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"content": "\u003cp>Oliver, an only child, was born in 2018, and he and his parents don’t live near family. When the pandemic hit, “it was kinda like a perfect storm” during such an important time in early childhood development, said Dan, Oliver’s dad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oliver’s teachers noticed early on in preschool that he was having a hard time engaging with his peers and would keep to himself during group activities, Dan said. His parents initially brushed it off as shyness. “It really surprised us because we don’t see that at home at all,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as his teachers brought up their concerns, Dan and his wife, who weren’t familiar with the special education system, began to learn all about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were prepared to send Oliver to the local public school for kindergarten. But when they found out about Copper Island Academy, they saw an opportunity for Oliver to experience a different type of school, one that reminded Dan of his own school experience, when class sizes were smaller and students connected with their peers and teachers beyond traditional academics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy is where “sisu” — a Finnish word describing an internal level of grit and perseverance — is paramount. It’s a K-8 charter school serving students and their families from the surrounding area of Calumet, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. Tucked behind an EMS vehicle service center on the only road to and from the town’s one-room airport, you might never know that the school is there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66188\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1562px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-66188 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983.jpg\" alt=\"A poster is displayed on a wall\" width=\"1562\" height=\"1463\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983.jpg 1562w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-160x150.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-1536x1439.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1562px) 100vw, 1562px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A poster creating an acronym of the word “sisu” is on display at Copper Island Academy. \u003ccite>(Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Launched in the fall of 2021, the school was developed by educator duo and married couple Matt and Nora Laho. But this isn’t just their brainchild. It was actualized in collaboration with community members and families searching for an answer to their concerns about public education — like increased screentime, a lack of joy in learning, less challenging lessons and dwindling extracurricular offerings — during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, Matt Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parent community also wanted more skilled trades and culinary arts in the day-to-day curriculum, Laho said. For example, parents noted the slow decline in shop classes offered in public schools, so Copper Island made a concerted effort to bring them back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group considered many education models, Laho said, including Montessori and hybrid models, but ultimately they landed on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55006/the-teachers-role-in-finlands-phenomenon-based-learning\">Finnish education model\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Finnish education model is marked by teacher autonomy and collaboration, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/47909/how-kids-learn-better-by-taking-frequent-breaks-throughout-the-day\">frequent breaks\u003c/a>, inclusive practices and differentiation, according to \u003ca href=\"https://taughtbyfinland.com/\">Tim Walker\u003c/a>, Copper Island Academy’s Finnish education model consultant, who has written several books about \u003ca href=\"https://wwnorton.com/books/Teach-Like-Finland/\">teaching in Finland\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers in Finland are highly respected professionals, and it’s difficult to obtain teaching credentials. Teachers are allotted ample time for planning and prep, and they’re expected to leave school at the end of the day alongside their students. In the U.S., teacher shortages are common, morale and teacher pay are low and planning and prep periods are painfully short.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calumet and the surrounding area are home to the highest percentage of people of Finnish heritage outside of Finland itself. But that didn’t mean schools in the area operated like their cross-Atlantic counterparts. For the Lahos, the Finnish model represented what parents and families in the area wanted most out of their children’s education: hands-on classrooms, real-world life skills and a focus on joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What’s so great about Finland? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, Finland emerged as an unexpected global leader in education after the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, published in 2001, ranked Finland number one among the 31 other participating countries. The U.S. showed middle-of-the-road academic scores and was ranked in the 15th spot that same year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2001, the Bush administration also reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and rolled out the No Child Left Behind Act in public schools across the country in 2002, so education reform was already top of mind in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the decade following the 2001 PISA scores, Finland continued to rank in the top three participating countries. Within that time, the U.S. was one of many countries that looked to Finland’s balanced approach to learning for guidance on pedagogical practices, which included differentiated learning and early intervention practices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by the 2010s, Finland’s PISA scores began to fall, and the hype died down. And organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which administers the PISA exams, began to encourage schools to focus more on student well-being beyond academic success, said Walker, an American teacher who taught in Finland for more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the draw to a Finnish model still remains today in education circles, and for Copper Island Academy, it landed close to home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And for parents like Dan, Copper Island had the added benefit of an inclusive special education program. He said enrolling Oliver at Copper Island Academy “was the best decision we possibly could have made.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Special education, the Finnish way\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Oliver has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), a highly detailed, legally binding document, requiring an official diagnosis. The family asked we not use their last name because of privacy concerns for their child. IEPs adjust the curriculum for an individual student in order to meet their goals. Part of Oliver’s education plan includes push-ins during general education classroom time with Jennifer Gervais, one of Copper Island Academy’s special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Push-ins are a form of support that keeps students in the classroom alongside their peers rather than in a siloed special education classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a push-in on one of his more difficult mornings, Gervais sits next to Oliver and quietly prompts him to participate. The other students are used to her presence in their classroom and aren’t phased. Oliver’s responses are very quiet, but he does take part in a phonics lesson led by his teacher, Ms. Erva. And if you listen very carefully, you can hear his peers encouraging him with a “good job, Oliver,” after his turn to play the phonics game is over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66186\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66186\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_JenGervais_headshot-e1773379859400.png\" alt=\"Woman in front of window\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Copper Island Academy teacher Jennifer Gervais. \u003ccite>(Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Although Oliver’s experience at Copper Island Academy has been positive, many students struggle to get the services they need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg/students-with-disabilities#:~:text=In%202022%E2%80%9323%2C%20the%20number,of%20all%20public%20school%20students.\">7.5 million students\u003c/a> receiving special education services in the U.S. — the majority of whom are diagnosed with \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/specific-learning-disorder/what-is-specific-learning-disorder\">specific learning disorders\u003c/a> like dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia. Even for those students who are identified as needing to receive special education services early on, the path to receiving these supports is hard to navigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most often in the U.S., students must exhaust Tier 1 and Tier 2 support services, which consist of specialized, small group instruction from a general education teacher, specialists or paraeducators, before receiving an IEP — a Tier 3 special education service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the special education system in Finland is marked by teacher and family collaboration, personalized learning and trust in teacher expertise; special education intervention in Finland is seen as a preventative and inclusive practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody’s getting support,” said Helmi Betancourt, an elementary special education teacher in Helsinki, Finland. Like many special education teachers in Finland, Betancourt is assigned to many different classrooms. Throughout the week, she spends a couple of hours in each of her assigned classrooms teaching alongside the general education teacher. If there is an individual student or smaller group of students who need extra help outside of their general education classroom, Betancourt has the flexibility to pull them into a separate learning environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision to support a student with special education resources is seen as a pedagogical one, and is accessible for any student in the classroom who is struggling with academic or behavioral issues, according to Betancourt and her colleague in special education, Anna-Mari Vuohelainen. Teachers are free to make these decisions without the explicit consent of parents and without waiting for a diagnosis for additional support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s based on the benefit of the child,” not on a diagnosis, Betancourt said. They use a classroom-based support system to be more inclusive of special education students in their general education classrooms, and to make sure that other students who are not yet receiving support, but might need it, get it as early as possible. This also makes for less paperwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea is that nobody has to wait for the support that they need,” said Betancourt, because sometimes, getting a diagnosis takes a long time and it’s unfair to a student if they can’t get support for years. And the students identified as having the most intensive needs receive them in a setting that makes the most sense for their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there isn’t necessarily a one-to-one application of the Finnish education model to the U.S. special education system.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Early intervention and measuring student growth\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Early intervention is one of the hallmarks of the Finnish education model, and is one that Copper Island has emulated. According to Laho, early intervention allows Copper Island to tackle problems as they emerge and before a formal special education referral needs to be placed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to identify student needs, teachers across departments regularly meet to hold student success meetings. These meetings occur outside of traditional IEP or special education meeting requirements, and all students are considered. This is where they identify students who are struggling, collaborate on how to help the student and regularly check in. Student success meetings often happen before parent involvement, and if the plan to remediate doesn’t work, then they might have to call a parent in to work out a more robust support plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teachers attend student success meetings, but not necessarily to provide special education services. They’re there because of their expertise in Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention. It’s a seemingly small distinction to make, but a rather important one that advances a culture of trust and respect in educators who are highly regarded for their pedagogical expertise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The success of these meetings is measured in individual student growth, not achievement. The teachers and admin focus on answering questions like: Where did this student start the year? Where are they mid-year, and where did they end the year? And according to Laho, student growth is the most useful measurement that Copper Island tracks, and they do so without compromising measurable achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students at Copper Island Academy score very high on traditional indicators of student achievement. Most notably, they received a score of 99.03 in the 2024-25 Michigan School Index — a state-run public school accountability system that evaluates overall school achievement on a scale of 0-100 — placing the school in the top 3.5% of all Michigan public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Inclusion first for special education students \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The school’s unwavering stance on inclusion of all students in general education classrooms was a big deal for Gervais.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other schools throughout her experience in special education, which spans more than a decade, Gervais has had to fight to get special education students included in the general education classroom, she said. Self-contained special education support is not an uncommon practice in public schools across the U.S., in which students receiving differing levels of special education support are kept from their general education peers for much of the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although some level of inclusion in general education classrooms is a North Star for special education in the U.S. public school system, it isn’t always possible or recommended for every student. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not have a number or percentage of general education classroom time that each student with an IEP is required to meet. Rather, inclusion is measured by Least Restrictive Environment practices. But across special education, the measurable benchmark for “good” general education classroom integration time per student hovers around \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=59\">80%\u003c/a>, although classroom time alone doesn’t automatically lead to improved outcomes, said Chris Lemons, a professor who specializes in learning disabilities at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teaching presents its own unique challenges, but according to Jeremy Jarvi, who has taught in self-contained, mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-severe special education classrooms in the Bay Area, the prominent issues that come to mind are systemic and bureaucratic in nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t force it,” said Jarvi, of inclusion in all cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For parents like \u003ca href=\"http://www.danielwillingham.com/\">Daniel Willingham\u003c/a> and his wife, navigating the special education system for their daughter, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-willingham-how-to-interact-with-a-disabled-child-20180322-story.html\">Esprit\u003c/a>, over a decade ago was challenging and frustrating. Willingham is an education expert, and his wife is a teacher, but even then, it took a lot of time and expertise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To be clear, my child was profoundly disabled and so education for her looked quite different,” Willingham said. “It’s not like she was having trouble reading … she couldn’t speak.” So education for Esprit looked like setting up systems for her to be able to communicate “yes” and “no,” and inclusion in a general education classroom wasn’t possible or the best option for her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Esprit’s medical conditions required in-home care and schooling, Willingham and his family experienced many of the common failures and triumphs of the U.S. special education system. They dealt with the frustration that comes with “tangling with bureaucracy,” but also benefited from interactions with educators and therapists who were “working very, very hard under very difficult circumstances trying to help children,” Willingham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We frequently marveled that anyone was able to navigate through this system,” especially families without a stay-at-home parent, Willingham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Paraeducators and classroom staffing\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Classroom staffing can be an issue, according to Jarvi, and at previous schools he found himself spending a lot of time each week training paraeducators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On top of working with the kids, I’m training adults … you hope that they get it the first time,” but they don’t always, and this takes time away from individualized instruction, Jarvi said of his past experiences. He now works with experienced paraeducators who have made a big difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paraeducators are recognized by many states as essential to the K-12 classroom. And for some, like Lemons, the Stanford professor, the idea of paraeducators in the classroom is promising. This is not only because there are more paraeducators than special education teachers in the public school system, but also because they are with students throughout the entire school day, including in special education and general education classrooms, Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the U.S. paraeducators only need a high school diploma, and “in many districts, [paraeducators] receive the least amount of training, the least amount of support; they’re paid the least, but in many ways, they’re kind of the cog in the system that makes everything work, especially for kids with more extensive support needs,” Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, Copper Island has had a positive experience with their paraeducators because of their willingness to go through the extra training and credentialing that the school requires outside of Michigan’s academic standards, according to Laho. The school’s paraeducators are trained on Orton-Gillingham or Morphology, which are touted for their detailed and unique approach to literacy education, especially for students who struggle. Laho said having paraeducators trained in these two methods allows for flexibility “to use multiple different people to attack a problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Trust in special education teachers\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In Finland, conversations between special education teachers and general education teachers happen on a regular basis, and pedagogical approaches to addressing all student learning are shared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Walker, the special education teacher who assisted in his Finnish classroom was seen as an “instructional coach who’s not at a higher level than the general ed teacher, but is still this trusted colleague … who has specialized knowledge in assisting kids who need more support in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A second set of discerning eyes can go a long way. Knowing that he wasn’t alone in providing attentive and individualized instruction for students with IEPs or those who needed a little bit of extra help with a specific subject matter was a relief to Walker. This practice of part-time, in-classroom special education instruction also allowed for Walker to exercise intellectual humility. He acknowledged that the special education teacher’s presence in his classroom two times per week exposed growth areas to better meet student needs, a ritual that he welcomed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a lot of teachers out there, especially in the United States — when they don’t have this type of [inclusive] model — it’s very easy for you to feel alone in your classroom,” Walker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These types of experiences have roots in teacher training programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., “typically, teachers who are trained to be general education teachers receive way too little training related to supporting kids with disabilities,” said Lemons, pointing out that some graduate schools of education, like Stanford’s, offer only one course focused on students with disabilities to elementary teacher candidates. On top of that, he said there’s almost zero training on how general education teachers can build effective working relationships with special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even at Copper Island, where teachers are trained in differentiation, general education teachers have had some trepidation about approaching differentiated learning practices. But experts like Gervais are available and willing to work with general education teachers to adjust their lessons so that everyone can learn with their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I told every one of them, ‘I will gladly show you because in special ed you learn to differentiate anything that’s thrown at you,’” Gervais said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And offering to help general education teachers with differentiating their work also benefits other students outside of special education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t just teach to that middle student. It helps everybody,” Gervais said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Brain breaks for everyone, outside\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Like schools in Finland, Copper Island prioritizes outdoor time for all students, which happens at a greater frequency than a typical U.S. school. This was one of the major draws for Dan and his family, and regular outdoor time during the school day has helped Oliver come out of his shell, connect with friends and focus in the classroom, Dan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But time outside at this school doesn’t just happen during recess and lunch; it happens every 45 minutes for 15 minutes at a time. This is Copper Island’s version of “brain breaks” — a tried and true method of allowing for, typically, classroom time spent away from academic subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brain breaks are used in both American and Finnish schools, but the way that Copper Island does brain breaks is different from most U.S. schools. Typically, brain breaks in American classrooms are occasional, very short, in-class and not necessarily physical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brain breaks at Copper Island are always spent outside — rain or shine or snow — and they happen seamlessly at all grade levels. When the brain break begins, students walk quietly through the hallways and out into the schoolyard. Once the break is over, a whistle is blown, and the students quickly and quietly pile through the school’s back doors, returning to their classrooms with minimal prompting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Usually, moments of transition like these are a stress point for teachers, who are tasked with managing energetic or even disengaged students itching to get away from the lesson plan, and then coaxing them back into the lesson plan. It might even be unfathomable to some teachers across the U.S. to get all students outside for a brain break and then settled and back into the classroom, all within 15 minutes, multiple times per day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there wasn’t any yelling or running down hallways to get to a brain break at Copper Island when I visited. And when asked, teachers repeatedly brushed off any potential stress or anxiety around transitions in and out of brain breaks. It turns out these breaks aren’t just good for students, they’re good for the teachers too, who spend most of their classroom time executing highly engaged and individualized lesson plans for all of their students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edvF_AJXU5I&t=222s\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s only one rule during brain breaks at Copper Island Academy — sports balls aren’t allowed. “The minute that you give a sports ball to somebody, you put rules and limitations on [their play],” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, kids in elementary school are encouraged to play with each other and throughout the various outdoor spaces, like their play structure, the perimeter of surrounding woods, in the garden or on the structure made of industrial-sized rubber tires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sports balls are reintroduced during brain breaks for middle schoolers, who Laho said might need additional motivation to move their bodies and spend time outdoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Can Copper Island be replicated? It depends\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Calumet and the surrounding Houghton County area are a pocket of the U.S. that has preserved old town Americana charm, for better or for worse. Some people don’t lock their front doors, and they leave their keys in their cars when they are away, just in case someone needs to borrow them. The people are kind and welcoming, and very quick to recommend their claim to fame: the meat pasty. And Copper Island Academy reflects these unique traits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The families in the community had worried that the Finnish model in a location with such an overwhelmingly large population of people with Finnish heritage would be seen as exclusionary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Laho, the diversity at Copper Island Academy reflects that of the surrounding area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So far we haven’t seen any discrepancies between, you know, one demographic or another,” Laho said about student academic achievement and behavioral data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The school has also made a significant effort to support teachers beyond their professional development days with Walker and more than what you might find in an average American public school classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Something fundamental took place during the pandemic, Walker said. In the scramble to overhaul in-person learning to virtual learning, along with the pressure to mitigate learning loss, teachers started to publicly acknowledge their dismal working conditions, Walker said. And American society took notice, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was something about COVID that broke many educators,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But paying attention to teacher well-being in a holistic manner at Copper Island has paid off. The school’s baby pilot program allows new mothers, who are only allotted 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave by federal standards, to ease their way back into teaching full time again after having a baby. On certain days, babies are allowed in the classroom, and teachers meet their hours without having to choose continuous, outsourced child care for their infants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teachers also created a support group they call “Tsemppiä,” a Finnish word that doesn’t have a direct translation, but one that Walker compared to terms like “godspeed” or “strength” and is used in Finland as a word of encouragement. And the Tsemppiä group at Copper Island does just that — it exists as a support group made by and for teachers experiencing difficulties in their personal lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Tsemppiä was established before Walker came on as an educational consultant, he quickly recognized its purpose from his days teaching in Finland. The U.S. has a habit of creating and encouraging “super teachers,” Walker said — individuals who exceed, above and beyond, which harbors competition to be “the best.” In his experience, “super teachers” don’t really exist in Finland, Walker said, and instead there’s more of a spirit of teamwork and collaboration between teachers. The adoption of this part of Finnish culture is a big part of why Copper Island has been able to be so successful, Walker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, the administrators don’t seem to hover at Copper Island; rather, as Laho said, they trust their teachers to get their work done. If lesson planning needs to happen at home, then that works for the school administrators. If teachers need to leave the building with the students at 3:20 p.m. when the school day is over, that also works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy experiences the everyday limitations that many American schools and educators face. “I wish we could pay our teachers what they’re worth financially,” said Laho, adding that the school does “find ways to leverage what [they do] have to help” their teachers in other ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to try to find ways to support the teachers in what they’re doing, knowing that we’re asking them to do a lot within our model,” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66185\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1262px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66185\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184.png\" alt=\"Man smiling for portrait\" width=\"1262\" height=\"1618\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184.png 1262w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-160x205.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-768x985.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-1198x1536.png 1198w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1262px) 100vw, 1262px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Copper Island Academy co-founder Matt Laho. \u003ccite>(Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As for students, the school has put into place measures to encourage their belonging in the community. Students are grouped intentionally in classrooms, which gives them the opportunity to work and play with the peers that they may not organically gravitate toward, Laho said. This practice of belonging and empathy extends throughout the school culture, both in the classroom, outdoors and in the community, Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when Dan is out in the neighborhood with his son, or at a local hockey game, all of the hard work that Oliver and his teachers have done to face challenging social situations has paid off. Now, when Oliver sees someone familiar outside of school, “[he] always points out, ‘Hey, there’s my friend from school’ or ‘there’s my teacher,’” Dan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He described enrolling Oliver in Copper Island as one of the best decisions he’s recently made and is glad he did it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that connection between the students and the students and their and their teachers is really great,” he said. “Really, really great.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The Finnish education model shot to global prominence in 2001, but has since fallen. But the lessons of Finland still resonate with educators and parents, so much so that some U.S. schools are modeled with Finnish best practices. ",
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"title": "How Finnish Education Inspires U.S. Schools, Still | KQED",
"description": "The Finnish education model shot to global prominence in 2001, but has since fallen. But the lessons of Finland still resonate with educators and parents, so much so that some U.S. schools are modeled with Finnish best practices. ",
