of the study’s co-authors. “But they seem to be helping kids. They’re attending school more, and they’re performing a bit better on tests.”
Figlio said he was “worried” about the short-term 16 percent increase in suspensions for Black students. What’s unclear from this data analysis is whether Black students were more likely to violate the new cellphone rules, or whether teachers were more likely to single out Black students for punishment. It’s also unclear from these administrative behavior records if students were first given warnings or lighter punishments before they were suspended.
The data suggest that students adjusted to the new rules. A year later, student suspensions, including those of Black students, fell back to what they had been before the cellphone ban.
“What we observe is a rocky start,” Figlio added. “There was a lot of discipline.”
The study, “The Impact of Cellphone Bans in Schools on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Florida,” is a draft working paper and has not been peer-reviewed. It was slated to be circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research on Oct. 20 and the authors shared a draft with me in advance. Figlio and his co-author Umut Özek at RAND believe it is the first study to show a causal connection between cellphone bans and learning rather than just a correlation.
The academic gains from the cellphone ban were small, less than a percentile point, on average. That’s the equivalent of moving from the 50th percentile on math and reading tests (in the middle) to the 51st percentile (still close to the middle), and this small gain did not emerge until the second year for most students. The academic benefits were strongest for middle schoolers, white students, Hispanic students and male students. The academic gains for Black students and female students were not statistically significant.
Related: Suspended for…what?
I was surprised to learn that there is data on student cellphone use in school. The authors of this study used information from Advan Research Corp., which collects and analyzes data from mobile phones around the world for business purposes, such as figuring out how many people visit a particular retail store. The researchers were able to obtain this data for schools in one Florida school district and estimate how many students were on their cellphones before and after the ban went into effect between the hours of 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.
The data showed that more than 60 percent of middle schoolers, on average, were on their phones at least once during the school day before the 2023 ban in this particular Florida district, which was not named but described as one of the 10 largest districts in the country. (Five of the nation’s 10 largest school districts are in Florida.) After the ban, that fell in half to 30 percent of middle schoolers in the first year and down to 25 percent in the second year.
Elementary school students were less likely to be on cellphones to start with and their in-school usage fell from about 25 percent of students before the ban to 15 percent after the ban. More than 45 percent of high schoolers were on their phones before the ban and that fell to about 10 percent afterwards.
Florida did not enact a complete cellphone ban in 2023, but imposed severe restrictions. Those restrictions were tightened in 2025 and that additional tightening was not studied in this paper.
Anti-cellphone policies have become increasingly popular since the pandemic, largely based on our collective adult gut hunches that kids are not learning well when they are consumed by TikTok and SnapChat.
This is perhaps a rare case in public policy, Figlio said, where the “data back up the hunches.”
Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].
This story about cellphone bans was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.
Regression Analysis is a analysis process where the relationship between one dependent variable is evaluated with one or more independent variables. Regression Analysis are mainly used for prediction and forecasting. To define as an example, a doctor can quantify how much each factor will contribute to the overall risk of patients.
Regression Analysis is a analysis process where the relationship between one dependent variable is evaluated with one or more independent variables.
Formula: Y=a+bX+
Where:
Y=Dependent Variable (Outcome)
X=Independent variable (Predictor)
a= Intercept (Value of Y when X=0)
b=Slope (how much Y changes for a one unit increase in X)
= Error Term.
Formula:Y=a+b_1 X_1+b_2 X_2+⋯+b_n X_n+ϵ
In SPSS performing regression analysis is extremely easy as it used a menu driven interface which allows user to perform the analysis in a few clicks. Once the dataset is imported in the system the user has to select the dependent and independent variables. The software will immediately calculate regression coefficient, R-squared values and the model fit statistics.
For the first time in more than a decade, confidence in the nation’s colleges and universities is rising. Forty-two percent of Americans now say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education, up from 36 percent last year.
It’s a welcome shift, but it’s certainly not time for institutions to take a victory lap.
For years, persistent concerns about rising tuition, student debt and an uncertain job market have led many to question whether college was still worth the cost. Headlines have routinely spotlighted graduates who are underemployed, overwhelmed or unsure how to translate their degrees into careers.
With the rapid rise of AI reshaping entry-level hiring, those doubts are only going to intensify. Politicians, pundits and anxious parents are already asking: Why aren’t students better prepared for the real world?
But the conversation is broken, and the framing is far too simplistic. The real question isn’t whether college prepares students for careers. It’s how. And the “how” is more complex, personal and misunderstood than most people realize.
Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.
What’s missing from this conversation is a clearer understanding of where career preparation actually happens. It’s not confined to the classroom or the career center. It unfolds in the everyday often overlooked experiences that shape how students learn, lead and build confidence.
While earning a degree is important, it’s not enough. Students need a better map for navigating college. They need to know from day one that half the value of their experience will come from what they do outside the classroom.