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"headline": "How Finnish Education Inspires U.S. Schools, Still",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Oliver, an only child, was born in 2018, and he and his parents don’t live near family. When the pandemic hit, “it was kinda like a perfect storm” during such an important time in early childhood development, said Dan, Oliver’s dad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oliver’s teachers noticed early on in preschool that he was having a hard time engaging with his peers and would keep to himself during group activities, Dan said. His parents initially brushed it off as shyness. “It really surprised us because we don’t see that at home at all,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as his teachers brought up their concerns, Dan and his wife, who weren’t familiar with the special education system, began to learn all about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They were prepared to send Oliver to the local public school for kindergarten. But when they found out about Copper Island Academy, they saw an opportunity for Oliver to experience a different type of school, one that reminded Dan of his own school experience, when class sizes were smaller and students connected with their peers and teachers beyond traditional academics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy is where “sisu” — a Finnish word describing an internal level of grit and perseverance — is paramount. It’s a K-8 charter school serving students and their families from the surrounding area of Calumet, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. Tucked behind an EMS vehicle service center on the only road to and from the town’s one-room airport, you might never know that the school is there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66188\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1562px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-66188 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983.jpg\" alt=\"A poster is displayed on a wall\" width=\"1562\" height=\"1463\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983.jpg 1562w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-160x150.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-768x719.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_SISUacronymposter-1-scaled-e1773380265983-1536x1439.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1562px) 100vw, 1562px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A poster creating an acronym of the word “sisu” is on display at Copper Island Academy. \u003ccite>(Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Launched in the fall of 2021, the school was developed by educator duo and married couple Matt and Nora Laho. But this isn’t just their brainchild. It was actualized in collaboration with community members and families searching for an answer to their concerns about public education — like increased screentime, a lack of joy in learning, less challenging lessons and dwindling extracurricular offerings — during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, Matt Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parent community also wanted more skilled trades and culinary arts in the day-to-day curriculum, Laho said. For example, parents noted the slow decline in shop classes offered in public schools, so Copper Island made a concerted effort to bring them back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group considered many education models, Laho said, including Montessori and hybrid models, but ultimately they landed on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/55006/the-teachers-role-in-finlands-phenomenon-based-learning\">Finnish education model\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Finnish education model is marked by teacher autonomy and collaboration, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/47909/how-kids-learn-better-by-taking-frequent-breaks-throughout-the-day\">frequent breaks\u003c/a>, inclusive practices and differentiation, according to \u003ca href=\"https://taughtbyfinland.com/\">Tim Walker\u003c/a>, Copper Island Academy’s Finnish education model consultant, who has written several books about \u003ca href=\"https://wwnorton.com/books/Teach-Like-Finland/\">teaching in Finland\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers in Finland are highly respected professionals, and it’s difficult to obtain teaching credentials. Teachers are allotted ample time for planning and prep, and they’re expected to leave school at the end of the day alongside their students. In the U.S., teacher shortages are common, morale and teacher pay are low and planning and prep periods are painfully short.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calumet and the surrounding area are home to the highest percentage of people of Finnish heritage outside of Finland itself. But that didn’t mean schools in the area operated like their cross-Atlantic counterparts. For the Lahos, the Finnish model represented what parents and families in the area wanted most out of their children’s education: hands-on classrooms, real-world life skills and a focus on joy.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What’s so great about Finland? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the early 2000s, Finland emerged as an unexpected global leader in education after the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, published in 2001, ranked Finland number one among the 31 other participating countries. The U.S. showed middle-of-the-road academic scores and was ranked in the 15th spot that same year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2001, the Bush administration also reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and rolled out the No Child Left Behind Act in public schools across the country in 2002, so education reform was already top of mind in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the decade following the 2001 PISA scores, Finland continued to rank in the top three participating countries. Within that time, the U.S. was one of many countries that looked to Finland’s balanced approach to learning for guidance on pedagogical practices, which included differentiated learning and early intervention practices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by the 2010s, Finland’s PISA scores began to fall, and the hype died down. And organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which administers the PISA exams, began to encourage schools to focus more on student well-being beyond academic success, said Walker, an American teacher who taught in Finland for more than 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the draw to a Finnish model still remains today in education circles, and for Copper Island Academy, it landed close to home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And for parents like Dan, Copper Island had the added benefit of an inclusive special education program. He said enrolling Oliver at Copper Island Academy “was the best decision we possibly could have made.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Special education, the Finnish way\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Oliver has an Individualized Education Program (IEP), a highly detailed, legally binding document, requiring an official diagnosis. The family asked we not use their last name because of privacy concerns for their child. IEPs adjust the curriculum for an individual student in order to meet their goals. Part of Oliver’s education plan includes push-ins during general education classroom time with Jennifer Gervais, one of Copper Island Academy’s special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Push-ins are a form of support that keeps students in the classroom alongside their peers rather than in a siloed special education classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a push-in on one of his more difficult mornings, Gervais sits next to Oliver and quietly prompts him to participate. The other students are used to her presence in their classroom and aren’t phased. Oliver’s responses are very quiet, but he does take part in a phonics lesson led by his teacher, Ms. Erva. And if you listen very carefully, you can hear his peers encouraging him with a “good job, Oliver,” after his turn to play the phonics game is over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66186\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66186\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_JenGervais_headshot-e1773379859400.png\" alt=\"Woman in front of window\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Copper Island Academy teacher Jennifer Gervais. \u003ccite>(Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Although Oliver’s experience at Copper Island Academy has been positive, many students struggle to get the services they need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgg/students-with-disabilities#:~:text=In%202022%E2%80%9323%2C%20the%20number,of%20all%20public%20school%20students.\">7.5 million students\u003c/a> receiving special education services in the U.S. — the majority of whom are diagnosed with \u003ca href=\"https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/specific-learning-disorder/what-is-specific-learning-disorder\">specific learning disorders\u003c/a> like dyslexia, dysgraphia or dyscalculia. Even for those students who are identified as needing to receive special education services early on, the path to receiving these supports is hard to navigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most often in the U.S., students must exhaust Tier 1 and Tier 2 support services, which consist of specialized, small group instruction from a general education teacher, specialists or paraeducators, before receiving an IEP — a Tier 3 special education service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the special education system in Finland is marked by teacher and family collaboration, personalized learning and trust in teacher expertise; special education intervention in Finland is seen as a preventative and inclusive practice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody’s getting support,” said Helmi Betancourt, an elementary special education teacher in Helsinki, Finland. Like many special education teachers in Finland, Betancourt is assigned to many different classrooms. Throughout the week, she spends a couple of hours in each of her assigned classrooms teaching alongside the general education teacher. If there is an individual student or smaller group of students who need extra help outside of their general education classroom, Betancourt has the flexibility to pull them into a separate learning environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision to support a student with special education resources is seen as a pedagogical one, and is accessible for any student in the classroom who is struggling with academic or behavioral issues, according to Betancourt and her colleague in special education, Anna-Mari Vuohelainen. Teachers are free to make these decisions without the explicit consent of parents and without waiting for a diagnosis for additional support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s based on the benefit of the child,” not on a diagnosis, Betancourt said. They use a classroom-based support system to be more inclusive of special education students in their general education classrooms, and to make sure that other students who are not yet receiving support, but might need it, get it as early as possible. This also makes for less paperwork.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea is that nobody has to wait for the support that they need,” said Betancourt, because sometimes, getting a diagnosis takes a long time and it’s unfair to a student if they can’t get support for years. And the students identified as having the most intensive needs receive them in a setting that makes the most sense for their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there isn’t necessarily a one-to-one application of the Finnish education model to the U.S. special education system.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Early intervention and measuring student growth\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Early intervention is one of the hallmarks of the Finnish education model, and is one that Copper Island has emulated. According to Laho, early intervention allows Copper Island to tackle problems as they emerge and before a formal special education referral needs to be placed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to identify student needs, teachers across departments regularly meet to hold student success meetings. These meetings occur outside of traditional IEP or special education meeting requirements, and all students are considered. This is where they identify students who are struggling, collaborate on how to help the student and regularly check in. Student success meetings often happen before parent involvement, and if the plan to remediate doesn’t work, then they might have to call a parent in to work out a more robust support plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teachers attend student success meetings, but not necessarily to provide special education services. They’re there because of their expertise in Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention. It’s a seemingly small distinction to make, but a rather important one that advances a culture of trust and respect in educators who are highly regarded for their pedagogical expertise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The success of these meetings is measured in individual student growth, not achievement. The teachers and admin focus on answering questions like: Where did this student start the year? Where are they mid-year, and where did they end the year? And according to Laho, student growth is the most useful measurement that Copper Island tracks, and they do so without compromising measurable achievement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students at Copper Island Academy score very high on traditional indicators of student achievement. Most notably, they received a score of 99.03 in the 2024-25 Michigan School Index — a state-run public school accountability system that evaluates overall school achievement on a scale of 0-100 — placing the school in the top 3.5% of all Michigan public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Inclusion first for special education students \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The school’s unwavering stance on inclusion of all students in general education classrooms was a big deal for Gervais.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other schools throughout her experience in special education, which spans more than a decade, Gervais has had to fight to get special education students included in the general education classroom, she said. Self-contained special education support is not an uncommon practice in public schools across the U.S., in which students receiving differing levels of special education support are kept from their general education peers for much of the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although some level of inclusion in general education classrooms is a North Star for special education in the U.S. public school system, it isn’t always possible or recommended for every student. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not have a number or percentage of general education classroom time that each student with an IEP is required to meet. Rather, inclusion is measured by Least Restrictive Environment practices. But across special education, the measurable benchmark for “good” general education classroom integration time per student hovers around \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=59\">80%\u003c/a>, although classroom time alone doesn’t automatically lead to improved outcomes, said Chris Lemons, a professor who specializes in learning disabilities at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special education teaching presents its own unique challenges, but according to Jeremy Jarvi, who has taught in self-contained, mild-to-moderate and moderate-to-severe special education classrooms in the Bay Area, the prominent issues that come to mind are systemic and bureaucratic in nature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t force it,” said Jarvi, of inclusion in all cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For parents like \u003ca href=\"http://www.danielwillingham.com/\">Daniel Willingham\u003c/a> and his wife, navigating the special education system for their daughter, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-willingham-how-to-interact-with-a-disabled-child-20180322-story.html\">Esprit\u003c/a>, over a decade ago was challenging and frustrating. Willingham is an education expert, and his wife is a teacher, but even then, it took a lot of time and expertise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To be clear, my child was profoundly disabled and so education for her looked quite different,” Willingham said. “It’s not like she was having trouble reading … she couldn’t speak.” So education for Esprit looked like setting up systems for her to be able to communicate “yes” and “no,” and inclusion in a general education classroom wasn’t possible or the best option for her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Esprit’s medical conditions required in-home care and schooling, Willingham and his family experienced many of the common failures and triumphs of the U.S. special education system. They dealt with the frustration that comes with “tangling with bureaucracy,” but also benefited from interactions with educators and therapists who were “working very, very hard under very difficult circumstances trying to help children,” Willingham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We frequently marveled that anyone was able to navigate through this system,” especially families without a stay-at-home parent, Willingham said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Paraeducators and classroom staffing\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Classroom staffing can be an issue, according to Jarvi, and at previous schools he found himself spending a lot of time each week training paraeducators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On top of working with the kids, I’m training adults … you hope that they get it the first time,” but they don’t always, and this takes time away from individualized instruction, Jarvi said of his past experiences. He now works with experienced paraeducators who have made a big difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paraeducators are recognized by many states as essential to the K-12 classroom. And for some, like Lemons, the Stanford professor, the idea of paraeducators in the classroom is promising. This is not only because there are more paraeducators than special education teachers in the public school system, but also because they are with students throughout the entire school day, including in special education and general education classrooms, Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the U.S. paraeducators only need a high school diploma, and “in many districts, [paraeducators] receive the least amount of training, the least amount of support; they’re paid the least, but in many ways, they’re kind of the cog in the system that makes everything work, especially for kids with more extensive support needs,” Lemons said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, Copper Island has had a positive experience with their paraeducators because of their willingness to go through the extra training and credentialing that the school requires outside of Michigan’s academic standards, according to Laho. The school’s paraeducators are trained on Orton-Gillingham or Morphology, which are touted for their detailed and unique approach to literacy education, especially for students who struggle. Laho said having paraeducators trained in these two methods allows for flexibility “to use multiple different people to attack a problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Trust in special education teachers\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In Finland, conversations between special education teachers and general education teachers happen on a regular basis, and pedagogical approaches to addressing all student learning are shared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Walker, the special education teacher who assisted in his Finnish classroom was seen as an “instructional coach who’s not at a higher level than the general ed teacher, but is still this trusted colleague … who has specialized knowledge in assisting kids who need more support in the classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A second set of discerning eyes can go a long way. Knowing that he wasn’t alone in providing attentive and individualized instruction for students with IEPs or those who needed a little bit of extra help with a specific subject matter was a relief to Walker. This practice of part-time, in-classroom special education instruction also allowed for Walker to exercise intellectual humility. He acknowledged that the special education teacher’s presence in his classroom two times per week exposed growth areas to better meet student needs, a ritual that he welcomed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a lot of teachers out there, especially in the United States — when they don’t have this type of [inclusive] model — it’s very easy for you to feel alone in your classroom,” Walker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These types of experiences have roots in teacher training programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., “typically, teachers who are trained to be general education teachers receive way too little training related to supporting kids with disabilities,” said Lemons, pointing out that some graduate schools of education, like Stanford’s, offer only one course focused on students with disabilities to elementary teacher candidates. On top of that, he said there’s almost zero training on how general education teachers can build effective working relationships with special education teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even at Copper Island, where teachers are trained in differentiation, general education teachers have had some trepidation about approaching differentiated learning practices. But experts like Gervais are available and willing to work with general education teachers to adjust their lessons so that everyone can learn with their peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I told every one of them, ‘I will gladly show you because in special ed you learn to differentiate anything that’s thrown at you,’” Gervais said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And offering to help general education teachers with differentiating their work also benefits other students outside of special education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t just teach to that middle student. It helps everybody,” Gervais said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Brain breaks for everyone, outside\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Like schools in Finland, Copper Island prioritizes outdoor time for all students, which happens at a greater frequency than a typical U.S. school. This was one of the major draws for Dan and his family, and regular outdoor time during the school day has helped Oliver come out of his shell, connect with friends and focus in the classroom, Dan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But time outside at this school doesn’t just happen during recess and lunch; it happens every 45 minutes for 15 minutes at a time. This is Copper Island’s version of “brain breaks” — a tried and true method of allowing for, typically, classroom time spent away from academic subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brain breaks are used in both American and Finnish schools, but the way that Copper Island does brain breaks is different from most U.S. schools. Typically, brain breaks in American classrooms are occasional, very short, in-class and not necessarily physical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brain breaks at Copper Island are always spent outside — rain or shine or snow — and they happen seamlessly at all grade levels. When the brain break begins, students walk quietly through the hallways and out into the schoolyard. Once the break is over, a whistle is blown, and the students quickly and quietly pile through the school’s back doors, returning to their classrooms with minimal prompting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Usually, moments of transition like these are a stress point for teachers, who are tasked with managing energetic or even disengaged students itching to get away from the lesson plan, and then coaxing them back into the lesson plan. It might even be unfathomable to some teachers across the U.S. to get all students outside for a brain break and then settled and back into the classroom, all within 15 minutes, multiple times per day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there wasn’t any yelling or running down hallways to get to a brain break at Copper Island when I visited. And when asked, teachers repeatedly brushed off any potential stress or anxiety around transitions in and out of brain breaks. It turns out these breaks aren’t just good for students, they’re good for the teachers too, who spend most of their classroom time executing highly engaged and individualized lesson plans for all of their students.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/edvF_AJXU5I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/edvF_AJXU5I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>There’s only one rule during brain breaks at Copper Island Academy — sports balls aren’t allowed. “The minute that you give a sports ball to somebody, you put rules and limitations on [their play],” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, kids in elementary school are encouraged to play with each other and throughout the various outdoor spaces, like their play structure, the perimeter of surrounding woods, in the garden or on the structure made of industrial-sized rubber tires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sports balls are reintroduced during brain breaks for middle schoolers, who Laho said might need additional motivation to move their bodies and spend time outdoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Can Copper Island be replicated? It depends\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Calumet and the surrounding Houghton County area are a pocket of the U.S. that has preserved old town Americana charm, for better or for worse. Some people don’t lock their front doors, and they leave their keys in their cars when they are away, just in case someone needs to borrow them. The people are kind and welcoming, and very quick to recommend their claim to fame: the meat pasty. And Copper Island Academy reflects these unique traits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The families in the community had worried that the Finnish model in a location with such an overwhelmingly large population of people with Finnish heritage would be seen as exclusionary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Laho, the diversity at Copper Island Academy reflects that of the surrounding area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So far we haven’t seen any discrepancies between, you know, one demographic or another,” Laho said about student academic achievement and behavioral data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The school has also made a significant effort to support teachers beyond their professional development days with Walker and more than what you might find in an average American public school classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Something fundamental took place during the pandemic, Walker said. In the scramble to overhaul in-person learning to virtual learning, along with the pressure to mitigate learning loss, teachers started to publicly acknowledge their dismal working conditions, Walker said. And American society took notice, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There was something about COVID that broke many educators,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But paying attention to teacher well-being in a holistic manner at Copper Island has paid off. The school’s baby pilot program allows new mothers, who are only allotted 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave by federal standards, to ease their way back into teaching full time again after having a baby. On certain days, babies are allowed in the classroom, and teachers meet their hours without having to choose continuous, outsourced child care for their infants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teachers also created a support group they call “Tsemppiä,” a Finnish word that doesn’t have a direct translation, but one that Walker compared to terms like “godspeed” or “strength” and is used in Finland as a word of encouragement. And the Tsemppiä group at Copper Island does just that — it exists as a support group made by and for teachers experiencing difficulties in their personal lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although Tsemppiä was established before Walker came on as an educational consultant, he quickly recognized its purpose from his days teaching in Finland. The U.S. has a habit of creating and encouraging “super teachers,” Walker said — individuals who exceed, above and beyond, which harbors competition to be “the best.” In his experience, “super teachers” don’t really exist in Finland, Walker said, and instead there’s more of a spirit of teamwork and collaboration between teachers. The adoption of this part of Finnish culture is a big part of why Copper Island has been able to be so successful, Walker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, the administrators don’t seem to hover at Copper Island; rather, as Laho said, they trust their teachers to get their work done. If lesson planning needs to happen at home, then that works for the school administrators. If teachers need to leave the building with the students at 3:20 p.m. when the school day is over, that also works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Copper Island Academy experiences the everyday limitations that many American schools and educators face. “I wish we could pay our teachers what they’re worth financially,” said Laho, adding that the school does “find ways to leverage what [they do] have to help” their teachers in other ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to try to find ways to support the teachers in what they’re doing, knowing that we’re asking them to do a lot within our model,” Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_66185\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1262px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66185\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184.png\" alt=\"Man smiling for portrait\" width=\"1262\" height=\"1618\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184.png 1262w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-160x205.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-768x985.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/03/MS_CIA_MattLaho_headshot2-e1773379757184-1198x1536.png 1198w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1262px) 100vw, 1262px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Copper Island Academy co-founder Matt Laho. \u003ccite>(Marlena Jackson-Retondo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As for students, the school has put into place measures to encourage their belonging in the community. Students are grouped intentionally in classrooms, which gives them the opportunity to work and play with the peers that they may not organically gravitate toward, Laho said. This practice of belonging and empathy extends throughout the school culture, both in the classroom, outdoors and in the community, Laho said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And when Dan is out in the neighborhood with his son, or at a local hockey game, all of the hard work that Oliver and his teachers have done to face challenging social situations has paid off. Now, when Oliver sees someone familiar outside of school, “[he] always points out, ‘Hey, there’s my friend from school’ or ‘there’s my teacher,’” Dan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He described enrolling Oliver in Copper Island as one of the best decisions he’s recently made and is glad he did it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that connection between the students and the students and their and their teachers is really great,” he said. “Really, really great.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Last fall, a star soccer player at St. Benedicts Academy in New Jersey was suspended for two games after \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.com/highschoolsports/2025/09/star-player-for-nj-soccer-dynasty-grabbed-photographer-by-throat-during-post-game-fight.html\">brawling\u003c/a> with players from the opposing team and then grabbing a photographer by the throat who caught the tussle on film. A post-game handshake went bad in Louisiana after a high-stakes football game when a player from Natchitoches Central High School \u003ca href=\"https://natchitochesparishjournal.com/2025/11/17/nchs-apologizes-after-unnamed-player-is-arrested-for-postgame-punch/\">punched\u003c/a> an opponent, sending him to the hospital. In Pennsylvania, s prominent soccer coach at Conestoga High School was quietly placed on leave after being caught making prop \u003ca href=\"https://www.inquirer.com/news/conestoga-high-school-david-zimmerman-gambling-20250817.html\">bets\u003c/a> on basketball games with students from the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bleak stories like these have become so common in youth and high school sports that few stories hold public attention for very long. Ask referees and umpires who oversee youth competitions and they’ll tell you that \u003ca href=\"https://www.espn.com/high-school/story/_/id/40186581/officiating-assault-referees-umpires\">sportsmanship\u003c/a> has worsened, especially among parents; thousands of sports officials have resigned as a result. Even so, according to a 2024 Harris \u003ca href=\"https://firsttee.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Cultivating-the-Next-Generation-of-Character2024.pdf\">poll\u003c/a>, 93 percent of mothers and fathers believe that sports build character in kids. And despite or because of the uptick in misbehavior at kids’ games, parents claim to value character education in sports and want coaches who respect ethics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most school athletic departments design mission statements that define what the school claims to value in its sports programs. Many refer obliquely to honesty, integrity and moral development, laudable attributes that coaches are expected to help develop in their players. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sbp.org/gray-bee-athletics\">St. Benedicts Academy\u003c/a>, for example, asserts that athletics are “about character, camaraderie and embracing values that withstand a lifetime.” But such statements often fail to reflect, or challenge, the reality of competitive school sports, where defeating an opponent can take priority over lessons in integrity and fair play. Hopes among some players of securing \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2021/7/9/name-image-likeness.aspx\">Name, Image and Likeness deals\u003c/a> in college also can reduce high school sports to brand-building opportunities. Talk of team loyalty and selflessness can seem quaint and unrealistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.uidaho.edu/people/sstoll\">Sharon Stoll\u003c/a>, who runs the Center for Ethics at the University of Idaho, the research is definitive about athletics building what she calls “social character”: teamwork, perseverance, loyalty and work ethic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these qualities lack a moral dimension; terrorists, after all, can be highly disciplined and hard working. When it comes to beneficence, responsibility, justice and honesty — the foundational principles of ethics — athletes are no more likely to understand and embrace them than kids in the stands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most sports are about motor skills, not moral skills,” Stoll told me. “It doesn’t magically happen because you are walking or biking or jogging,” she added. The central dilemma for coaches is this: what are you willing to do to win?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some schools take deliberate steps to include character education in their sports programs. At the Menlo School in California, for example, water polo coach \u003ca href=\"https://www.menloschool.org/athletics/us-boys-varsity-water-polo/\">Jack Bowen\u003c/a> offers a model for how coaches and schools can make character development central to their teams. Bowen believes that athletic teams offer a natural setting for teaching moral reasoning because ethical quandaries pop up frequently in sports — and kids who play are a captive audience for learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ethics education for the team starts during preseason, when Bowen assigns \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/arthur-c-brooks-love-people-not-pleasure.html\">articles\u003c/a> for the players to read. Most of the stories are unrelated to sport. Then he invites the teenagers to talk about what they learned, first in smaller groups and then as a whole team; the smaller groups allow for more emotional risk-taking, Bowen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team also immerses itself in the athletic department’s mission \u003ca href=\"https://www.menloschool.org/athletics/about-menlo-athletics/\">statement\u003c/a> which elevates four central ideas: pursue excellence, celebrate team, honor the game and uphold strong values. The discussion isn’t a one-time event. Rather, Bowen elicits players’ opinions on ethical challenges that emerge throughout the season, striving to reconcile the mission with what they’re doing in practice and during games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the 2025 season, for example, Bowen noticed one of the Menlo players waving sarcastically at a teenager from the opposing team when that player fouled out. Because he cared for the teenager’s development and believes in the principles that guide the team, Bowen pulled his own player out of the pool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had to do it and the team understood,” Bowen said. It wasn’t a punishment, he added. Afterwards, the coach and player talked at length about what happened and how mocking an opponent, even subtly, dishonored the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.roxburylatin.org/athletics/staff/\">Sean Spellman\u003c/a>, the head basketball coach at the Roxbury Latin School in Massachusetts, emphasizes a less formal concept of character building on his teams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It starts with the philosophy of the school and knowing and loving each one of the athletes,” Spellman told me. “There’s a genuine care and connection there, regardless of how they are as a defensive basketball player.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, he handed out a 65-question survey to the team that went beyond sports. Who do they admire? When do they feel their best — and worst? During one weekly film session, which Spellman uses to connect personally with the players, he introduced “Teammate Jeopardy” to encourage kids to learn about each other. Like Bowen, Spellman engages the team in collective conversations: What does it mean to have pride and be part of the Roxbury Latin community? What do we value here? While transparent about the adolescents’ play, Spellman assures the teenagers that their basketball skills don’t diminish their value to the group as a person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He strives to make the character dimension of sports tangible, even during the tensest moments of a game. Spellman will “burn a timeout,” as he put it, to remind the players during tight plays that it’s how they handle the high-stakes experiences that matter most, because they’ll have many more to grapple with as they age. “I cherish what this high school sports experience is,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coaches need help figuring out how to balance competing goals. To that end, a graduate student of Dr. Stoll’s, Samantha Lewis, launched a \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/5GF0vTbQfK2qDivtGB6ksw\">podcast\u003c/a> to help them talk through some of the ethical issues they’ll encounter. \u003cem>The Coach’s Dilemma: What Will You Do to Win?\u003c/em> addresses moral reasoning, trash talk, the impact of Name, Image, Likeness deals and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both coaches said that the wider culture makes these lessons harder to teach. Spellman lamented the way some team sports have mutated into vehicles for individual performances, with kids fussing over their metrics to the exclusion of the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re trying to sell something that’s not being taught in our society,” Bowen said. Stoll reminded me that kids and teenagers need guidance to develop character through sports. They need engaged role models, a supportive environment and formal and informal education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Someone has to teach the moral values, someone has to be there helping the children navigate through life,” Stoll added.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Last fall, a star soccer player at St. Benedicts Academy in New Jersey was suspended for two games after \u003ca href=\"https://www.nj.com/highschoolsports/2025/09/star-player-for-nj-soccer-dynasty-grabbed-photographer-by-throat-during-post-game-fight.html\">brawling\u003c/a> with players from the opposing team and then grabbing a photographer by the throat who caught the tussle on film. A post-game handshake went bad in Louisiana after a high-stakes football game when a player from Natchitoches Central High School \u003ca href=\"https://natchitochesparishjournal.com/2025/11/17/nchs-apologizes-after-unnamed-player-is-arrested-for-postgame-punch/\">punched\u003c/a> an opponent, sending him to the hospital. In Pennsylvania, s prominent soccer coach at Conestoga High School was quietly placed on leave after being caught making prop \u003ca href=\"https://www.inquirer.com/news/conestoga-high-school-david-zimmerman-gambling-20250817.html\">bets\u003c/a> on basketball games with students from the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bleak stories like these have become so common in youth and high school sports that few stories hold public attention for very long. Ask referees and umpires who oversee youth competitions and they’ll tell you that \u003ca href=\"https://www.espn.com/high-school/story/_/id/40186581/officiating-assault-referees-umpires\">sportsmanship\u003c/a> has worsened, especially among parents; thousands of sports officials have resigned as a result. Even so, according to a 2024 Harris \u003ca href=\"https://firsttee.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Cultivating-the-Next-Generation-of-Character2024.pdf\">poll\u003c/a>, 93 percent of mothers and fathers believe that sports build character in kids. And despite or because of the uptick in misbehavior at kids’ games, parents claim to value character education in sports and want coaches who respect ethics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most school athletic departments design mission statements that define what the school claims to value in its sports programs. Many refer obliquely to honesty, integrity and moral development, laudable attributes that coaches are expected to help develop in their players. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sbp.org/gray-bee-athletics\">St. Benedicts Academy\u003c/a>, for example, asserts that athletics are “about character, camaraderie and embracing values that withstand a lifetime.” But such statements often fail to reflect, or challenge, the reality of competitive school sports, where defeating an opponent can take priority over lessons in integrity and fair play. Hopes among some players of securing \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2021/7/9/name-image-likeness.aspx\">Name, Image and Likeness deals\u003c/a> in college also can reduce high school sports to brand-building opportunities. Talk of team loyalty and selflessness can seem quaint and unrealistic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.uidaho.edu/people/sstoll\">Sharon Stoll\u003c/a>, who runs the Center for Ethics at the University of Idaho, the research is definitive about athletics building what she calls “social character”: teamwork, perseverance, loyalty and work ethic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But these qualities lack a moral dimension; terrorists, after all, can be highly disciplined and hard working. When it comes to beneficence, responsibility, justice and honesty — the foundational principles of ethics — athletes are no more likely to understand and embrace them than kids in the stands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most sports are about motor skills, not moral skills,” Stoll told me. “It doesn’t magically happen because you are walking or biking or jogging,” she added. The central dilemma for coaches is this: what are you willing to do to win?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some schools take deliberate steps to include character education in their sports programs. At the Menlo School in California, for example, water polo coach \u003ca href=\"https://www.menloschool.org/athletics/us-boys-varsity-water-polo/\">Jack Bowen\u003c/a> offers a model for how coaches and schools can make character development central to their teams. Bowen believes that athletic teams offer a natural setting for teaching moral reasoning because ethical quandaries pop up frequently in sports — and kids who play are a captive audience for learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ethics education for the team starts during preseason, when Bowen assigns \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/arthur-c-brooks-love-people-not-pleasure.html\">articles\u003c/a> for the players to read. Most of the stories are unrelated to sport. Then he invites the teenagers to talk about what they learned, first in smaller groups and then as a whole team; the smaller groups allow for more emotional risk-taking, Bowen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team also immerses itself in the athletic department’s mission \u003ca href=\"https://www.menloschool.org/athletics/about-menlo-athletics/\">statement\u003c/a> which elevates four central ideas: pursue excellence, celebrate team, honor the game and uphold strong values. The discussion isn’t a one-time event. Rather, Bowen elicits players’ opinions on ethical challenges that emerge throughout the season, striving to reconcile the mission with what they’re doing in practice and during games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the 2025 season, for example, Bowen noticed one of the Menlo players waving sarcastically at a teenager from the opposing team when that player fouled out. Because he cared for the teenager’s development and believes in the principles that guide the team, Bowen pulled his own player out of the pool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I had to do it and the team understood,” Bowen said. It wasn’t a punishment, he added. Afterwards, the coach and player talked at length about what happened and how mocking an opponent, even subtly, dishonored the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.roxburylatin.org/athletics/staff/\">Sean Spellman\u003c/a>, the head basketball coach at the Roxbury Latin School in Massachusetts, emphasizes a less formal concept of character building on his teams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It starts with the philosophy of the school and knowing and loving each one of the athletes,” Spellman told me. “There’s a genuine care and connection there, regardless of how they are as a defensive basketball player.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, he handed out a 65-question survey to the team that went beyond sports. Who do they admire? When do they feel their best — and worst? During one weekly film session, which Spellman uses to connect personally with the players, he introduced “Teammate Jeopardy” to encourage kids to learn about each other. Like Bowen, Spellman engages the team in collective conversations: What does it mean to have pride and be part of the Roxbury Latin community? What do we value here? While transparent about the adolescents’ play, Spellman assures the teenagers that their basketball skills don’t diminish their value to the group as a person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He strives to make the character dimension of sports tangible, even during the tensest moments of a game. Spellman will “burn a timeout,” as he put it, to remind the players during tight plays that it’s how they handle the high-stakes experiences that matter most, because they’ll have many more to grapple with as they age. “I cherish what this high school sports experience is,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coaches need help figuring out how to balance competing goals. To that end, a graduate student of Dr. Stoll’s, Samantha Lewis, launched a \u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/show/5GF0vTbQfK2qDivtGB6ksw\">podcast\u003c/a> to help them talk through some of the ethical issues they’ll encounter. \u003cem>The Coach’s Dilemma: What Will You Do to Win?\u003c/em> addresses moral reasoning, trash talk, the impact of Name, Image, Likeness deals and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both coaches said that the wider culture makes these lessons harder to teach. Spellman lamented the way some team sports have mutated into vehicles for individual performances, with kids fussing over their metrics to the exclusion of the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re trying to sell something that’s not being taught in our society,” Bowen said. Stoll reminded me that kids and teenagers need guidance to develop character through sports. They need engaged role models, a supportive environment and formal and informal education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Sometimes you meet a person and just know: \u003cem>You. \u003c/em>I want to be friends with\u003cem> you. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conversation flows. They make you laugh. You want to know more about them. So you say, “Hey, we should get together sometime!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.katvellos.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Kat Vellos\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, author of \u003ca href=\"https://weshouldgettogether.com/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, has a better idea. Schedule an \u003cem>actual\u003c/em> time to hang out. “Pull out your calendar, pick a time, pick a thing to do together and follow through,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“‘Sometime’ is vague,” she says. “The more specific you are, the more likely you’re going to get together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it’s been awhile since you’ve sought out a new friend and you’re feeling a bit rusty, try developing what Vellos calls “friendship intuition.” That means knowing who to prioritize, how to spend time together and what to do if the vibes just aren’t there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a conversation with Life Kit, Vellos shares insights on how to turn a stranger into a friend, based on scientific research and her work as a friendship coach. In that role, she helps people who are having a hard time making friends where they live, and talks to city leaders and urban planners about designing spaces for connection. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s talk about how to spot a friend in the wild. Maybe this is in a community space or a group dinner. How do you know if this person has friend potential? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Notice who you feel warmth with, who you feel safe around. Also notice if they show curiosity about getting to know you more too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not necessarily the most exciting person in the room. They might have a lot of charisma and magnetic charm, but they might not make you feel grounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s say you meet someone who seems cool. How might you ask them to hang out? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A common mistake that people make when they’re trying to build a new friendship is they wait too long to see that new acquaintance again. And in that time, the spark can fizzle out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s research about how long it takes to convert an acquaintance into a friend. It comes from the work of \u003ca href=\"https://coms.ku.edu/people/jeffrey-hall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Jeffrey Hall\u003c/u>\u003c/a>\u003cu>,\u003c/u> [a professor of communication studies] at University of Kansas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He quantified \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0265407518761225\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>how many hours it takes\u003c/u>\u003c/a> to convert a stranger into a friend: More than 30 for a casual friend. [Those hours] really need to be compressed, preferably in those first several weeks of meeting each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This research confirms what your intuition might say, which is: If you spend a lot of time together when the relationship is new, it’s more likely to stick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of times, adults will follow some kind of arbitrary rule that says you can’t hang out two days in a row, or you can’t see somebody more than once a week. Unfortunately, this is why so many friendships fizzle out.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>As for what to do together, you suggest picking an activity that’s memorable. \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coffee dates are fine. A lot of people default to them for a first date. But coffee is forgettable. It doesn’t feel important. It’s easy to cancel and it doesn’t give you a lot of fodder for conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So pick something that’s a little more interesting. It’s going to amp up the excitement, [and people are more likely] not to cancel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So if you tell me you’re into knitting, I might be like, “Hey, there’s this exhibit of really cool yarn art. Do you wanna go?” You’re probably more likely to say yes because it’s something you actually care about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s another benefit. \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320082393_Sharing_Extraordinary_Experiences_Fosters_Feelings_of_Closeness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Researchers at Cornell University\u003c/u>\u003c/a> found that when people who don’t know each other very well do an out-of-the-ordinary experience together, that bonds them a lot faster than doing a run-of-the-mill activity, like just another coffee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we do something a little unusual, that novelty draws both of your attention and gives you a memory you can have together. [Going to] a classic car show or a vegan food truck festival is going to be a lot more memorable than that latte.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What if you start hanging out and realize you don’t actually like them? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s OK not to take this train all the way to the bestie station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decide if you actually want to stop seeing them, or if you simply want to move them into the outer ring of connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There really are rings. There’s your inner circle. The next ring is friends you might invite to a birthday party. The next ring is [people you’d] be happy to see randomly, but don’t seek out. Then it’s [people] who you’re OK with being strangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s say you do have a new friend. It’s going well. You’ve been out a few times. What are some ways to make the friendship stick? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I often say there’s four seeds of connection: compatibility, frequency, proximity and commitment. I describe this in my book. If these four elements are present, it is more likely that this friendship is going to last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first one is compatibility. Hopefully there’s enough mutual interest and chemistry there that you want to keep going. Then it’s frequency. How often are you seeing each other? Proximity is how much time you can spend in person, face-to-face. How close can you be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, if you’re both committed, you both become dedicated to the friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The story was edited by Meghan Keane. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"mailto:LifeKit@npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LifeKit@npr.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Sometimes you meet a person and just know: \u003cem>You. \u003c/em>I want to be friends with\u003cem> you. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The conversation flows. They make you laugh. You want to know more about them. So you say, “Hey, we should get together sometime!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.katvellos.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Kat Vellos\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, author of \u003ca href=\"https://weshouldgettogether.com/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, has a better idea. Schedule an \u003cem>actual\u003c/em> time to hang out. “Pull out your calendar, pick a time, pick a thing to do together and follow through,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“‘Sometime’ is vague,” she says. “The more specific you are, the more likely you’re going to get together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it’s been awhile since you’ve sought out a new friend and you’re feeling a bit rusty, try developing what Vellos calls “friendship intuition.” That means knowing who to prioritize, how to spend time together and what to do if the vibes just aren’t there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a conversation with Life Kit, Vellos shares insights on how to turn a stranger into a friend, based on scientific research and her work as a friendship coach. In that role, she helps people who are having a hard time making friends where they live, and talks to city leaders and urban planners about designing spaces for connection. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s talk about how to spot a friend in the wild. Maybe this is in a community space or a group dinner. How do you know if this person has friend potential? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Notice who you feel warmth with, who you feel safe around. Also notice if they show curiosity about getting to know you more too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not necessarily the most exciting person in the room. They might have a lot of charisma and magnetic charm, but they might not make you feel grounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s say you meet someone who seems cool. How might you ask them to hang out? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A common mistake that people make when they’re trying to build a new friendship is they wait too long to see that new acquaintance again. And in that time, the spark can fizzle out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s research about how long it takes to convert an acquaintance into a friend. It comes from the work of \u003ca href=\"https://coms.ku.edu/people/jeffrey-hall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Jeffrey Hall\u003c/u>\u003c/a>\u003cu>,\u003c/u> [a professor of communication studies] at University of Kansas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He quantified \u003ca href=\"https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0265407518761225\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>how many hours it takes\u003c/u>\u003c/a> to convert a stranger into a friend: More than 30 for a casual friend. [Those hours] really need to be compressed, preferably in those first several weeks of meeting each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This research confirms what your intuition might say, which is: If you spend a lot of time together when the relationship is new, it’s more likely to stick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of times, adults will follow some kind of arbitrary rule that says you can’t hang out two days in a row, or you can’t see somebody more than once a week. Unfortunately, this is why so many friendships fizzle out.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>As for what to do together, you suggest picking an activity that’s memorable. \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Coffee dates are fine. A lot of people default to them for a first date. But coffee is forgettable. It doesn’t feel important. It’s easy to cancel and it doesn’t give you a lot of fodder for conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So pick something that’s a little more interesting. It’s going to amp up the excitement, [and people are more likely] not to cancel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So if you tell me you’re into knitting, I might be like, “Hey, there’s this exhibit of really cool yarn art. Do you wanna go?” You’re probably more likely to say yes because it’s something you actually care about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s another benefit. \u003ca href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320082393_Sharing_Extraordinary_Experiences_Fosters_Feelings_of_Closeness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>Researchers at Cornell University\u003c/u>\u003c/a> found that when people who don’t know each other very well do an out-of-the-ordinary experience together, that bonds them a lot faster than doing a run-of-the-mill activity, like just another coffee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we do something a little unusual, that novelty draws both of your attention and gives you a memory you can have together. [Going to] a classic car show or a vegan food truck festival is going to be a lot more memorable than that latte.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What if you start hanging out and realize you don’t actually like them? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It’s OK not to take this train all the way to the bestie station.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Decide if you actually want to stop seeing them, or if you simply want to move them into the outer ring of connection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There really are rings. There’s your inner circle. The next ring is friends you might invite to a birthday party. The next ring is [people you’d] be happy to see randomly, but don’t seek out. Then it’s [people] who you’re OK with being strangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Let’s say you do have a new friend. It’s going well. You’ve been out a few times. What are some ways to make the friendship stick? \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>I often say there’s four seeds of connection: compatibility, frequency, proximity and commitment. I describe this in my book. If these four elements are present, it is more likely that this friendship is going to last.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first one is compatibility. Hopefully there’s enough mutual interest and chemistry there that you want to keep going. Then it’s frequency. How often are you seeing each other? Proximity is how much time you can spend in person, face-to-face. How close can you be?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, if you’re both committed, you both become dedicated to the friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The story was edited by Meghan Keane. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823, or email us at \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"mailto:LifeKit@npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>LifeKit@npr.org\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to Life Kit on \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3LdRb0X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Apple Podcasts\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3K3xVln\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Spotify\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, and sign up for our \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://n.pr/3xN1tB9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. Follow us on Instagram: \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>@nprlifekit\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The teaching profession is one of the most female-dominated in the United States. Among elementary school teachers, 89 percent are women, and in kindergarten, that number is almost 97 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many sociologists, writers and parents have questioned whether this imbalance hinders young boys at the start of their education. Are female teachers less understanding of boys’ need to horse around? Or would male role models inspire boys to learn their letters and times tables? Some advocates point to research that lays out why boys ought to do better with male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a new national analysis finds no evidence that boys perform or behave better with male teachers in elementary school. This challenges a widespread belief that boys thrive more when taught by men, and it raises questions about efforts, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nyc.gov/site/ymi/teach/nyc-men-teach.page\">one in New York City\u003c/a>, to spend extra to recruit them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was surprised,” said Paul Morgan, a professor at the University at Albany and a co-author of the study. “I’ve raised two boys, and my assumption would be that having male teachers is beneficial because boys tend to be more rambunctious, more active, a little less easy to direct in academic tasks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not saying gender matching doesn’t work,” Morgan added. “We’re saying we’re not observing it in K through fifth grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle and high school students might see more benefits. Earlier research is mixed and inconclusive. A \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/teachers-and-gender-gaps-student-achievement\">2007 analysis\u003c/a> by Stanford professor Thomas Dee found academic benefits for eighth-grade boys and girls when taught by teachers of their same gender. And studies where researchers observe and interview a small number of students often show how students feel more supported by same-gender teachers. Yet many quantitative studies, like this newest one, have failed to detect measurable benefits for boys. At least 10 since 2014 have found zero or minimal effects. Benefits for girls are more consistent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest study, “Fixed Effect Estimates of Teacher-Student Gender Matching During Elementary School,” is a working paper not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal.* Morgan and co-author Eric Hu, a research scientist at Albany, shared a draft with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan and Hu analyzed a U.S. Education Department dataset that followed a nationally representative group of 8,000 students from kindergarten in 2010 through fifth grade in 2017. Half were boys and half were girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than two-thirds — 68 percent — of the 4,000 boys never had a male teacher in those years while 32 percent had at least one. (The study focused only on main classroom teachers, not extras like gym or music.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the 1,300 boys who had both male and female teachers, the researchers compared each boy’s performance and behavior across those years. For instance, if Jacob had female teachers in kindergarten, first, second and fifth grades, but male teachers in third and fourth, his average scores and behavior were compared between the teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found no differences in reading, math or science achievement — or in behavioral and social measures. Teachers rated students on traits like impulsiveness, cooperation, anxiety, empathy and self-control. The children also took annual executive function tests. The results did not vary by the teacher’s gender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most studies on male teachers focus on older students. The authors noted one other elementary-level study, in Florida, that also found no academic benefit for boys. This new research confirms that finding and adds that there seems to be no behavioral or social benefits either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students at these young ages, 11 and under, the researchers also didn’t find academic benefits for girls with female teachers. But there were two non-academic ones: Girls taught by women showed stronger interpersonal skills (getting along, helping others, caring about feelings) and a greater eagerness to learn (represented by skills such as keeping organized and following rules).