To rebuild America’s trust, colleges must point beyond course catalogs and job placement rates. They need to understand how students actually spend their time in college. And they need to understand what those experiences teach them.
Ask someone thriving in their career which part of college most shaped their success, and their answer might surprise you. (I had this experience recently at a dinner with a dozen impressive philanthropic, tech and advocacy leaders.) You might expect them to name a major, a key class or an internship. But they’re more likely to mention running the student newspaper, leading a sorority, conducting undergraduate research, serving in student government or joining the debate team.
Such activities aren’t extracurriculars. They are career-curriculars. They’re the proving grounds where students build real-world skills, grow professional networks and gain confidence to navigate complexity. But most people don’t discuss these experiences until they’re asked about them.
Over time, institutions have created a false divide. The classroom is seen as the domain of learning, and career services is seen as the domain of workforce preparation. But this overlooks an important part of the undergraduate experience: everything in between.
The vast middle of campus life — clubs, competitions, mentorship, leadership roles, part-time jobs and collaborative projects — is where learning becomes doing. It’s where students take risks, test ideas and develop the communication, teamwork and problem-solving skills that employers need.
This oversight has made career services a stand-in for something much bigger. Career services should serve as an essential safety net for students who didn’t or couldn’t fully engage in campus life, but not as the launchpad we often imagine it to be.
Related: OPINION: College is worth it for most students, but its benefits are not equitable
We also need to confront a harder truth: Many students enter college assuming success after college is a given. Students are often told that going to college leads to success. They are rarely told, however, what that journey actually requires. They believe knowledge will be poured into them and that jobs will magically appear once the diploma is in hand. And for good reason, we’ve told them as much.
But college isn’t a vending machine. You can’t insert tuition and expect a job to roll out. Instead, it’s a platform, a laboratory and a proving ground. It requires students to extract value through effort, initiative and exploration, especially outside the classroom.
The credential matters, but it’s not the whole story. A degree can open doors, but it won’t define a career. It’s the skills students build, the relationships they form and the challenges they take on along the way to graduation that shape their future.
As more college leaders rightfully focus on the college-to-career transition, colleges must broadcast that while career services plays a helpful role, students themselves are the primary drivers of their future. But to be clear, colleges bear a grave responsibility here. It’s on us to reinforce the idea that learning occurs everywhere on campus, that the most powerful career preparation comes from doing, not just studying. It’s also on us to address college affordability, so that students have the time to participate in campus life, and to ensure that on-campus jobs are meaningful learning experiences.
Higher education can’t afford public confidence to dip again. The value of college isn’t missing. We’re just not looking in the right place.
Bridget Burns is the founding CEO of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA), a nationally recognized consortium of 19 public research universities driving student success innovation for nearly 600,000 students.
Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].
This story about college experiences was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
What if improving children’s mental health — and life outcomes — could be done by teaching kids how their brains work?
That’s a key idea behind the approach of teachers at Momentous School in Dallas, a private elementary school that serves 225 students, most of whom come from low-income families. Each day, educators present lessons on neuroscience and mindfulness, from the youngest learners all the way up to fifth graders.
Preschoolers in the school’s 3-year-old classroom learn about the brain by singing “The Brain Song” to the tune of “Bingo” (“I have a brain in my head/And it’s for thinking”). They practice mindfulness by lying down with stuffed animals on their stomachs and watching them move up and down as they breathe.
Older students learn calming strategies like slowly counting each finger on their hands while breathing in and out. Classrooms offer tactile models of the brain to help students learn about different parts such as the prefrontal cortex, which controls such processes as executive function and problem solving, and the brain stem, which regulates breathing and blood pressure.
This focus on mindfulness is happening in schools across the country, according to the Child Mind Institute, a nonprofit focused on children’s mental health. Experts say the goal is teaching self-awareness and regulation.
“Once the kids feel they can calm themselves, even just through breathing it’s like the ‘wow’ moment,” said Rick Kinder, creator of a mindfulness program called “Wellness Works in Schools,” in an article by the Child Mind Institute.
At Momentous School, conversations about the brain continue throughout the day, as teachers can be heard encouraging students to identify their emotions or asking, “What’s your amygdala saying to you in this moment?” according to Jessica Gomez, a psychologist and executive director of Momentous Institute, the Dallas-based mental health nonprofit that operates the school. (The amygdala processes emotions in the brain.)
Through these frequent discussions and additional lessons on mental health and healthy relationships, teachers are “trying to normalize these things as part of the human condition versus something that is stigmatizing,” Gomez said. The school also holds regular parent nights to educate families on how the brain works and teach emotional regulation strategies that families can practice together at home.
Momentous School, which launched in 1997 and is funded by philanthropic donations, was developed to put into practice mental health and brain science research from Momentous Institute*. A recent study by Momentous Institute and the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas found this approach may be contributing to positive outcomes for graduates of the school. Of the 73 Momentous School students who went on to graduate from high school in 2016 through 2018, 97 percent earned a high school diploma and 48 percent earned a college degree.