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the researchers combined race and gender, the results grew more complex. Black girls taught by Black women scored higher on an executive function test but lower in science. Asian boys taught by Asian men scored higher on executive function but had lower ratings on interpersonal skills. Black boys showed no measurable differences when taught by Black male teachers. (Previous research has sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/11/12/black-students-black-teachers-college-gap/\">found benefits\u003c/a> for Black students taught by Black teachers and \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-black-and-white-teachers-from-hbcus-are-better-math-instructors-study-finds/\">sometimes hasn’t.\u003c/a>)**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if data show no academic or behavioral benefits for students, there may still be compelling reasons to diversify the teaching workforce, just as in other professions. But we shouldn’t expect these efforts to move the needle on student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you had scarce resources and were trying to place your bets,” Morgan said, “then based on this study, maybe elementary school isn’t where you should focus your recruitment efforts” to hire more men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To paraphrase Boyz II Men, it’s so hard to say goodbye — to the idea that young boys need male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*Clarification: The article has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal but has undergone some peer review.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>**Correction: An earlier version incorrectly characterized how researchers analyzed what happened to students of different races. The researchers focused only on the gender of the teachers, but drilled down to see how students of different races responded to teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-male-teachers-elementary-school/\">\u003cem>male teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"headline": "Does Having a Male Teacher Make a Difference? Not as Much as Some Think",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The teaching profession is one of the most female-dominated in the United States. Among elementary school teachers, 89 percent are women, and in kindergarten, that number is almost 97 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many sociologists, writers and parents have questioned whether this imbalance hinders young boys at the start of their education. Are female teachers less understanding of boys’ need to horse around? Or would male role models inspire boys to learn their letters and times tables? Some advocates point to research that lays out why boys ought to do better with male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a new national analysis finds no evidence that boys perform or behave better with male teachers in elementary school. This challenges a widespread belief that boys thrive more when taught by men, and it raises questions about efforts, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.nyc.gov/site/ymi/teach/nyc-men-teach.page\">one in New York City\u003c/a>, to spend extra to recruit them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was surprised,” said Paul Morgan, a professor at the University at Albany and a co-author of the study. “I’ve raised two boys, and my assumption would be that having male teachers is beneficial because boys tend to be more rambunctious, more active, a little less easy to direct in academic tasks.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not saying gender matching doesn’t work,” Morgan added. “We’re saying we’re not observing it in K through fifth grade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middle and high school students might see more benefits. Earlier research is mixed and inconclusive. A \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/teachers-and-gender-gaps-student-achievement\">2007 analysis\u003c/a> by Stanford professor Thomas Dee found academic benefits for eighth-grade boys and girls when taught by teachers of their same gender. And studies where researchers observe and interview a small number of students often show how students feel more supported by same-gender teachers. Yet many quantitative studies, like this newest one, have failed to detect measurable benefits for boys. At least 10 since 2014 have found zero or minimal effects. Benefits for girls are more consistent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This latest study, “Fixed Effect Estimates of Teacher-Student Gender Matching During Elementary School,” is a working paper not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal.* Morgan and co-author Eric Hu, a research scientist at Albany, shared a draft with me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan and Hu analyzed a U.S. Education Department dataset that followed a nationally representative group of 8,000 students from kindergarten in 2010 through fifth grade in 2017. Half were boys and half were girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than two-thirds — 68 percent — of the 4,000 boys never had a male teacher in those years while 32 percent had at least one. (The study focused only on main classroom teachers, not extras like gym or music.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the 1,300 boys who had both male and female teachers, the researchers compared each boy’s performance and behavior across those years. For instance, if Jacob had female teachers in kindergarten, first, second and fifth grades, but male teachers in third and fourth, his average scores and behavior were compared between the teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers found no differences in reading, math or science achievement — or in behavioral and social measures. Teachers rated students on traits like impulsiveness, cooperation, anxiety, empathy and self-control. The children also took annual executive function tests. The results did not vary by the teacher’s gender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most studies on male teachers focus on older students. The authors noted one other elementary-level study, in Florida, that also found no academic benefit for boys. This new research confirms that finding and adds that there seems to be no behavioral or social benefits either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For students at these young ages, 11 and under, the researchers also didn’t find academic benefits for girls with female teachers. But there were two non-academic ones: Girls taught by women showed stronger interpersonal skills (getting along, helping others, caring about feelings) and a greater eagerness to learn (represented by skills such as keeping organized and following rules).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the researchers combined race and gender, the results grew more complex. Black girls taught by Black women scored higher on an executive function test but lower in science. Asian boys taught by Asian men scored higher on executive function but had lower ratings on interpersonal skills. Black boys showed no measurable differences when taught by Black male teachers. (Previous research has sometimes \u003ca href=\"https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/11/12/black-students-black-teachers-college-gap/\">found benefits\u003c/a> for Black students taught by Black teachers and \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-black-and-white-teachers-from-hbcus-are-better-math-instructors-study-finds/\">sometimes hasn’t.\u003c/a>)**\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if data show no academic or behavioral benefits for students, there may still be compelling reasons to diversify the teaching workforce, just as in other professions. But we shouldn’t expect these efforts to move the needle on student outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you had scarce resources and were trying to place your bets,” Morgan said, “then based on this study, maybe elementary school isn’t where you should focus your recruitment efforts” to hire more men.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To paraphrase Boyz II Men, it’s so hard to say goodbye — to the idea that young boys need male teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>*Clarification: The article has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal but has undergone some peer review.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>**Correction: An earlier version incorrectly characterized how researchers analyzed what happened to students of different races. The researchers focused only on the gender of the teachers, but drilled down to see how students of different races responded to teachers of different genders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story about \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-male-teachers-elementary-school/\">\u003cem>male teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When the school year began in Virginia this fall, teenagers entering public high schools have something new on their curriculum: instruction on how to better understand and avoid the risks of gambling. Funded by the state’s very own gambling industry, the lessons aim to educate students on luck and chance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65812/what-every-parent-should-know-about-online-gambling\">the risks of addiction, the nature of online betting\u003c/a> and other messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These education measures come into effect seven years after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on gambling within states. Since the court’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf\">\u003cem>Murphy\u003c/em>\u003c/a> decision, 38 states now permit wagering in various forms, much of it online. And while most states require players to be at least 21, many younger people have found a way in. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/info-details/teens-gambling-its-a-risk\">Health\u003c/a>, 60-80% of teenagers report having gambled at least once over the past year by the time they reach high school. Problem gambling can start as young as 10, and 4-8% of young people struggle with it, versus just 1% of adults. Teenage gambling is also associated with use of illegal \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/faqs-what-is-problem-gambling/\">drugs\u003c/a>, and gambling addiction is more apt to lead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/problem-gamblers-have-highest-suicide-rate-of-any-addiction-disorder-studies-show\">suicide\u003c/a> than addiction to drugs or alcohol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s startling about Virginia’s initiative was its original resistance to addressing problem gambling in any context. Along with eight other states, Virginia initially had earmarked scant \u003ca href=\"https://virginiamercury.com/2024/09/03/how-virginia-is-addressing-the-dark-side-of-gambling/\">funding\u003c/a> for research or support services for problem gamblers. But just two years after the state authorized online sports gambling, citizens began to stew over the fusillade of ads for DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM, especially as word spread about tax advantages the industry had secured. Parents called to share stories of young people swept up in wagering. Sam Rasoul, a delegate from the state’s 38\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> district, introduced legislation that promptly passed in 2022. “The political appetite was right,” said \u003ca href=\"https://consultbds.com/about/\">Brianne Doura-Schawohl\u003c/a>, a public health advocate who helped craft the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://dbhds.virginia.gov/pgts-committee/\">Anne Rogers\u003c/a> oversaw the creation of the educational materials. The head of gambling prevention efforts throughout the state, Rogers worked with Virginia’s 40 community service boards to find effective lessons that would educate teenagers without teaching them how to gamble or entice them to give it a try. They settled on two primary materials: the \u003ca href=\"https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hazelden.org%2Fstore%2Fitem%2F557330%3FStacked-Deck-Second-Edition&data=05%7C02%7Clinda%40flanagansnj.com%7C1a8f3b2d9edf4fdb02b308ddd363c13a%7C7d18c35e6a6640dcb037e7323831f1db%7C0%7C0%7C638899147811795431%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=W3Tt8kpYHMcgDLSY90eCxCJc2MjX4RqU%2BWasjkFLbCU%3D&reserved=0\">Stacked Deck curriculum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8507822/\">“Who Really Wins?,”\u003c/a> a gambling prevention program designed in Croatia. Teachers suggested that school schedules wouldn’t allow for the recommended 7 to 8 sessions, so Rogers condensed the material into a single 90-minute lesson, some of it interactive, that could be divided up further as needed. The state also offers a free web-based \u003ca href=\"https://www.train.org/virginia/course/1130510/details\">system\u003c/a> on gambling that is available to anyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 90 minutes cover several subjects: understanding gaming, gambling and the laws around them; brain development; media literacy; the impact on physical and emotional health; signs of problem gambling; financial literacy; and how to keep from developing a problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We avoided discussion of myths vs facts,” Rogers explained, because research shows that students remember myths and confuse them with facts. Pulling from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62742/just-say-no-didnt-actually-protect-students-from-drugs-heres-what-could\">failures of the anti-drug D.A.R.E. Program\u003c/a>, the gambling materials tell kids what gambling is without showing them how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not teaching them how to gamble,” Rogers said. Small tests between sections indicate whether kids understand what they’ve been taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What are the prospects of more states picking this up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of interest in states wanting to replicate what Virginia is doing,” Rogers said; Massachusetts and New Jersey are considering legislation now. At the same time, the lack of federal leadership impedes state efforts, because there’s no national plan to address problem gambling that states can simply adopt. Governments also can be slow to react to threats that don’t seem to pose imminent dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The school systems haven’t caught up with the health system, and the health system hasn’t caught up with the trends in the gambling industry,” Doura-Schawohl explained, noting that it took about 30 years to get action on the health risks associated with tobacco, alcohol and opioids. The fact that states receive revenue from legalized gambling also dampens enthusiasm for tough regulation; gambling proceeds provide a fresh source of state funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone who studies gambling addiction believes that mandatory, school-based lessons focusing on prohibition are the best approach to preventing problem gambling. \u003ca href=\"https://bri.ucla.edu/people/timothy-fong/\">Timothy Fong\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist and co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies Program, and who is passionate about studying all-things-gambling, told me that “addiction and loneliness feed off each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young people who get swept up into addictive behaviors are looking for quick ways to obtain financial and social success; they can’t resist the promise of “easy” money coming to them from their own devices. “They think, ‘I need money fast in order to feel good about myself”,” Fong said. “What’s missing in their lives is developing kindness, empathy, gratitude, compassion and strengthening civics and pride in themselves and their communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, young people need a grounding in financial literary and probability, but it would be more effective to address false expectations and fantasies about striking it rich through betting, he added. Kids need connection with other humans more than immersion in anti-gambling curriculum, especially adult mentors who can counteract the messaging of social media and misinformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no magic bullet,” Rogers said, acknowledging that tackling the problem will require more than one 90-minute session on the perils of gambling. Kids need tools on how to succeed and better ways of minimizing stress. “This is just one piece,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.jonathandcohen.com/\">Jonathan Cohen\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet On Spots Gambling\u003c/em>, told me that school principals have begun calling him, asking for guidance on how to handle their emerging problems, like middle school kids talking openly about gambling and bragging about their wins. Cohen believes parents and schools need to talk to kids about gambling, at the very least to challenge the dominant narrative propagated by social media influencers and celebrities on TV: that wagering is glamorous and fun and no harm can come from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her part, Doura-Schawohl is troubled by the pace of reform. “A lot of kids are going to die while policy makers wait around and figure out if we should do something, and what they should do,” she said. “And that’s a terrifying fact.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When the school year began in Virginia this fall, teenagers entering public high schools have something new on their curriculum: instruction on how to better understand and avoid the risks of gambling. Funded by the state’s very own gambling industry, the lessons aim to educate students on luck and chance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65812/what-every-parent-should-know-about-online-gambling\">the risks of addiction, the nature of online betting\u003c/a> and other messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These education measures come into effect seven years after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on gambling within states. Since the court’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf\">\u003cem>Murphy\u003c/em>\u003c/a> decision, 38 states now permit wagering in various forms, much of it online. And while most states require players to be at least 21, many younger people have found a way in. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/info-details/teens-gambling-its-a-risk\">Health\u003c/a>, 60-80% of teenagers report having gambled at least once over the past year by the time they reach high school. Problem gambling can start as young as 10, and 4-8% of young people struggle with it, versus just 1% of adults. Teenage gambling is also associated with use of illegal \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncpgambling.org/help-treatment/faqs-what-is-problem-gambling/\">drugs\u003c/a>, and gambling addiction is more apt to lead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/problem-gamblers-have-highest-suicide-rate-of-any-addiction-disorder-studies-show\">suicide\u003c/a> than addiction to drugs or alcohol.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s startling about Virginia’s initiative was its original resistance to addressing problem gambling in any context. Along with eight other states, Virginia initially had earmarked scant \u003ca href=\"https://virginiamercury.com/2024/09/03/how-virginia-is-addressing-the-dark-side-of-gambling/\">funding\u003c/a> for research or support services for problem gamblers. But just two years after the state authorized online sports gambling, citizens began to stew over the fusillade of ads for DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM, especially as word spread about tax advantages the industry had secured. Parents called to share stories of young people swept up in wagering. Sam Rasoul, a delegate from the state’s 38\u003csup>th\u003c/sup> district, introduced legislation that promptly passed in 2022. “The political appetite was right,” said \u003ca href=\"https://consultbds.com/about/\">Brianne Doura-Schawohl\u003c/a>, a public health advocate who helped craft the legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://dbhds.virginia.gov/pgts-committee/\">Anne Rogers\u003c/a> oversaw the creation of the educational materials. The head of gambling prevention efforts throughout the state, Rogers worked with Virginia’s 40 community service boards to find effective lessons that would educate teenagers without teaching them how to gamble or entice them to give it a try. They settled on two primary materials: the \u003ca href=\"https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hazelden.org%2Fstore%2Fitem%2F557330%3FStacked-Deck-Second-Edition&data=05%7C02%7Clinda%40flanagansnj.com%7C1a8f3b2d9edf4fdb02b308ddd363c13a%7C7d18c35e6a6640dcb037e7323831f1db%7C0%7C0%7C638899147811795431%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=W3Tt8kpYHMcgDLSY90eCxCJc2MjX4RqU%2BWasjkFLbCU%3D&reserved=0\">Stacked Deck curriculum\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8507822/\">“Who Really Wins?,”\u003c/a> a gambling prevention program designed in Croatia. Teachers suggested that school schedules wouldn’t allow for the recommended 7 to 8 sessions, so Rogers condensed the material into a single 90-minute lesson, some of it interactive, that could be divided up further as needed. The state also offers a free web-based \u003ca href=\"https://www.train.org/virginia/course/1130510/details\">system\u003c/a> on gambling that is available to anyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 90 minutes cover several subjects: understanding gaming, gambling and the laws around them; brain development; media literacy; the impact on physical and emotional health; signs of problem gambling; financial literacy; and how to keep from developing a problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We avoided discussion of myths vs facts,” Rogers explained, because research shows that students remember myths and confuse them with facts. Pulling from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62742/just-say-no-didnt-actually-protect-students-from-drugs-heres-what-could\">failures of the anti-drug D.A.R.E. Program\u003c/a>, the gambling materials tell kids what gambling is without showing them how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re not teaching them how to gamble,” Rogers said. Small tests between sections indicate whether kids understand what they’ve been taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What are the prospects of more states picking this up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of interest in states wanting to replicate what Virginia is doing,” Rogers said; Massachusetts and New Jersey are considering legislation now. At the same time, the lack of federal leadership impedes state efforts, because there’s no national plan to address problem gambling that states can simply adopt. Governments also can be slow to react to threats that don’t seem to pose imminent dangers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The school systems haven’t caught up with the health system, and the health system hasn’t caught up with the trends in the gambling industry,” Doura-Schawohl explained, noting that it took about 30 years to get action on the health risks associated with tobacco, alcohol and opioids. The fact that states receive revenue from legalized gambling also dampens enthusiasm for tough regulation; gambling proceeds provide a fresh source of state funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone who studies gambling addiction believes that mandatory, school-based lessons focusing on prohibition are the best approach to preventing problem gambling. \u003ca href=\"https://bri.ucla.edu/people/timothy-fong/\">Timothy Fong\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist and co-director of UCLA’s Gambling Studies Program, and who is passionate about studying all-things-gambling, told me that “addiction and loneliness feed off each other.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young people who get swept up into addictive behaviors are looking for quick ways to obtain financial and social success; they can’t resist the promise of “easy” money coming to them from their own devices. “They think, ‘I need money fast in order to feel good about myself”,” Fong said. “What’s missing in their lives is developing kindness, empathy, gratitude, compassion and strengthening civics and pride in themselves and their communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, young people need a grounding in financial literary and probability, but it would be more effective to address false expectations and fantasies about striking it rich through betting, he added. Kids need connection with other humans more than immersion in anti-gambling curriculum, especially adult mentors who can counteract the messaging of social media and misinformation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no magic bullet,” Rogers said, acknowledging that tackling the problem will require more than one 90-minute session on the perils of gambling. Kids need tools on how to succeed and better ways of minimizing stress. “This is just one piece,” she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.jonathandcohen.com/\">Jonathan Cohen\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Losing Big: America’s Reckless Bet On Spots Gambling\u003c/em>, told me that school principals have begun calling him, asking for guidance on how to handle their emerging problems, like middle school kids talking openly about gambling and bragging about their wins. Cohen believes parents and schools need to talk to kids about gambling, at the very least to challenge the dominant narrative propagated by social media influencers and celebrities on TV: that wagering is glamorous and fun and no harm can come from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For her part, Doura-Schawohl is troubled by the pace of reform. “A lot of kids are going to die while policy makers wait around and figure out if we should do something, and what they should do,” she said. “And that’s a terrifying fact.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Lockdown Drills Are a Fact of Life in U.S. Schools. What Does That Mean for Students?",
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"content": "\u003cp>Since the start of the school year, there \u003ca href=\"https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">have been more than 70 shootings\u003c/a> on campuses across the U.S., according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That level of violence is why educators in the U.S. face what feels like an impossible but very American question: How do you prepare kids for the possibility of gun violence at school without traumatizing them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a question Amy Kujawski, principal of St. Anthony Middle School near Minneapolis, thinks about a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest, the most important message I can share to my students and my families and my teachers,” Kujawski says. “Schools are really, really safe places.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s likely her school will never have to deal with violence, but she has to prepare the kids anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We will emphasize the belonging’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>NPR visited Kujawski at the middle school this month during the first of five lockdown drills, mandated by the state. It’s also \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/08/29/nx-s1-5521952/minnesota-witnesses-catholic-school-shooting-minneapolis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the first drill\u003c/a> since the August mass shooting at nearby Annunciation Catholic School and Church, which led to the deaths of two children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s terrible. It’s unacceptable. I cannot believe we just carry on. And…we do use different language in positive, affirming ways because of all of that tragedy,” Kujawski says. “We will emphasize the belonging, the safety, the love and care and warmth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Kujawski’s office, there are colorful stickers with breathing exercises, as well as fidget spinners for anxious students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pinned on her wall is a sign that reads “Hate is Loud. Love is Strong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also a laminated poster that hangs in every room in the building with the school’s safety protocols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Look how simple it is,” Kujawski says. “Hold in your room or area. Clear the halls. Secure. Get inside, lock outside of doors. Lockdown. Locks, lights, out of sight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students all know this language, as do the fire and police officers in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2048x1365+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F31%2F4f%2F89d7d59049bba862eaf61791a301%2Fsav-water-tower.jpg\" alt=\"A water tower that overlooks St. Anthony Middle School, situated in the suburbs of Minneapolis.\">\u003cfigcaption>A water tower that overlooks St. Anthony Middle School, situated in the suburbs of Minneapolis. \u003ccite> (Jada Richardson | St. Anthony-New Brighton School District)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even though statistics show most schools will likely never have to deal with an active shooter, these drills are how American public schools get ready for the worst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kujawski and her staff lead with this message.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Remember, we do this because we want to make sure we feel prepared regardless of any situation that happens,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘This is a lockdown drill’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Seventh-grade English teacher Kathleen West looks around the classroom and points out where intruders might see her students if they were prowling the halls or peering in from the outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to stay away from that window over by my desk. So if you can see that window, you’re not in a good spot,” West says to her students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once everyone is in place, West says: “We just have to kind of sit in this unpleasantness for a little bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drill is announced over the loudspeaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The classrooms go dark. The hallways are quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School staff check the doors to make sure they’re locked. They listen for chatter and peek in windows to see if students are visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Minutes later, it’s all over and students go from hiding, back to their regular day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drill, West says, is as normal as the Pledge of Allegiance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You start in like first grade or something,” says Phoebe Strodel, 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raegan Dunkley, 12, chimes in, saying the drills aren’t scary and if the emergency was real, she knows police would come quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thankfully, there’s like a police station right next to our school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Rehearsing’ for their own deaths\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>But should these drills be normal?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a question psychologist Jillian Peterson is trying to answer with\u003ca href=\"https://www.theviolenceproject.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> her research at the Violence Prevention Program\u003c/a> at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says St. Anthony is an example of a school doing these drills in a trauma-informed way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They prepare the students, allow families to opt out, work with particularly sensitive kids, and debrief afterwards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because even high schoolers will say, you can’t expect me to rehearse for my death and then go back to learning a math assignment,” Peterson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But overall, Peterson sees lockdown drills with younger kids as concerning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A: The most likely perpetrators are already in the building. B: We’re not totally sure they work,” she says. “C: We don’t really, truly understand what we’re doing to the young kids. We’re just normalizing this type of violence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/7372x4915+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdf%2F32%2Fe8fae9514baaaf87bb808d294789%2Fgettyimages-2232395270.jpg\" alt=\"Annunciation Catholic Church is seen behind police tape following a mass shooting on August 27, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to Minneapolis Police, a gunman fired through the windows of the Annunciation Church at worshippers sitting in pews during a Catholic school Mass, killing two children and injuring at least 17 others. The gunman reportedly died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.