These findings come at a time when lessons on emotions, relationships and social awareness, often referred to as social and emotional learning, have become a flashpoint in education and culture wars. Studies show such lessons can improve academic performance: Other researchers unaffiliated with Momentous School have also found that teaching about the brain can provide motivation for students and improve academic and social development.
As teachers and students head back to school and face new routines and social situations, now is a good time to build relationships and introduce even young students to ideas about how their brain works, Gomez said. Although many students at Momentous deal with challenges such as poverty, she believes that the school’s emphasis on mental health and brain science has helped families to better cope with those pressures.
“The point isn’t to never have stress in your life, it’s to know what to do with it,” Gomez said. “Children and parents having agency and tools helps them know how to navigate life stressors, which has a buffering effect on their brain.”
*Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that Momentous School was developed based on research by Momentous Institute.
Contact staff writer Jackie Mader at 212-678-3562 or [email protected].
This story about neuroscience in education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
It’s not often we get invited to deep dive into the workings of other universities, even less so when they’re on the other side of the world.
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A torrent of controversy has erupted over the Trump administration’s decision to shutter the federal Department of Education. Critics howl that it will destroy public education in America. Supporters insist it will somehow make things better.
The only thing that’s clear is that our public education system is broken. It’s time for politicians to stop using education as a political football, with blue and red teams competing for control rather than sharing the responsibility to prepare our children for their futures.
The resulting chaos and confusion and rigid policies choke the joy out of learning and of working in our schools. Insufficient attention by leaders to education culture can result in fear and distrust, turf wars and a tendency to blame and make excuses for a lack of progress.
Such behaviors produce a toxicity that disables learning and disempowers leadership. Instead of increasing our nation’s economic prosperity, we’re deepening inequality, limiting opportunity and sadly wasting the potential of many children, on whose ability to thrive our country depends.
Poor work conditions, insufficient support, inadequate pay and limited career opportunities are among some of the reasons teachers are leaving and schools are struggling to attract top talent. Reductions in funding from the Great Recession through the present render our facilities dangerous in some instances and unwelcoming in others. Would you buy a house with barbed wire fencing and unkempt grounds that make you wonder whether the aim is to keep something out or in?
Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.
What should we do to change what is going on inside our schools?
We must first of all start working together to make our public schools great places to teach and learn.
Great places to work and learn are places that are well led, fueled by purpose and guided by shared, positive behaviors that advance learning goals and serve as “rules of the road” for how employees and students are expected to behave.
In great schools, employees, students and families are respected and valued. Leaders in great schools inspire their employees — all of them — to do more than they think they can. Employees align behind the purpose of enabling learning, which creates momentum and camaraderie for what they are working to attain together.
In great schools, leaders inspire their communities to join them in cheering for and supporting kids’ future successes. Families, no matter their socioeconomic status, feel a sense of belonging.
Problems are perceived as opportunities to get better, not sources of indiscriminate blame. Solutions are found by looking in the mirror first. External threats to learning, such as poverty or parents’ underemployment, are acknowledged and addressed. Schools don’t dodge their responsibility to educate all kids.
In great schools, kids are known by caring employees; they feel seen and heard and are deeply engaged and invested in their learning.
Every employee working in a great school district feels responsible for achieving the district’s mission, no matter whether they work inside or outside of the classroom.
When kids return after being absent, employees welcome them back, tell them they were missed and focus on catching them up. They do not judge the constraints of their families’ lives or mete out punishment as though missing school is a crime.
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Great places to learn must also be great places to work. We must reframe our concept of schools as not just places where kids learn. Great places to work care about the needs of all the human beings in their care, including and especially their employees.
“To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace,” Douglas R. Conant, former Campbell Soup Company CEO famously said. He knew what is becoming clearer within our public school systems — that unhappy, unfulfilled employees lead to high turnover, disengagement by students and staff and disaffected families turning to alternative educational offerings.
It is no secret that attracting and retaining top talent to work in our schools is increasingly difficult as employees seek more stability. Attracting younger workers is even more difficult.
Many of those who currently work in schools, especially teachers, are stressed, burned out and dissatisfied. Being stressed and burned out is not a normative experience; it’s a symptom of a weak culture, and an organizational problem to be solved. And employee turnover is no longer limited to teachers. There are increasing vacancies among principals, bus drivers and food service and facilities staff.
The quality of the experiences of employees working in our schools must be higher. Every point along the employee experience continuum, from applying for a job to choosing to leave, is an opportunity to deepen employee engagement and commitment to being a high performer.
We can fix what we have broken. Thinking differently about making our public schools great places to work and learn is a good place to start. No policy changes are required to demonstrate concern for the human beings the system employs and seeks to educate.
Etienne R. LeGrand is a thought leader, writer and culture-shaping strategist and adviser at Vivify Performance.
Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].
This story about school culture was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.