\">\u003cfigcaption>Annunciation Catholic Church is seen behind police tape following a mass shooting on August 27, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to Minneapolis Police, a gunman fired through the windows of the Annunciation Church at worshippers sitting in pews during a Catholic school Mass, killing two children and injuring at least 17 others. The gunman reportedly died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. \u003ccite> (Stephen Maturen | Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back at St. Anthony, West is unsettled by how ordinary this has all become.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She started the school year a week after the Annunciation shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re getting me at a really vulnerable time because my brother and sister both send all of their kids to Annunciation. So they were all in the shooting there. And my brother was there. And my brother-in-law there just happened to be at Mass that day,” West says. “So six of my family members were in a mass shooting event this school year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says she wishes the right people would take action to make this stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it’s fair, as a school teacher who started out making $30,000 a year and will never make more than $100,000 a year,” West says. “My job should not be to save your child’s life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But on this day, during the lockdown drill, she thinks about how she would try to save as many lives as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know the statistics don’t bear this out, but it just feels like when not if,” West says. “If I’m lucky, whatever event happens in my 40-year career…if I make it to 40, I’m lucky if the shooting happens at the other end of the building and not where I am.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The radio version of this story was edited by Adam Bearne. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Since the start of the school year in this country, there have already been over 70 shootings on campuses – 70 in just over two months. That’s according to the K-12 School Shooting Database, which tracks these incidents. So here at MORNING EDITION, we’ve been thinking a lot about both the trauma of that violence in a place that’s supposed to be safe – a school – but also about the way we now prepare our kids for the day it might happen to them. That includes parents on our show, like our editor Adam Bearne. His daughter came home from her first week of kindergarten and told him about something she called a construction drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CLARA: I don’t know why it’s called a construction drill, ’cause that’s really confusing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Clara was actually talking about a lockdown drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CLARA: We had to be really quiet, go under our cubbies, close the doors, and then I got scared ’cause I thought it was real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: It wasn’t, but her fear was. So we decided to take you, our listeners, into a school that, like many schools, is trying to prepare the kids without making them feel like a violent incident is inevitable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AMY KUJAWSKI: Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: I’m Leila.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Hi, Leila. It’s nice to meet you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: So nice to meet you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: I’m Amy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: That’s Amy Kujawski, the principal of St. Anthony Middle School, which she just calls Sam’s. It’s in a suburb of Minneapolis. And as you can hear, she has that larger-than-life middle school principal energy, and she leads with that positivity, even when things might feel bleak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: We will emphasize the belonging, the safety, the love and care and warmth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: On this day, her school is going through the first of five state-mandated lockdown drills, the first since the mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School and Church nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How far is Annunciation from here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Oh, my goodness. It’s close. Yeah. I had staff who had nieces and nephews there, who had friends there. Yeah. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: The walls of Kujawski’s office feature posters with messages you might expect, like, hate is loud; love is strong. But there’s also a laminated sign with the school’s safety protocols, like there is in every room in the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Lockdown. Locks, lights, out of sight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: All the kids know this language and what to do in a medical emergency, or something much worse. Inside Kathleen West’s classroom, the teacher gets her 12- and 13-year-old students ready for the lockdown drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KATHLEEN WEST: We want to stay away from that window over by my desk. So if you can see that window, you’re not in a good spot, and you should come closer this way. Yeah, I think you’re good, Henry, ’cause you can’t see the window from there. So I think that will be good. Yeah. We just have to kind of sit in this unpleasantness for a little bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: When it’s time for the drill, there’s an announcement over the loudspeakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STAFF MEMBER: Can I have your attention, please? This is a lockdown drill. Teachers, please secure your students in your classrooms. This is a lockdown drill. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: The classrooms go dark. The hallways are quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you’re checking each door to make sure it’s locked?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Yep. And I also give feedback to our teachers if I can see or hear them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: That’s Principal Kujawski again. She doesn’t jiggle the door handles too much, so the students don’t think there’s a real intruder. And back in West’s classroom, she quietly reassures the students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: That’s them checking to make sure that our door is locked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: After clearing her floor, Kujawski listens for the other staff checking the rest of the school. Then she speaks into her walkie-talkie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF WALKIE-TALKIE BEEPING)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Are we all clear? I think we can call it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STAFF MEMBER: Your attention, please. The lockdown drill is all clear. The lockdown drill is all clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(CROSSTALK)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: The school gets loud again as everyone moves on to their next class, and we chat with a couple students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PHOEBE STRODEL: I’m Phoebe Strodel, and I’m 12 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAEGAN DUNKLEY: Hello. My name is Raegan Dunkley (ph), and I’m also 12 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: OK. So describe to me what you just did in this lockdown drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PHOEBE: Well, we go, like, up against, like, a wall or a bookshelf or a space where if there were people, like, coming in, they won’t be able to see you through the windows or any, like, spaces, and stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: But does it make you feel just generally prepared?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAEGAN: Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: It does?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAEGAN: Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Does it scare you at all? Or does it make you feel…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAEGAN: No, because – well, I mean, it definitely is scary if it’s a real-life situation. But thankfully, there’s, like, a police station right next to our school. So if there were to be a lockdown drill, the police would be here within, like, minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: So the drills feel normal to you. They’re just part of life. Fire drill…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PHOEBE: Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: …Lockdown drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PHOEBE: Yeah. You start it in, like, first grade or something because, like, the kindergarteners probably wouldn’t, like, handle it or anyone younger than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Lockdown drills aren’t all the school is doing to protect its students. The classrooms are locked during lessons. There’s bullet-resistant film on the windows, and the police and fire department nearby know the school’s security protocols. West, the teacher you heard instructing her kids earlier? Well, she’s bothered that this is all so ordinary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: You’re getting me at a really vulnerable time ’cause my brother and sister both send all of their kids to Annunciation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: They do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: So they were all in the shooting there. And my brother was there, and my brother-in-law were there – just happened to be at Mass that day. So six of my family members were in a mass shooting event this school year. And then the next week, I came back to work here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: What was it like to do a lockdown drill after that, knowing…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: Honestly, it’s so normal. You know, the drills are like how we’re legally mandated to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Like, that’s just something that happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: West was a student teacher when Columbine happened over 25 years ago, so she’s always taught in the era of mass shootings at American schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: We’ve been through different waves of, like, how to respond and what the drills are going to be. And of course, now I just always think, like, well, the shooters have all been through all these drills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Oh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: So, like, I just don’t even know, you know, how effective they’re going to be. They’re not going to shoot us when we’re in our classrooms, locked down. They’re going to shoot us when we’re out at the fire drill. The kids are all in the same place, and the teachers are all in the same place. And I’m always thinking, like, OK, how can I save the most lives in this situation, right? And it’s crazy that that’s just part of the job. Like, that’s not why I got into teaching in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Yeah. What do you teach?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(LAUGHTER)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: I like reading and writing. I don’t really want to teach about, like, how to escape, you know, active shooters at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Have you seen a change in the way you think about preparing the kids or how…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: Yeah. The drills have changed over time. And I did work at one school where they wouldn’t tell us if it was real or not, which I thought was really cruel and unusual. So the lockdown drill would happen, and the kids would be like, is it real? And I’m like, I don’t know. Listen for the sirens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: (Gasping).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: Like, if we hear the sirens, it’s real. If we don’t, then it’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Is there anything that you would want to say or talk about when it comes to preparing these kids or the fact that you do have to prepare them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: Well, I really wish that the right people would take action to make this stop. And I don’t think it’s fair. As a schoolteacher who started out making $30,000 a year, you know, and will never make more than $100,000 a year, like, my job should not be to save your child’s life. I know the statistics don’t bear this out, but it just feels like when, not if. Like, if I’m lucky, whatever event happens in my 40-year career – I’m at year 24. So if I make it to 40 or whatever, I’m lucky if the shooting happens at the other end of the building and not where I am.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF PHILIP GLASS AND PAUL LEONARD-MORGAN’S “TALES FROM THE LOOP”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Since the start of the school year, there \u003ca href=\"https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">have been more than 70 shootings\u003c/a> on campuses across the U.S., according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That level of violence is why educators in the U.S. face what feels like an impossible but very American question: How do you prepare kids for the possibility of gun violence at school without traumatizing them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a question Amy Kujawski, principal of St. Anthony Middle School near Minneapolis, thinks about a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The biggest, the most important message I can share to my students and my families and my teachers,” Kujawski says. “Schools are really, really safe places.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s likely her school will never have to deal with violence, but she has to prepare the kids anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We will emphasize the belonging’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>NPR visited Kujawski at the middle school this month during the first of five lockdown drills, mandated by the state. It’s also \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/08/29/nx-s1-5521952/minnesota-witnesses-catholic-school-shooting-minneapolis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the first drill\u003c/a> since the August mass shooting at nearby Annunciation Catholic School and Church, which led to the deaths of two children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s terrible. It’s unacceptable. I cannot believe we just carry on. And…we do use different language in positive, affirming ways because of all of that tragedy,” Kujawski says. “We will emphasize the belonging, the safety, the love and care and warmth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Kujawski’s office, there are colorful stickers with breathing exercises, as well as fidget spinners for anxious students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pinned on her wall is a sign that reads “Hate is Loud. Love is Strong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s also a laminated poster that hangs in every room in the building with the school’s safety protocols.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Look how simple it is,” Kujawski says. “Hold in your room or area. Clear the halls. Secure. Get inside, lock outside of doors. Lockdown. Locks, lights, out of sight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The students all know this language, as do the fire and police officers in the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2048x1365+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F31%2F4f%2F89d7d59049bba862eaf61791a301%2Fsav-water-tower.jpg\" alt=\"A water tower that overlooks St. Anthony Middle School, situated in the suburbs of Minneapolis.\">\u003cfigcaption>A water tower that overlooks St. Anthony Middle School, situated in the suburbs of Minneapolis. \u003ccite> (Jada Richardson | St. Anthony-New Brighton School District)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even though statistics show most schools will likely never have to deal with an active shooter, these drills are how American public schools get ready for the worst.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kujawski and her staff lead with this message.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Remember, we do this because we want to make sure we feel prepared regardless of any situation that happens,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘This is a lockdown drill’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Seventh-grade English teacher Kathleen West looks around the classroom and points out where intruders might see her students if they were prowling the halls or peering in from the outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to stay away from that window over by my desk. So if you can see that window, you’re not in a good spot,” West says to her students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once everyone is in place, West says: “We just have to kind of sit in this unpleasantness for a little bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drill is announced over the loudspeaker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The classrooms go dark. The hallways are quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School staff check the doors to make sure they’re locked. They listen for chatter and peek in windows to see if students are visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Minutes later, it’s all over and students go from hiding, back to their regular day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The drill, West says, is as normal as the Pledge of Allegiance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You start in like first grade or something,” says Phoebe Strodel, 12.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Raegan Dunkley, 12, chimes in, saying the drills aren’t scary and if the emergency was real, she knows police would come quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Thankfully, there’s like a police station right next to our school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Rehearsing’ for their own deaths\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>But should these drills be normal?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a question psychologist Jillian Peterson is trying to answer with\u003ca href=\"https://www.theviolenceproject.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> her research at the Violence Prevention Program\u003c/a> at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says St. Anthony is an example of a school doing these drills in a trauma-informed way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-embed npr-promo-card insettwocolumn\">\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\u003c/div>\n\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They prepare the students, allow families to opt out, work with particularly sensitive kids, and debrief afterwards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because even high schoolers will say, you can’t expect me to rehearse for my death and then go back to learning a math assignment,” Peterson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But overall, Peterson sees lockdown drills with younger kids as concerning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A: The most likely perpetrators are already in the building. B: We’re not totally sure they work,” she says. “C: We don’t really, truly understand what we’re doing to the young kids. We’re just normalizing this type of violence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/7372x4915+0+0/resize/1200/quality/75/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdf%2F32%2Fe8fae9514baaaf87bb808d294789%2Fgettyimages-2232395270.jpg\" alt=\"Annunciation Catholic Church is seen behind police tape following a mass shooting on August 27, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to Minneapolis Police, a gunman fired through the windows of the Annunciation Church at worshippers sitting in pews during a Catholic school Mass, killing two children and injuring at least 17 others. The gunman reportedly died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.\">\u003cfigcaption>Annunciation Catholic Church is seen behind police tape following a mass shooting on August 27, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to Minneapolis Police, a gunman fired through the windows of the Annunciation Church at worshippers sitting in pews during a Catholic school Mass, killing two children and injuring at least 17 others. The gunman reportedly died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. \u003ccite> (Stephen Maturen | Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back at St. Anthony, West is unsettled by how ordinary this has all become.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She started the school year a week after the Annunciation shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re getting me at a really vulnerable time because my brother and sister both send all of their kids to Annunciation. So they were all in the shooting there. And my brother was there. And my brother-in-law there just happened to be at Mass that day,” West says. “So six of my family members were in a mass shooting event this school year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says she wishes the right people would take action to make this stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think it’s fair, as a school teacher who started out making $30,000 a year and will never make more than $100,000 a year,” West says. “My job should not be to save your child’s life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But on this day, during the lockdown drill, she thinks about how she would try to save as many lives as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know the statistics don’t bear this out, but it just feels like when not if,” West says. “If I’m lucky, whatever event happens in my 40-year career…if I make it to 40, I’m lucky if the shooting happens at the other end of the building and not where I am.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The radio version of this story was edited by Adam Bearne. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"npr-transcript\">\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Transcript:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Since the start of the school year in this country, there have already been over 70 shootings on campuses – 70 in just over two months. That’s according to the K-12 School Shooting Database, which tracks these incidents. So here at MORNING EDITION, we’ve been thinking a lot about both the trauma of that violence in a place that’s supposed to be safe – a school – but also about the way we now prepare our kids for the day it might happen to them. That includes parents on our show, like our editor Adam Bearne. His daughter came home from her first week of kindergarten and told him about something she called a construction drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CLARA: I don’t know why it’s called a construction drill, ’cause that’s really confusing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Clara was actually talking about a lockdown drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CLARA: We had to be really quiet, go under our cubbies, close the doors, and then I got scared ’cause I thought it was real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: It wasn’t, but her fear was. So we decided to take you, our listeners, into a school that, like many schools, is trying to prepare the kids without making them feel like a violent incident is inevitable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AMY KUJAWSKI: Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: I’m Leila.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Hi, Leila. It’s nice to meet you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: So nice to meet you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: I’m Amy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: That’s Amy Kujawski, the principal of St. Anthony Middle School, which she just calls Sam’s. It’s in a suburb of Minneapolis. And as you can hear, she has that larger-than-life middle school principal energy, and she leads with that positivity, even when things might feel bleak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: We will emphasize the belonging, the safety, the love and care and warmth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: On this day, her school is going through the first of five state-mandated lockdown drills, the first since the mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School and Church nearby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How far is Annunciation from here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Oh, my goodness. It’s close. Yeah. I had staff who had nieces and nephews there, who had friends there. Yeah. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: The walls of Kujawski’s office feature posters with messages you might expect, like, hate is loud; love is strong. But there’s also a laminated sign with the school’s safety protocols, like there is in every room in the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Lockdown. Locks, lights, out of sight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: All the kids know this language and what to do in a medical emergency, or something much worse. Inside Kathleen West’s classroom, the teacher gets her 12- and 13-year-old students ready for the lockdown drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KATHLEEN WEST: We want to stay away from that window over by my desk. So if you can see that window, you’re not in a good spot, and you should come closer this way. Yeah, I think you’re good, Henry, ’cause you can’t see the window from there. So I think that will be good. Yeah. We just have to kind of sit in this unpleasantness for a little bit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: When it’s time for the drill, there’s an announcement over the loudspeakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STAFF MEMBER: Can I have your attention, please? This is a lockdown drill. Teachers, please secure your students in your classrooms. This is a lockdown drill. Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: The classrooms go dark. The hallways are quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you’re checking each door to make sure it’s locked?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Yep. And I also give feedback to our teachers if I can see or hear them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: That’s Principal Kujawski again. She doesn’t jiggle the door handles too much, so the students don’t think there’s a real intruder. And back in West’s classroom, she quietly reassures the students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: That’s them checking to make sure that our door is locked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: After clearing her floor, Kujawski listens for the other staff checking the rest of the school. Then she speaks into her walkie-talkie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF WALKIE-TALKIE BEEPING)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KUJAWSKI: Are we all clear? I think we can call it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UNIDENTIFIED STAFF MEMBER: Your attention, please. The lockdown drill is all clear. The lockdown drill is all clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(CROSSTALK)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: The school gets loud again as everyone moves on to their next class, and we chat with a couple students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PHOEBE STRODEL: I’m Phoebe Strodel, and I’m 12 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAEGAN DUNKLEY: Hello. My name is Raegan Dunkley (ph), and I’m also 12 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: OK. So describe to me what you just did in this lockdown drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PHOEBE: Well, we go, like, up against, like, a wall or a bookshelf or a space where if there were people, like, coming in, they won’t be able to see you through the windows or any, like, spaces, and stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: But does it make you feel just generally prepared?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAEGAN: Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: It does?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAEGAN: Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Does it scare you at all? Or does it make you feel…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RAEGAN: No, because – well, I mean, it definitely is scary if it’s a real-life situation. But thankfully, there’s, like, a police station right next to our school. So if there were to be a lockdown drill, the police would be here within, like, minutes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: So the drills feel normal to you. They’re just part of life. Fire drill…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PHOEBE: Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: …Lockdown drill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PHOEBE: Yeah. You start it in, like, first grade or something because, like, the kindergarteners probably wouldn’t, like, handle it or anyone younger than that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Lockdown drills aren’t all the school is doing to protect its students. The classrooms are locked during lessons. There’s bullet-resistant film on the windows, and the police and fire department nearby know the school’s security protocols. West, the teacher you heard instructing her kids earlier? Well, she’s bothered that this is all so ordinary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: You’re getting me at a really vulnerable time ’cause my brother and sister both send all of their kids to Annunciation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: They do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: So they were all in the shooting there. And my brother was there, and my brother-in-law were there – just happened to be at Mass that day. So six of my family members were in a mass shooting event this school year. And then the next week, I came back to work here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: What was it like to do a lockdown drill after that, knowing…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: Honestly, it’s so normal. You know, the drills are like how we’re legally mandated to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Like, that’s just something that happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: West was a student teacher when Columbine happened over 25 years ago, so she’s always taught in the era of mass shootings at American schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: We’ve been through different waves of, like, how to respond and what the drills are going to be. And of course, now I just always think, like, well, the shooters have all been through all these drills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Oh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: So, like, I just don’t even know, you know, how effective they’re going to be. They’re not going to shoot us when we’re in our classrooms, locked down. They’re going to shoot us when we’re out at the fire drill. The kids are all in the same place, and the teachers are all in the same place. And I’m always thinking, like, OK, how can I save the most lives in this situation, right? And it’s crazy that that’s just part of the job. Like, that’s not why I got into teaching in the first place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Yeah. What do you teach?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: English.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(LAUGHTER)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: I like reading and writing. I don’t really want to teach about, like, how to escape, you know, active shooters at school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Have you seen a change in the way you think about preparing the kids or how…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: Yeah. The drills have changed over time. And I did work at one school where they wouldn’t tell us if it was real or not, which I thought was really cruel and unusual. So the lockdown drill would happen, and the kids would be like, is it real? And I’m like, I don’t know. Listen for the sirens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: (Gasping).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: Like, if we hear the sirens, it’s real. If we don’t, then it’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>FADEL: Is there anything that you would want to say or talk about when it comes to preparing these kids or the fact that you do have to prepare them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WEST: Well, I really wish that the right people would take action to make this stop. And I don’t think it’s fair. As a schoolteacher who started out making $30,000 a year, you know, and will never make more than $100,000 a year, like, my job should not be to save your child’s life. I know the statistics don’t bear this out, but it just feels like when, not if. Like, if I’m lucky, whatever event happens in my 40-year career – I’m at year 24. So if I make it to 40 or whatever, I’m lucky if the shooting happens at the other end of the building and not where I am.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(SOUNDBITE OF PHILIP GLASS AND PAUL LEONARD-MORGAN’S “TALES FROM THE LOOP”)\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>PEN America released its list of the most-banned books of the 2024-2025 school year on Wednesday – and warned that the number of books challenged or banned in public school districts across the country has risen \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1245037718/book-bans-2023-pen-america\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>exponentially\u003c/u>\u003c/a> in the past two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group dedicated to free expression counted 6,870 bans during the past academic year. While that’s down from a total of 10,046 bans imposed during the 2023-24 school year, it’s still a sharp rise from the period of 2021-2023, which averaged just under 3,000 incidents of book banning each year, in what it calls a “disturbing normalization of censorship” in public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PEN America defines a school book ban as “any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the new report, the most-banned book in the country in the 2023-24 school year was Anthony Burgess’ 1962 dystopian novel \u003cem>A Clockwork Orange\u003c/em>, followed by Patricia McCormick’s 2006 young adult title \u003cem>Sold\u003c/em>, a fictional account of a girl sold into sexual slavery in India that was named one of the American Library Association’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.ala.org/winner/sold\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>best YA books\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. The third book on the list is Jennifer Niven’s YA coming-of-age novel \u003cem>Breathless\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horror writer Stephen King ( 206 instances), young adult novelist Ellen Hopkins (167 instances) and fantasy author Sarah J. Maas (162 instances) are the authors listed as most-challenged overall in the 2024-25 academic year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other frequently banned and challenged authors include novelist Jodi Picoult, manga author Yusei Matsui and children’s and young adult author Elana K. Arnold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report lists the states with the highest rates of book banning in 2024-25 as Florida, with 2,304 instances; Texas (1,781); and Tennessee (1,622).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country. Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide,” the PEN report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The PEN America report’s authors added that although many bans have been enacted at the local and state levels, the federal government has been using new executive orders signed by President Trump to \u003ca href=\"https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/07/14/here-are-596-books-being-banned-defense-department-schools.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>remove\u003c/u>\u003c/a> certain titles from Department of Defense schools on military bases; in July, nearly 600 titles were removed for lack of allignment with executive orders related to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/01/23/nx-s1-5271588/trump-dei-diversity-equity-inclusion-federal-workers-government\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>diversity\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/04/10/nx-s1-5349474/trump-dei-education-teachers-fear\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>discussions of race\u003c/u>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/01/22/nx-s1-5268876/a-look-at-trumps-executive-order-that-the-government-will-recognize-only-two-sexes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>“gender ideology extremism.”\u003c/u>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In January, the Department of Education issued a memo in which it called book bans a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-ends-bidens-book-ban-hoax\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>“hoax\u003c/u>\u003c/a>,” and rescinded all federal guidance that indicated that removals of “age-inappropriate” books could be violations of civil rights laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PEN America also argues that representations of LGBTQ+ identity in books are frequently deemed “sexually explicit,” including in the picture books \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/04/11/135316133/the-most-criticized-books-a-handy-list-from-your-library\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>And Tango Makes Three\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the true-life tale of two male Emperor Penguins hatching and raising a baby chick together at New York’s Central Park Zoo, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.timesofisrael.com/florida-school-district-removes-purim-superhero-book-about-jewish-kid-with-2-dads/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>The Purim Superhero\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, whose main character debates what costume he should wear for the joyous Jewish holiday – and who has two fathers.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>PEN America released its list of the most-banned books of the 2024-2025 school year on Wednesday – and warned that the number of books challenged or banned in public school districts across the country has risen \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1245037718/book-bans-2023-pen-america\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>exponentially\u003c/u>\u003c/a> in the past two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group dedicated to free expression counted 6,870 bans during the past academic year. While that’s down from a total of 10,046 bans imposed during the 2023-24 school year, it’s still a sharp rise from the period of 2021-2023, which averaged just under 3,000 incidents of book banning each year, in what it calls a “disturbing normalization of censorship” in public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PEN America defines a school book ban as “any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by governmental officials, that leads to a book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the new report, the most-banned book in the country in the 2023-24 school year was Anthony Burgess’ 1962 dystopian novel \u003cem>A Clockwork Orange\u003c/em>, followed by Patricia McCormick’s 2006 young adult title \u003cem>Sold\u003c/em>, a fictional account of a girl sold into sexual slavery in India that was named one of the American Library Association’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.ala.org/winner/sold\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>best YA books\u003c/u>\u003c/a>. The third book on the list is Jennifer Niven’s YA coming-of-age novel \u003cem>Breathless\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Horror writer Stephen King ( 206 instances), young adult novelist Ellen Hopkins (167 instances) and fantasy author Sarah J. Maas (162 instances) are the authors listed as most-challenged overall in the 2024-25 academic year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other frequently banned and challenged authors include novelist Jodi Picoult, manga author Yusei Matsui and children’s and young adult author Elana K. Arnold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report lists the states with the highest rates of book banning in 2024-25 as Florida, with 2,304 instances; Texas (1,781); and Tennessee (1,622).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country. Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide,” the PEN report says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The PEN America report’s authors added that although many bans have been enacted at the local and state levels, the federal government has been using new executive orders signed by President Trump to \u003ca href=\"https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/07/14/here-are-596-books-being-banned-defense-department-schools.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>remove\u003c/u>\u003c/a> certain titles from Department of Defense schools on military bases; in July, nearly 600 titles were removed for lack of allignment with executive orders related to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/01/23/nx-s1-5271588/trump-dei-diversity-equity-inclusion-federal-workers-government\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>diversity\u003c/u>\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/04/10/nx-s1-5349474/trump-dei-education-teachers-fear\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>discussions of race\u003c/u>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/01/22/nx-s1-5268876/a-look-at-trumps-executive-order-that-the-government-will-recognize-only-two-sexes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>“gender ideology extremism.”\u003c/u>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In January, the Department of Education issued a memo in which it called book bans a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-ends-bidens-book-ban-hoax\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cu>“hoax\u003c/u>\u003c/a>,” and rescinded all federal guidance that indicated that removals of “age-inappropriate” books could be violations of civil rights laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PEN America also argues that representations of LGBTQ+ identity in books are frequently deemed “sexually explicit,” including in the picture books \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/04/11/135316133/the-most-criticized-books-a-handy-list-from-your-library\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>And Tango Makes Three\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, the true-life tale of two male Emperor Penguins hatching and raising a baby chick together at New York’s Central Park Zoo, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.timesofisrael.com/florida-school-district-removes-purim-superhero-book-about-jewish-kid-with-2-dads/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>\u003cu>The Purim Superhero\u003c/u>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, whose main character debates what costume he should wear for the joyous Jewish holiday – and who has two fathers.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Friendship Break Ups Can Be Devastating for Tweens. Here’s How Adults Can Help",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leanne Davis, a researcher at Education Northwest, found out her 10-year-old son had made a sad playlist to cope with his best friend moving away. He’d listen to it at night and cry himself to sleep. “It just kind of crushed me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davis had known the transition would be tough, but she hadn’t realized just how deep the loss would feel. Like many adults, she underestimated how intense \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65569/the-secret-to-staying-best-friends-forever-dont-deep-score\">childhood friendships\u003c/a> – and their endings – can be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Friendship “breakups” are a common part of growing up. One \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30558749/\">study of sixth graders\u003c/a> in the Los Angeles Unified School District found that two-thirds of students changed friend groups between September and June. These shifts often happen during big transitions, like starting middle or high school or developing new interests. But just because they’re common doesn’t mean they’re easy, especially during adolescence, which neuroscientists define as the period from age 10 to 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://lydiadenworth.com/\">Science journalist Lydia Denworth\u003c/a> has spent years researching how friendships develop across the lifespan. She says the adolescent brain is especially tuned into social dynamics. “Friendship is everything,” she said. “When it’s going well, that matters hugely. And when it’s going badly, sometimes they can’t think about anything else.” Different situations call for different kinds of support. Denworth offers insights on how adults can show up thoughtfully when friendships shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Talk About Friendship Early\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Denworth encourages adults to be proactive about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63184/when-parents-know-these-4-phases-of-friendship-they-can-help-their-child-make-friends-more-easily\">supporting kids’ friendships\u003c/a>. That means talking about what healthy friendship looks like even when everything seems fine. “We ask about their grades, we ask about their activities,” she said. “We should be talking about [friendship] at least as much as we’re talking about what you got on your math test.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63456/6-ways-educators-can-bolster-boys-social-skills\">Friendship is a skill set\u003c/a>, according to Denworth, and kids don’t automatically arrive with all the tools they need. A healthy friendship, she added, is positive, long-lasting and cooperative with mutual kindness, emotional support and reciprocity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59757/with-classroom-behavior-issues-on-the-rise-restorative-justice-offers-solutions\">restorative justice counselor\u003c/a> Chau Tran tells students early in the school year that she’s available to help with friendship issues. She’s learned that small miscommunications can quickly snowball. Support from adults can help students \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65502/how-better-conversations-can-help-fight-misinformation-and-build-media-literacy\">express themselves clearly\u003c/a> and set better boundaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this age, they’re still kind of learning how to navigate a conflict. They’re still figuring out how to speak their truth while also learning how to sit and actively listen,” Tran said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When a Kid Is Going Through a Breakup\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If a child is being broken up with, it’s natural for adults to want to fix it. But Denworth says the best thing adults can do is slow down and validate the hurt. She noted that there is a tendency to minimize the pain, but developmentally their brains are responding to this social change differently than adults. “knowing that should help us\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/64516/to-raise-empathetic-children-parents-must-practice-empathy-themselves\"> have more empathy\u003c/a>,” said Denworth. “I’d say, ‘Yeah, this really hurts.’ And then just let it. Let it hurt, but be there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s necessary for kids to go through these experiences as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57010/how-understanding-middle-school-friendships-can-help-students\">part of the growing up process\u003c/a>. Where adults can be helpful is by providing some context and talking about the fact that there will be a lot of change in friendships over time, according to Denworth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saachi, a 14-year-old in Menlo Park, experienced a painful friendship fallout during her freshman year. “I just noticed they were giving signs that they just didn’t want to hang around me,” she said. Saachi was sad and confused, but she appreciated how her mom helped by staying calm and sharing similar stories from her own life. She encouraged Saachi to connect with other students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I made a lot of new friends in high school. And I’m glad I was able to branch out because of those friendship breakups,” Saachi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When Your Kid Is the One Ending Things\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Friendship breakups can also be hard for the person doing the breaking up. Isabel, 17, ended a friendship in high school. “When this friend got more comfortable with me, they started showing more concerning signs,” Isabel said, adding that their friend would do things without caring about consequences. “That’s where I was like, I’m not comfortable with that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Isabel didn’t talk to an adult about it because they had bad experiences with adults brushing it off in the past. They sent a text to end the friendship, then wrestled with guilt and doubt for weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denworth said that’s where parents can help—not by deciding whether a friendship should end, but by helping kids think through how they’re ending it. She recommends that parents check in with kids about whether they are being kind when they break things off with a friend. “That doesn’t mean feelings won’t get hurt. But there’s no need to be unnecessarily nasty,” Denworth said. “And I do think it’s really important for parents to set some ground rules about how we treat other people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>If you have more time, you can plan\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Leanne Davis’s son is facing another friend’s move this year, but this time, she’s planning ahead. Knowing her son and how deep his reactions were when his last friend moved away is making her think about ways that she can support him during what she knows will be a hard transition. “We’re just trying to make sure that we’re building in a lot of time for them to be together,” said Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is helping her son and his friend make time to create things so that they both have tangible memories of the friendship. Additionally they are planning for what her son might send his friend when the friend moves away. “So that when he sees it, it reminds him of him and reminds him of the joy in their friendship,” added Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is also ensuring lines of communication like texting or online messaging are established so that her son and his friend can communicate after the move, even if their communication eventually peters out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many parents, Davis is figuring out how to walk the line between supportive and overbearing. So far, there is no perfect formula. “We need to be prepared to support him and who he is and the reactions that he’s going to have,” said Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3169186124\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>Welcome to MindShift where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir. Think back to when you were a kid—did you ever have a good friend move away? One day you’re hanging out at recess, planning your next sleepover, and then suddenly… they’re just gone. No more playdates, No more inside jokes, and no say in the matter. How unfair is that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Leanne Davis, a parent in Washington State, watched her 10 year old son go through exactly that not too long ago WHEN His good friend moved to Spain. To Leanne’s surprise, her son grieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> He made himself a sad playlist on Spotify. He listens to his playlist when he’s feeling like just really in his emotions about his friend and like his friend leaving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She caught him listening to it at night, crying himself to sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> It just kind of crushed me and then I realized like how important this these friendships were and it actually wasn’t something that we were talking about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Today on MindShift, we’re diving into the ups and downs of friendship breakups—and how the adults in kids’ lives can help them navigate it. We’ll hear from Leanne, researchers, and teens about how to strike the right balance. All that after the break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> When a kid loses a friend, it can feel heartbreaking—for them and for the parent trying to support them. But these shifts in friendship are not only common they are actually expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>Science journalist Lydia Denworth has spent years researching how friendships develop and function throughout all stages of life. She says that friendship during adolescence — a period neuroscientists define as spanning ages 10 to 25 — is especially unique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> In adolescence in particular, the brain is. Undergoing a lot of change. Most of which makes you far more attentive to social cues, to friendship, to what everybody else is doing, what they might think of you. And it’s just it’s all about friends, friends, friends, friends, friends, basically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That hyper-focus on friends is biological. And it’s a growing up process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>We want adolescents to begin to explore life outside their immediate family. We want them to learn to be independent and to take some risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>And the focus on friends and the importance of their social lives is part of that. It’s finding their way in the larger social world and making sense of their own identity within that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> It’s common for students to go through big friendship breakups when they are going through a school transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>One of the studies that I think is most surprising was done with thousands of middle schoolers in the Los Angeles School Unified School District, and they found that two thirds of sixth graders changed friends from September to June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>Kids make friends where they spend their time—on the soccer field, in the band room, at robotics club. And as interests change, friendships can too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>When kids are going through it, or if you went through that in sixth grade or seventh grade, you thought it was only you, right? That was that was losing your friends or feeling at sea a little bit or getting interested in—maybe you’re the you were the kid or your kid is the one who is seeking out the new relationships. But the the really important message is just how normal that is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Saachi, a 14 year old from Menlo Park, had a close knit group of friends when she started high school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> We had come from middle school we all knew each other so we were just like, okay, like we’re gonna stick together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> A few months into the school year, something shifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon: \u003c/strong>I just noticed like they were giving signs that they just didn’t want to hang around me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> They would be talking to people and then i would try to talk to them, and be like oh hey like what would we like just like telling them about stuff that happened um throughout the school day and then they would just like look at me like oh yeah whatever like uh-huh uh-uh and like quickly like turn away and like dismiss me constantly and i was just like they didn’t really acknowledge my presence anymore. It was as if like I just wasn’t really there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir\u003c/strong>: It was especially painful because their friendship had once felt effortless—full of energy and care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> We used to like talk so much like if we had if like one of us had something to say like we would sit there we’d listen we’d have like so much to say about the other person’s like story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> When that dynamic disappeared, it left Saachi feeling something she didn’t expect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon: \u003c/strong>I was kind of sad, but I was more so confused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> I would have liked to know what they were thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon: \u003c/strong>If they had just talked to me you know maybe we would have still been friends i don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In Saachi’s case, she was left to piece together what went wrong. In other cases, ending the friendship is a conscious choice. Isabel Daniels, a 17 year old, shared their story\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>I met this friend like pretty much in like middle school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>This friendship, it’s, like, Oh, someone finally understands me and like, we finally see each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Isabel was drawn to their friend’s free spirit—the way they didn’t seem weighed down by other people’s opinions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>When this friend got more comfortable with me, they started showing more like…concerning signs, like that lack of care for how society thinks it’s like a double edged sword and so it’s nice in a way that like, oh, you’re free from these and expectations, but also you don’t. Like you don’t care about consequences, which can lead to a lot of like dangerous behavior. And that’s where I was like, I’m not like comfortable with that. Just because I also don’t like being labeled or having a lot of expectations put on me, it doesn’t mean I’m want to go out of my way and be like a menace in like a not fun and silly way\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> What began as carefree fun started to feel unsafe. Isabel knew they needed to end the friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>It’s like fun while it lasts, but then you realize that fun comes with a cost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> When the time came to break things off, Isabel didn’t feel like they could do it in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels:\u003c/strong> I unfortunately broke up with this friend over text, blocked their number and then didn’t look back after that which only added to the guilt, because I didn’t give this friend a chance to explain, to give their piece. Like we didn’t have a conversation. I just like sent it, blocked, and then tried to move on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>Isabel was certain the friendship needed to end, and they haven’t talked to the friend since, but they were left with lingering questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels:\u003c/strong> What if, like, what would this person say? Could have things been different if we both just talked?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Even though Isabel was grappling with some big questions, they did not reach out for support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels:\u003c/strong> I was very against asking help, especially from adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>To Isabel, adults didn’t feel like a helpful option. They worried they wouldn’t be understood, or that the advice would miss the nuance of what they were going through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>Things tend to be watered down when you are talking to someone older than you because they view you as like oh you’re just not like fully mentally developed you just haven’t um seen life enough and that this is just part of that, but these are significant moments in our life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> They had memories of adults falling short when it came to helping with friendships. For example, Isabel has this story from when they were younger\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels:\u003c/strong> I was telling an adult that this kid was being a bit too rough with me when we were playing. This kid was a boy so you know what the adults told me? Oh that just means he likes you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Lydia Denworth, the science journalist we heard from earlier, has some helpful insights about where adults often go wrong—and what they can do instead. She recommends adults have conversations with kids about friendship before things go wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> We should be talking about that at least as much as we’re talking about what you got on your math test or, you know, whether you got the main lead role in the musical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> We ask about their grades, we ask about their activities and what they’re doing. And we put pressure on those things and we want to know about their friends too, but what we don’t realize is that\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> We can help kids understand that friendship is a set of social skills and that it is those are skills that we benefit from practice and that kids don’t necessarily come into the world having all of them ready to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Defining what a good and healthy friendship looks like early on can not only help them have stronger friendships, but also better romantic and family relationships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> A really good quality friendship has three things. It’s long lasting, it’s positive and it’s cooperative. So that means that a good friend is a steady, stable presence in your life. They make you feel good. So they’re kind. They say nice things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>And then the co operative piece is the reciprocity, the the back and forth, the helpfulness, the sort of showing up and listening and and not having a relationship that’s lopsided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And just because someone’s been your friend for a long time, doesn’t mean they’re still a good friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> The longer term relationships we often just sort of stick with because we have that shared history piece. But if they’re not positive any more, if they’re not making you feel better, then they might not be a really healthy relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> When a child is experiencing a friendship breakup, Lydia suggests adults resist the urge to fix it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>You can’t necessarily just make it all better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>We need to understand that kids need to go through these experiences and this process. But where adults can be helpful is by providing some context, by talking about the fact that there will be a lot of change in friendships over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That also means validating the pain kids are feeling. It’ll be hard, but don’t jump in and convince kids that it isn’t a big deal. Downplaying the situation is well intentioned but it can backfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>I spoke earlier about how much the adolescent brain is changing. It’s almost at the same level that a toddler’s brain is changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> The result is that not only are they really primed for social things, but they’re also their emotions are literally heightened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> Friendship is everything. And so when it’s going well, that matters hugely. And when it’s going badly, sometimes they can’t think about anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In other words the feelings that kids are bringing to their social relationships are real for them and they aren’t the same for us adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>Literally our brains are responding differently and knowing that should help us have more empathy\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> I’d say, Yeah, this really hurts. You know, I’m. And then just just let it, let it hurt like and, but be there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And if a child wants to keep talking you can follow their lead by sharing your own experiences with friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>Talk about maybe a time that you had a friendship that that fell apart or where somebody got hurt and what you did to mend it if you did or or why you didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Saachi, the freshman I talked to earlier, told me that she appreciated the way her mom did this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> My mom she’s always been a very like calm individual like it takes a lot to tip her over the edge like she’s very like she wasn’t freaking out because she’s had a lot of like life experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> She’s like i had friends like that like i dealt with that and it’s just like she was calm and that made me calm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>When her mom said she’d eventually make new friends who treated her better, Saachi wasn’t so sure. But she tried to talk to new people in her classes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> She was right, because I made a lot of new friends in high school. And I’m glad I was able to branch out because of those friendship breakups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>If your child is the one ending a friendship, it’s worth checking in—not to control their choice, but to help them think through how they’re doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> Are they being kind? Are they being thoughtful? That doesn’t mean feelings won’t get hurt. But but there’s no need to be unnecessarily nasty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> And I do think it’s really important for parents to set some ground rules about how we treat other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Let’s return to Leanne Davis, the mom we heard from earlier. When she saw how hard her son took the loss, she realized she’d underestimated the seriousness of childhood friendships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> I moved a lot as an adult. My husband moved a a lot and I think we were tending, it took us a couple steps to be like, well, wait a minute, this is this kid and this kid is very different than other kid and. very different than maybe how we would do this. I need to be prepared to support him and who he is and like the reactions that he’s going to have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>This year another one of her son’s friends is moving away. And …this kid can’t catch a break…his friend is moving to Australia. But this time, Leanne is thinking about it differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> Now, knowing that this is happening and this is gonna be really rough we’re just trying to make sure that we’re building in a lot of time, for them to be together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She’s helping him make memories—something tangible to remember the friendship by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> Finding ways to like document some of their memories and things they’re doing together. Like he and I are planning for what would he like to send his friend when his friend leaves, or something that he’d like to make that, you know, that when he sees it, it reminds him of him and reminds him of like the joy in their friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And she’s also planning for what happens after the move.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis: \u003c/strong>He does text his friends, like on, he can like message him from the computer. So making sure that they’re able to communicate that way. and that it’s established before they leave, knowing that it may eventually fade out, but that that’s a way for them to know that they can get in touch with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir\u003c/strong>: Like so many parents, Leanne’s figuring out how to walk the line between supportive and overbearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And maybe that’s the real work of showing up for kids—not having the perfect response, but staying close enough to notice what they need, and giving them space to figure the rest out themselves. Because in the end, friendship breakups are just part of growing up. But having someone who sees you through it can make all the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leanne Davis, a researcher at Education Northwest, found out her 10-year-old son had made a sad playlist to cope with his best friend moving away. He’d listen to it at night and cry himself to sleep. “It just kind of crushed me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davis had known the transition would be tough, but she hadn’t realized just how deep the loss would feel. Like many adults, she underestimated how intense \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65569/the-secret-to-staying-best-friends-forever-dont-deep-score\">childhood friendships\u003c/a> – and their endings – can be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Friendship “breakups” are a common part of growing up. One \u003ca href=\"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30558749/\">study of sixth graders\u003c/a> in the Los Angeles Unified School District found that two-thirds of students changed friend groups between September and June. These shifts often happen during big transitions, like starting middle or high school or developing new interests. But just because they’re common doesn’t mean they’re easy, especially during adolescence, which neuroscientists define as the period from age 10 to 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://lydiadenworth.com/\">Science journalist Lydia Denworth\u003c/a> has spent years researching how friendships develop across the lifespan. She says the adolescent brain is especially tuned into social dynamics. “Friendship is everything,” she said. “When it’s going well, that matters hugely. And when it’s going badly, sometimes they can’t think about anything else.” Different situations call for different kinds of support. Denworth offers insights on how adults can show up thoughtfully when friendships shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Talk About Friendship Early\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Denworth encourages adults to be proactive about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63184/when-parents-know-these-4-phases-of-friendship-they-can-help-their-child-make-friends-more-easily\">supporting kids’ friendships\u003c/a>. That means talking about what healthy friendship looks like even when everything seems fine. “We ask about their grades, we ask about their activities,” she said. “We should be talking about [friendship] at least as much as we’re talking about what you got on your math test.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/63456/6-ways-educators-can-bolster-boys-social-skills\">Friendship is a skill set\u003c/a>, according to Denworth, and kids don’t automatically arrive with all the tools they need. A healthy friendship, she added, is positive, long-lasting and cooperative with mutual kindness, emotional support and reciprocity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/59757/with-classroom-behavior-issues-on-the-rise-restorative-justice-offers-solutions\">restorative justice counselor\u003c/a> Chau Tran tells students early in the school year that she’s available to help with friendship issues. She’s learned that small miscommunications can quickly snowball. Support from adults can help students \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65502/how-better-conversations-can-help-fight-misinformation-and-build-media-literacy\">express themselves clearly\u003c/a> and set better boundaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this age, they’re still kind of learning how to navigate a conflict. They’re still figuring out how to speak their truth while also learning how to sit and actively listen,” Tran said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When a Kid Is Going Through a Breakup\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>If a child is being broken up with, it’s natural for adults to want to fix it. But Denworth says the best thing adults can do is slow down and validate the hurt. She noted that there is a tendency to minimize the pain, but developmentally their brains are responding to this social change differently than adults. “knowing that should help us\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/64516/to-raise-empathetic-children-parents-must-practice-empathy-themselves\"> have more empathy\u003c/a>,” said Denworth. “I’d say, ‘Yeah, this really hurts.’ And then just let it. Let it hurt, but be there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s necessary for kids to go through these experiences as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/57010/how-understanding-middle-school-friendships-can-help-students\">part of the growing up process\u003c/a>. Where adults can be helpful is by providing some context and talking about the fact that there will be a lot of change in friendships over time, according to Denworth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saachi, a 14-year-old in Menlo Park, experienced a painful friendship fallout during her freshman year. “I just noticed they were giving signs that they just didn’t want to hang around me,” she said. Saachi was sad and confused, but she appreciated how her mom helped by staying calm and sharing similar stories from her own life. She encouraged Saachi to connect with other students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I made a lot of new friends in high school. And I’m glad I was able to branch out because of those friendship breakups,” Saachi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When Your Kid Is the One Ending Things\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Friendship breakups can also be hard for the person doing the breaking up. Isabel, 17, ended a friendship in high school. “When this friend got more comfortable with me, they started showing more concerning signs,” Isabel said, adding that their friend would do things without caring about consequences. “That’s where I was like, I’m not comfortable with that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Isabel didn’t talk to an adult about it because they had bad experiences with adults brushing it off in the past. They sent a text to end the friendship, then wrestled with guilt and doubt for weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Denworth said that’s where parents can help—not by deciding whether a friendship should end, but by helping kids think through how they’re ending it. She recommends that parents check in with kids about whether they are being kind when they break things off with a friend. “That doesn’t mean feelings won’t get hurt. But there’s no need to be unnecessarily nasty,” Denworth said. “And I do think it’s really important for parents to set some ground rules about how we treat other people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>If you have more time, you can plan\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Leanne Davis’s son is facing another friend’s move this year, but this time, she’s planning ahead. Knowing her son and how deep his reactions were when his last friend moved away is making her think about ways that she can support him during what she knows will be a hard transition. “We’re just trying to make sure that we’re building in a lot of time for them to be together,” said Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is helping her son and his friend make time to create things so that they both have tangible memories of the friendship. Additionally they are planning for what her son might send his friend when the friend moves away. “So that when he sees it, it reminds him of him and reminds him of the joy in their friendship,” added Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She is also ensuring lines of communication like texting or online messaging are established so that her son and his friend can communicate after the move, even if their communication eventually peters out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like so many parents, Davis is figuring out how to walk the line between supportive and overbearing. So far, there is no perfect formula. “We need to be prepared to support him and who he is and the reactions that he’s going to have,” said Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3169186124\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>Welcome to MindShift where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Nimah Gobir. Think back to when you were a kid—did you ever have a good friend move away? One day you’re hanging out at recess, planning your next sleepover, and then suddenly… they’re just gone. No more playdates, No more inside jokes, and no say in the matter. How unfair is that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Leanne Davis, a parent in Washington State, watched her 10 year old son go through exactly that not too long ago WHEN His good friend moved to Spain. To Leanne’s surprise, her son grieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> He made himself a sad playlist on Spotify. He listens to his playlist when he’s feeling like just really in his emotions about his friend and like his friend leaving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She caught him listening to it at night, crying himself to sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> It just kind of crushed me and then I realized like how important this these friendships were and it actually wasn’t something that we were talking about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Today on MindShift, we’re diving into the ups and downs of friendship breakups—and how the adults in kids’ lives can help them navigate it. We’ll hear from Leanne, researchers, and teens about how to strike the right balance. All that after the break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> When a kid loses a friend, it can feel heartbreaking—for them and for the parent trying to support them. But these shifts in friendship are not only common they are actually expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>Science journalist Lydia Denworth has spent years researching how friendships develop and function throughout all stages of life. She says that friendship during adolescence — a period neuroscientists define as spanning ages 10 to 25 — is especially unique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> In adolescence in particular, the brain is. Undergoing a lot of change. Most of which makes you far more attentive to social cues, to friendship, to what everybody else is doing, what they might think of you. And it’s just it’s all about friends, friends, friends, friends, friends, basically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That hyper-focus on friends is biological. And it’s a growing up process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>We want adolescents to begin to explore life outside their immediate family. We want them to learn to be independent and to take some risks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>And the focus on friends and the importance of their social lives is part of that. It’s finding their way in the larger social world and making sense of their own identity within that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> It’s common for students to go through big friendship breakups when they are going through a school transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>One of the studies that I think is most surprising was done with thousands of middle schoolers in the Los Angeles School Unified School District, and they found that two thirds of sixth graders changed friends from September to June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>Kids make friends where they spend their time—on the soccer field, in the band room, at robotics club. And as interests change, friendships can too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>When kids are going through it, or if you went through that in sixth grade or seventh grade, you thought it was only you, right? That was that was losing your friends or feeling at sea a little bit or getting interested in—maybe you’re the you were the kid or your kid is the one who is seeking out the new relationships. But the the really important message is just how normal that is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Saachi, a 14 year old from Menlo Park, had a close knit group of friends when she started high school\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> We had come from middle school we all knew each other so we were just like, okay, like we’re gonna stick together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> A few months into the school year, something shifted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon: \u003c/strong>I just noticed like they were giving signs that they just didn’t want to hang around me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> They would be talking to people and then i would try to talk to them, and be like oh hey like what would we like just like telling them about stuff that happened um throughout the school day and then they would just like look at me like oh yeah whatever like uh-huh uh-uh and like quickly like turn away and like dismiss me constantly and i was just like they didn’t really acknowledge my presence anymore. It was as if like I just wasn’t really there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir\u003c/strong>: It was especially painful because their friendship had once felt effortless—full of energy and care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> We used to like talk so much like if we had if like one of us had something to say like we would sit there we’d listen we’d have like so much to say about the other person’s like story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> When that dynamic disappeared, it left Saachi feeling something she didn’t expect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon: \u003c/strong>I was kind of sad, but I was more so confused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> I would have liked to know what they were thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon: \u003c/strong>If they had just talked to me you know maybe we would have still been friends i don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In Saachi’s case, she was left to piece together what went wrong. In other cases, ending the friendship is a conscious choice. Isabel Daniels, a 17 year old, shared their story\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>I met this friend like pretty much in like middle school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>This friendship, it’s, like, Oh, someone finally understands me and like, we finally see each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Isabel was drawn to their friend’s free spirit—the way they didn’t seem weighed down by other people’s opinions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>When this friend got more comfortable with me, they started showing more like…concerning signs, like that lack of care for how society thinks it’s like a double edged sword and so it’s nice in a way that like, oh, you’re free from these and expectations, but also you don’t. Like you don’t care about consequences, which can lead to a lot of like dangerous behavior. And that’s where I was like, I’m not like comfortable with that. Just because I also don’t like being labeled or having a lot of expectations put on me, it doesn’t mean I’m want to go out of my way and be like a menace in like a not fun and silly way\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> What began as carefree fun started to feel unsafe. Isabel knew they needed to end the friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>It’s like fun while it lasts, but then you realize that fun comes with a cost.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> When the time came to break things off, Isabel didn’t feel like they could do it in person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels:\u003c/strong> I unfortunately broke up with this friend over text, blocked their number and then didn’t look back after that which only added to the guilt, because I didn’t give this friend a chance to explain, to give their piece. Like we didn’t have a conversation. I just like sent it, blocked, and then tried to move on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>Isabel was certain the friendship needed to end, and they haven’t talked to the friend since, but they were left with lingering questions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels:\u003c/strong> What if, like, what would this person say? Could have things been different if we both just talked?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Even though Isabel was grappling with some big questions, they did not reach out for support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels:\u003c/strong> I was very against asking help, especially from adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>To Isabel, adults didn’t feel like a helpful option. They worried they wouldn’t be understood, or that the advice would miss the nuance of what they were going through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels: \u003c/strong>Things tend to be watered down when you are talking to someone older than you because they view you as like oh you’re just not like fully mentally developed you just haven’t um seen life enough and that this is just part of that, but these are significant moments in our life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> They had memories of adults falling short when it came to helping with friendships. For example, Isabel has this story from when they were younger\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Isabel Daniels:\u003c/strong> I was telling an adult that this kid was being a bit too rough with me when we were playing. This kid was a boy so you know what the adults told me? Oh that just means he likes you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Lydia Denworth, the science journalist we heard from earlier, has some helpful insights about where adults often go wrong—and what they can do instead. She recommends adults have conversations with kids about friendship before things go wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> We should be talking about that at least as much as we’re talking about what you got on your math test or, you know, whether you got the main lead role in the musical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> We ask about their grades, we ask about their activities and what they’re doing. And we put pressure on those things and we want to know about their friends too, but what we don’t realize is that\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> We can help kids understand that friendship is a set of social skills and that it is those are skills that we benefit from practice and that kids don’t necessarily come into the world having all of them ready to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Defining what a good and healthy friendship looks like early on can not only help them have stronger friendships, but also better romantic and family relationships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> A really good quality friendship has three things. It’s long lasting, it’s positive and it’s cooperative. So that means that a good friend is a steady, stable presence in your life. They make you feel good. So they’re kind. They say nice things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>And then the co operative piece is the reciprocity, the the back and forth, the helpfulness, the sort of showing up and listening and and not having a relationship that’s lopsided.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And just because someone’s been your friend for a long time, doesn’t mean they’re still a good friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> The longer term relationships we often just sort of stick with because we have that shared history piece. But if they’re not positive any more, if they’re not making you feel better, then they might not be a really healthy relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> When a child is experiencing a friendship breakup, Lydia suggests adults resist the urge to fix it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>You can’t necessarily just make it all better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>We need to understand that kids need to go through these experiences and this process. But where adults can be helpful is by providing some context, by talking about the fact that there will be a lot of change in friendships over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> That also means validating the pain kids are feeling. It’ll be hard, but don’t jump in and convince kids that it isn’t a big deal. Downplaying the situation is well intentioned but it can backfire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>I spoke earlier about how much the adolescent brain is changing. It’s almost at the same level that a toddler’s brain is changing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> The result is that not only are they really primed for social things, but they’re also their emotions are literally heightened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> Friendship is everything. And so when it’s going well, that matters hugely. And when it’s going badly, sometimes they can’t think about anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> In other words the feelings that kids are bringing to their social relationships are real for them and they aren’t the same for us adults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>Literally our brains are responding differently and knowing that should help us have more empathy\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> I’d say, Yeah, this really hurts. You know, I’m. And then just just let it, let it hurt like and, but be there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And if a child wants to keep talking you can follow their lead by sharing your own experiences with friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth: \u003c/strong>Talk about maybe a time that you had a friendship that that fell apart or where somebody got hurt and what you did to mend it if you did or or why you didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Saachi, the freshman I talked to earlier, told me that she appreciated the way her mom did this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> My mom she’s always been a very like calm individual like it takes a lot to tip her over the edge like she’s very like she wasn’t freaking out because she’s had a lot of like life experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> She’s like i had friends like that like i dealt with that and it’s just like she was calm and that made me calm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>When her mom said she’d eventually make new friends who treated her better, Saachi wasn’t so sure. But she tried to talk to new people in her classes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Saachi Kaur Dhillon:\u003c/strong> She was right, because I made a lot of new friends in high school. And I’m glad I was able to branch out because of those friendship breakups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>If your child is the one ending a friendship, it’s worth checking in—not to control their choice, but to help them think through how they’re doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> Are they being kind? Are they being thoughtful? That doesn’t mean feelings won’t get hurt. But but there’s no need to be unnecessarily nasty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lydia Denworth:\u003c/strong> And I do think it’s really important for parents to set some ground rules about how we treat other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> Let’s return to Leanne Davis, the mom we heard from earlier. When she saw how hard her son took the loss, she realized she’d underestimated the seriousness of childhood friendships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> I moved a lot as an adult. My husband moved a a lot and I think we were tending, it took us a couple steps to be like, well, wait a minute, this is this kid and this kid is very different than other kid and. very different than maybe how we would do this. I need to be prepared to support him and who he is and like the reactions that he’s going to have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir: \u003c/strong>This year another one of her son’s friends is moving away. And …this kid can’t catch a break…his friend is moving to Australia. But this time, Leanne is thinking about it differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> Now, knowing that this is happening and this is gonna be really rough we’re just trying to make sure that we’re building in a lot of time, for them to be together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> She’s helping him make memories—something tangible to remember the friendship by.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis:\u003c/strong> Finding ways to like document some of their memories and things they’re doing together. Like he and I are planning for what would he like to send his friend when his friend leaves, or something that he’d like to make that, you know, that when he sees it, it reminds him of him and reminds him of like the joy in their friendship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And she’s also planning for what happens after the move.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Leanne Davis: \u003c/strong>He does text his friends, like on, he can like message him from the computer. So making sure that they’re able to communicate that way. and that it’s established before they leave, knowing that it may eventually fade out, but that that’s a way for them to know that they can get in touch with each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir\u003c/strong>: Like so many parents, Leanne’s figuring out how to walk the line between supportive and overbearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nimah Gobir:\u003c/strong> And maybe that’s the real work of showing up for kids—not having the perfect response, but staying close enough to notice what they need, and giving them space to figure the rest out themselves. Because in the end, friendship breakups are just part of growing up. But having someone who sees you through it can make all the difference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/view/historyfrogedu/home\">Karalee Wong Nakatsuka\u003c/a> has been a history teacher at the same middle school in Arcadia – a community with a population that’s \u003ca href=\"https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0602462-arcadia-ca/\">57% Asian\u003c/a> – since 1990. She had felt well-versed in American history throughout much of her career, but it wasn’t until a pivotal year in the lives of so many that she developed an even deeper understanding of Asian American history: 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spread of COVID-19 and the anti-China sentiment that ensued spilled over to Asian Americans. There was also the murder of George Floyd, which was enabled by an Asian American police \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/officer-who-stood-george-floyd-died-asian-american-we-need-n1221311\">officer\u003c/a>. Asian elders were being targeted with violence, including one 84-year-old man who was \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/12/966940217/anger-and-fear-as-asian-american-seniors-targeted-in-bay-area-attacks\">pushed\u003c/a> to his death. In 2021, six women of Asian descent were killed in the Atlanta spa shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4056354895\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lack of understanding of the Asian American experience propelled Nakatsuka to contribute to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gilderlehrman.org/professional-development/summer-pd/neh-summer-institute/pacific-crossings-asian-american-pacific-islander-histories\">summer program\u003c/a> to help 36 middle and high school teachers teach the richness of AAPI history. The program became a welcome resource, especially for Asian American students who were not learning about AAPI history at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listen to the latest episode of the MindShift podcast to learn about how students are learning about the broader contributions of Asian Americans and their activism and what that means for civic engagement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4056354895\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Today, I want to take you to a middle school in a Los Angeles suburb so you can meet Karalee Wong Nakatsuka, an 8th grade history teacher at First Avenue Middle School. I visited back in May, which marked the beginning of a very special month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Morning. Happy AANHPI Heritage Month. No Phones!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Ms. Nakatsuka, greeting students at the door, was especially enthusiastic for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I’ve known her for about a year now, and let me tell you she is very passionate about her work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, we’re talking about citizenship and remember Joanne Furman says citizenship is about belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>This lesson is about a Chinese American man named Wong Kim Ark. Before this year, most people hadn’t heard of him. But anyone born in the United States over the past 127 years – has him and the 14th amendment to thank for U.S. citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Wong Kim Ark was born of Chinese immigrants. And he says, I am an American, right? And they’re challenged, they test him whether or not he can be in America. And what do they say? They say no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Wong, with the support of the Chinese community in San Francisco, fought for HIS AND their right to citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>But he challenges it, goes to the Supreme Court, and they say what? Yes, you are an American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>But Asian Americans like Wong Kim Ark, and their activism, are rarely remembered. Students may spend a lot of time on social media, but he doesn’t pop up on anyone’s feed. I asked some of Karalee’s students about times they’ve discussed AAPI history outside of her class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>I think in seventh grade I might have like heard the term once or twice,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong> I never really like understood it. I think the first time I actually started learning about it was in Ms. Nakatsuka’s class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>Like, we did Black history, obviously, and white history. And then also Native American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student:\u003c/strong> I think in Virginia when I grew up, I was surrounded by like an all white school and we did learn a lot about, like slavery and Black history but we never learned about anything like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> These students are surrounded by information because they have phones and have social media. But AAPI history? That’s a tougher subject to learn about. Even in their Asian American families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>My parents immigrated here and I was born in India. I feel like overall, we just never really have the chance to talk about other races and AAPI history. We just are more secluded, so that’s why it was for me a big deal when we actually started learning about more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Coming up, what inspired one teacher to speak up about AAPI History. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Karalee Nakatsuka has been teaching history since 1990, and brings her own personal history to the subject.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chinese exclusion is my jam, because when my grandfather came, he was a paper son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Meaning, he came to this country by asserting that he was a relative of someone already in the United States. Up until the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, specific immigrant groups weren’t targeted by exclusionary laws – anyone who showed up in this country just did so. But laws specifically excluding people of Chinese descent made impossible things like civic participation, justice, police protection, fair wages, home ownership. Adding to that, there were racist killings and calls for mass deportations all fanned by the media, pitting low wage workers against one another –\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>I, myself, because I didn’t understand history as well as I hope I understand it better now, like I’m talking with my students, like seeing the patterns, remembering– I mean, I’ve been teaching Chinese exclusion, I think probably from the beginning, but then connecting those lines and connecting to the present, that these view of the perpetual foreigners, view of yellow peril, these attitudes are still there and it’s really hard to shake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Despite her family history, Nakatsuka didn’t just learn how to teach AAPI history overnight. She didn’t instinctively know how to do this. It required professional development and a professional network – something she acquired only in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several programs throughout the country that will train teachers on certain eras of US history – the early colonial period, the American revolution, the civil rights movement. However…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong:\u003c/strong> The reality is there’s very little training in Asian American history generally,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That’s Jane Hong, a professor of history at Occidental College.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong :\u003c/strong> When you get to Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander histories, there’s even less training and even fewer opportunities and resources I think, for teachers, especially teachers outside of Hawaii, kind of the West, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>For context about her own school experience, Professor Hong grew up in a vibrant Asian American community on the East Coast\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I don’t think I learned any Asian American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I did take AP US History. The AP US history exam does cover the kind of greatest hits version of Asian American history so the Chinese Exclusion Act Japanese American incarceration and that might be it right it’s really those two topics and then sometimes right the Spanish American War and so the US colonization of the Philippines but even those topics don’t go really deep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Last year, she hosted a two-week training for about 36 middle and high school teachers on how to teach AAPI history. It was held at Occidental College as a pilot program. So, Why did she develop this program?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers, like students, benefit from having a facilitated experience when learning about any topic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> In Hong’s training, teaching strategies are taught alongside history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teachers read books, visited historic sites and watched sections of documentary films, such as “Free Chol Soo Lee.” The documentary is about a wrongly convicted Korean American man whom police insisted was a Chinatown gang member in the 1970s. The documentary is also about the Asian American activism that helped eventually free him from prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teacher Karalee Nakatsuka helped as a master teacher in Hong’s training. She realized she needed something like this after a pivotal year in the lives of so many: 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>While the murder of George Floyd sparked a racial reckoning, AAPI hate was steeply rising. Asian Americans were blamed for COVID, Asian elders were pushed violently on sidewalks, sometimes to their death. Others onto subway tracks and killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>My kids were, during the pandemic, someone yelled Wuhan at them when they were in the store with my husband, with their dad, and like, I thought we were in a very safe neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And then, the Atlanta spa shootings happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsclip sound\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>In March 2021, A white gunman killed 8 people, 6 of them women of Asian descent. Investigators said the killings weren’t racially motivated, but that’s not how Asian American women perceived it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And across the country, all these teachers across, because I had met these really, really cool people important people, history people, civics people, and they reached out to me from across the country saying, are you okay? And I was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m okay. You should reach out to your other AAPI folks.” But then I was… I was like, I’m not okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>After a series of exchanges with professional friends, Karalee took action. She became more visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> This is not normal Karalee. This is what Karalee normally does. But I felt so compelled to use my voice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>She also became more outspoken about her experience. Like on the Let’s K12 Better Podcast with host Amber Coleman Mortley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amber Coleman Mortley:\u003c/strong> Does anyone else I just want to jump in on the question that I had posed or.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> I’ll speak up. When you say empathy, that’s like one of my favorite words. And that’s huge because after Atlanta, people, it’s just all these wounds that we’ve had that have been festering that we don’t look at. I mean that as Asians, we are like taught, put your head down and just do everything and do it the best, do it better, because we always have to prove ourselves. And so we just live our lives and that’s just how it is. But we’ve been really introspective. And we’ve suffered microaggressions and harms and we just kind of keep on going. But after Atlanta, we’re like, maybe we need to speak up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And there was a letter written to colleagues – which a lot of Asian American women did at the time – in an attempt for understanding from their community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>…and I said, I just want to let you know what it’s like to be Asian- American during this time. And if I read that letter now, it feels very personal, it feels very raw and sharing just experiences of getting the wrong report card for my kid because they’re giving it to the Asian parent or my You know, different things, people mixing up Asian American people. So all those things came together to just make me feel like, hey, I need to respond. So also in my classroom, I said I need to, I need to teach anti-Asian hate. And these are all things that I don’t remember being formally taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Karalee’s passion for AAPI history soon got an even bigger audience. She was already a Gilda Lehrman California history teacher of the year. But then she spoke out at more conferences and webinars and ran a professional community. She was featured in the New York Times and Time Magazine. She wrote a book called “Bringing History and Civics to Life,” which centers student empathy in lessons about people in American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Back in her classroom, history from the 1800s feels contemporary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Okay, so in the 1870s, what is the attitude towards the Chinese after the railroad is already built? They’re villains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> They’re villains. What else? They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking over our country. We don’t want them, right? And as a result of this anti-Chinese sentiment from across the country, they decide, okay, we’re going to exclude the Chinese. So 1882, Chinese Exclusion Act. All Chinese are excluded. But was the 14th Amendment still written in 1882? Yeah, it was written in 1868. So what do we do about that birthright citizenship thing? And they challenge it under Wong Kim Ark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The 1800s is relevant again because of the executive order signed by President Trump in his second term to redefine birthright citizenship. This executive order is making its way through the courts right now AND upends the 127-year old application of birthright citizenship as granting U.S. citizenship to individuals born within the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nakatsuka uses the news to make history more relatable through an exercise. She starts by showing slides and video clips to help explain the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> On his first day in office, President Donald Trump sent an executive order to end universal birthright citizenship and limit it at birth to people with at least one parent who is a permanent resident or citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>The president wants to grant citizenship based on the parents’ immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Trump’s move could upend a 120-year-old Supreme Court precedent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Nakasutka has the students apply the executive order to real or fictitious people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Get out your post-it notes and look at what Trump is saying about who is allowed to be in America\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>She then asks her students to write down those names, while she takes a poster and draws two columns: a “yes” column and a “no” column.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>So if according to the Trump order, your person can be in America, that’s a yes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Would that person be a citizen under the executive order? Or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And according to His executive order, your person would not be, they have to have one parent who’s a permanent resident or citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>The students discuss among themselves the people they chose and what category they fall into. Then, while the students start putting their Post-it notes in the yes or no columns, Nakatsuka shares insights about herself about who in her family would be considered a citizen under the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>So a lot of no’s are like my mom, like my mom wouldn’t have been able to be a citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Does this order affect us? Yeah, it does. I mean it depends on people that you that you that you chose, right? so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump, Trump’s birthright order, if it was back when my mom was being born, my all my uncles and aunties wouldn’t be here, then I wouldn’t be here if they weren’t allowed to be citizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Nakatsuka reminds them about the central question in this activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>You might know some friends, it might be your parents, right? And so that birthright citizen order is just like how we looked at the past. Who’s allowed to be here, who’s not allowed to be here? Who belongs in America, who is part of the we? Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Some of the students’ post-its under the NOs, as in, no, they wouldn’t be citizens under the executive order are “mom,” “dad,” “My friends” and “Wong Kim Ark.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the root of this lesson in history, though, is a lesson students can apply every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Alright, so citizenship is about belonging. What kind of America do we want to be? And we’ve been talking about that from the beginning, right? In the beginning , who is the we?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Learning about AAPI history has broader implications, Here’s professor Jane Hong again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong:\u003c/strong> Because of Asian American’s very specific history of being excluded from US citizenship, learning how much it took for folks to be able to engage kind of in the political process but also just in society more generally, knowing that history I would hope would inspire them to take advantage of the the rights and the privileges that they do have knowing how many people have fought and died for their right to do so like for me that that’s one of the most kind of weighty and important lessons of US history\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And this understanding isn’t just about AAPI history, but all American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I think the more you understand about your own history and where you fit into kind of larger American society, the more likely it is that you will feel some kind of connection and desire to engage in like what you might call civic society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>About a dozen states have requirements to make AAPI history part of the curriculum in K-12 schools. If you’re looking for ways to learn more about AAPI history, Jane Hong has a couple of resources for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>One docuseries that I always recommend is the Asian-Americans docuseries on PBS. It’s five episodes, covers a long expanse of Asian-American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Her second resource recommendation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>The AAPI multimedia textbook that’s published and being published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. It is a massive enterprise with really dozens and dozens of historians, scholars from across the United States and the world. It’s peer reviewed, so everything that’s written by folks is peer reviewed by other experts in the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> For Jane and others committed to Asian American Pacific Islander history, the hope is that the complexity of American history is better understood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. This episode was made possible by the Stuart Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/view/historyfrogedu/home\">Karalee Wong Nakatsuka\u003c/a> has been a history teacher at the same middle school in Arcadia – a community with a population that’s \u003ca href=\"https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0602462-arcadia-ca/\">57% Asian\u003c/a> – since 1990. She had felt well-versed in American history throughout much of her career, but it wasn’t until a pivotal year in the lives of so many that she developed an even deeper understanding of Asian American history: 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spread of COVID-19 and the anti-China sentiment that ensued spilled over to Asian Americans. There was also the murder of George Floyd, which was enabled by an Asian American police \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/officer-who-stood-george-floyd-died-asian-american-we-need-n1221311\">officer\u003c/a>. Asian elders were being targeted with violence, including one 84-year-old man who was \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/12/966940217/anger-and-fear-as-asian-american-seniors-targeted-in-bay-area-attacks\">pushed\u003c/a> to his death. In 2021, six women of Asian descent were killed in the Atlanta spa shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4056354895\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lack of understanding of the Asian American experience propelled Nakatsuka to contribute to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gilderlehrman.org/professional-development/summer-pd/neh-summer-institute/pacific-crossings-asian-american-pacific-islander-histories\">summer program\u003c/a> to help 36 middle and high school teachers teach the richness of AAPI history. The program became a welcome resource, especially for Asian American students who were not learning about AAPI history at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listen to the latest episode of the MindShift podcast to learn about how students are learning about the broader contributions of Asian Americans and their activism and what that means for civic engagement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4056354895\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Today, I want to take you to a middle school in a Los Angeles suburb so you can meet Karalee Wong Nakatsuka, an 8th grade history teacher at First Avenue Middle School. I visited back in May, which marked the beginning of a very special month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Morning. Happy AANHPI Heritage Month. No Phones!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Ms. Nakatsuka, greeting students at the door, was especially enthusiastic for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I’ve known her for about a year now, and let me tell you she is very passionate about her work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, we’re talking about citizenship and remember Joanne Furman says citizenship is about belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>This lesson is about a Chinese American man named Wong Kim Ark. Before this year, most people hadn’t heard of him. But anyone born in the United States over the past 127 years – has him and the 14th amendment to thank for U.S. citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Wong Kim Ark was born of Chinese immigrants. And he says, I am an American, right? And they’re challenged, they test him whether or not he can be in America. And what do they say? They say no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Wong, with the support of the Chinese community in San Francisco, fought for HIS AND their right to citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>But he challenges it, goes to the Supreme Court, and they say what? Yes, you are an American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>But Asian Americans like Wong Kim Ark, and their activism, are rarely remembered. Students may spend a lot of time on social media, but he doesn’t pop up on anyone’s feed. I asked some of Karalee’s students about times they’ve discussed AAPI history outside of her class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>I think in seventh grade I might have like heard the term once or twice,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong> I never really like understood it. I think the first time I actually started learning about it was in Ms. Nakatsuka’s class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>Like, we did Black history, obviously, and white history. And then also Native American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student:\u003c/strong> I think in Virginia when I grew up, I was surrounded by like an all white school and we did learn a lot about, like slavery and Black history but we never learned about anything like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> These students are surrounded by information because they have phones and have social media. But AAPI history? That’s a tougher subject to learn about. Even in their Asian American families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>My parents immigrated here and I was born in India. I feel like overall, we just never really have the chance to talk about other races and AAPI history. We just are more secluded, so that’s why it was for me a big deal when we actually started learning about more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Coming up, what inspired one teacher to speak up about AAPI History. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Karalee Nakatsuka has been teaching history since 1990, and brings her own personal history to the subject.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chinese exclusion is my jam, because when my grandfather came, he was a paper son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Meaning, he came to this country by asserting that he was a relative of someone already in the United States. Up until the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, specific immigrant groups weren’t targeted by exclusionary laws – anyone who showed up in this country just did so. But laws specifically excluding people of Chinese descent made impossible things like civic participation, justice, police protection, fair wages, home ownership. Adding to that, there were racist killings and calls for mass deportations all fanned by the media, pitting low wage workers against one another –\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>I, myself, because I didn’t understand history as well as I hope I understand it better now, like I’m talking with my students, like seeing the patterns, remembering– I mean, I’ve been teaching Chinese exclusion, I think probably from the beginning, but then connecting those lines and connecting to the present, that these view of the perpetual foreigners, view of yellow peril, these attitudes are still there and it’s really hard to shake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Despite her family history, Nakatsuka didn’t just learn how to teach AAPI history overnight. She didn’t instinctively know how to do this. It required professional development and a professional network – something she acquired only in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several programs throughout the country that will train teachers on certain eras of US history – the early colonial period, the American revolution, the civil rights movement. However…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong:\u003c/strong> The reality is there’s very little training in Asian American history generally,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That’s Jane Hong, a professor of history at Occidental College.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong :\u003c/strong> When you get to Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander histories, there’s even less training and even fewer opportunities and resources I think, for teachers, especially teachers outside of Hawaii, kind of the West, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>For context about her own school experience, Professor Hong grew up in a vibrant Asian American community on the East Coast\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I don’t think I learned any Asian American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I did take AP US History. The AP US history exam does cover the kind of greatest hits version of Asian American history so the Chinese Exclusion Act Japanese American incarceration and that might be it right it’s really those two topics and then sometimes right the Spanish American War and so the US colonization of the Philippines but even those topics don’t go really deep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Last year, she hosted a two-week training for about 36 middle and high school teachers on how to teach AAPI history. It was held at Occidental College as a pilot program. So, Why did she develop this program?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers, like students, benefit from having a facilitated experience when learning about any topic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> In Hong’s training, teaching strategies are taught alongside history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teachers read books, visited historic sites and watched sections of documentary films, such as “Free Chol Soo Lee.” The documentary is about a wrongly convicted Korean American man whom police insisted was a Chinatown gang member in the 1970s. The documentary is also about the Asian American activism that helped eventually free him from prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teacher Karalee Nakatsuka helped as a master teacher in Hong’s training. She realized she needed something like this after a pivotal year in the lives of so many: 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>While the murder of George Floyd sparked a racial reckoning, AAPI hate was steeply rising. Asian Americans were blamed for COVID, Asian elders were pushed violently on sidewalks, sometimes to their death. Others onto subway tracks and killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>My kids were, during the pandemic, someone yelled Wuhan at them when they were in the store with my husband, with their dad, and like, I thought we were in a very safe neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And then, the Atlanta spa shootings happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsclip sound\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>In March 2021, A white gunman killed 8 people, 6 of them women of Asian descent. Investigators said the killings weren’t racially motivated, but that’s not how Asian American women perceived it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And across the country, all these teachers across, because I had met these really, really cool people important people, history people, civics people, and they reached out to me from across the country saying, are you okay? And I was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m okay. You should reach out to your other AAPI folks.” But then I was… I was like, I’m not okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>After a series of exchanges with professional friends, Karalee took action. She became more visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> This is not normal Karalee. This is what Karalee normally does. But I felt so compelled to use my voice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>She also became more outspoken about her experience. Like on the Let’s K12 Better Podcast with host Amber Coleman Mortley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amber Coleman Mortley:\u003c/strong> Does anyone else I just want to jump in on the question that I had posed or.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> I’ll speak up. When you say empathy, that’s like one of my favorite words. And that’s huge because after Atlanta, people, it’s just all these wounds that we’ve had that have been festering that we don’t look at. I mean that as Asians, we are like taught, put your head down and just do everything and do it the best, do it better, because we always have to prove ourselves. And so we just live our lives and that’s just how it is. But we’ve been really introspective. And we’ve suffered microaggressions and harms and we just kind of keep on going. But after Atlanta, we’re like, maybe we need to speak up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And there was a letter written to colleagues – which a lot of Asian American women did at the time – in an attempt for understanding from their community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>…and I said, I just want to let you know what it’s like to be Asian- American during this time. And if I read that letter now, it feels very personal, it feels very raw and sharing just experiences of getting the wrong report card for my kid because they’re giving it to the Asian parent or my You know, different things, people mixing up Asian American people. So all those things came together to just make me feel like, hey, I need to respond. So also in my classroom, I said I need to, I need to teach anti-Asian hate. And these are all things that I don’t remember being formally taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Karalee’s passion for AAPI history soon got an even bigger audience. She was already a Gilda Lehrman California history teacher of the year. But then she spoke out at more conferences and webinars and ran a professional community. She was featured in the New York Times and Time Magazine. She wrote a book called “Bringing History and Civics to Life,” which centers student empathy in lessons about people in American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Back in her classroom, history from the 1800s feels contemporary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Okay, so in the 1870s, what is the attitude towards the Chinese after the railroad is already built? They’re villains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> They’re villains. What else? They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking over our country. We don’t want them, right? And as a result of this anti-Chinese sentiment from across the country, they decide, okay, we’re going to exclude the Chinese. So 1882, Chinese Exclusion Act. All Chinese are excluded. But was the 14th Amendment still written in 1882? Yeah, it was written in 1868. So what do we do about that birthright citizenship thing? And they challenge it under Wong Kim Ark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The 1800s is relevant again because of the executive order signed by President Trump in his second term to redefine birthright citizenship. This executive order is making its way through the courts right now AND upends the 127-year old application of birthright citizenship as granting U.S. citizenship to individuals born within the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nakatsuka uses the news to make history more relatable through an exercise. She starts by showing slides and video clips to help explain the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> On his first day in office, President Donald Trump sent an executive order to end universal birthright citizenship and limit it at birth to people with at least one parent who is a permanent resident or citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>The president wants to grant citizenship based on the parents’ immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Trump’s move could upend a 120-year-old Supreme Court precedent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Nakasutka has the students apply the executive order to real or fictitious people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Get out your post-it notes and look at what Trump is saying about who is allowed to be in America\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>She then asks her students to write down those names, while she takes a poster and draws two columns: a “yes” column and a “no” column.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>So if according to the Trump order, your person can be in America, that’s a yes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Would that person be a citizen under the executive order? Or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And according to His executive order, your person would not be, they have to have one parent who’s a permanent resident or citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>The students discuss among themselves the people they chose and what category they fall into. Then, while the students start putting their Post-it notes in the yes or no columns, Nakatsuka shares insights about herself about who in her family would be considered a citizen under the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>So a lot of no’s are like my mom, like my mom wouldn’t have been able to be a citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Does this order affect us? Yeah, it does. I mean it depends on people that you that you that you chose, right? so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump, Trump’s birthright order, if it was back when my mom was being born, my all my uncles and aunties wouldn’t be here, then I wouldn’t be here if they weren’t allowed to be citizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Nakatsuka reminds them about the central question in this activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>You might know some friends, it might be your parents, right? And so that birthright citizen order is just like how we looked at the past. Who’s allowed to be here, who’s not allowed to be here? Who belongs in America, who is part of the we? Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Some of the students’ post-its under the NOs, as in, no, they wouldn’t be citizens under the executive order are “mom,” “dad,” “My friends” and “Wong Kim Ark.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the root of this lesson in history, though, is a lesson students can apply every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Alright, so citizenship is about belonging. What kind of America do we want to be? And we’ve been talking about that from the beginning, right? In the beginning , who is the we?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Learning about AAPI history has broader implications, Here’s professor Jane Hong again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong:\u003c/strong> Because of Asian American’s very specific history of being excluded from US citizenship, learning how much it took for folks to be able to engage kind of in the political process but also just in society more generally, knowing that history I would hope would inspire them to take advantage of the the rights and the privileges that they do have knowing how many people have fought and died for their right to do so like for me that that’s one of the most kind of weighty and important lessons of US history\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And this understanding isn’t just about AAPI history, but all American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I think the more you understand about your own history and where you fit into kind of larger American society, the more likely it is that you will feel some kind of connection and desire to engage in like what you might call civic society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>About a dozen states have requirements to make AAPI history part of the curriculum in K-12 schools. If you’re looking for ways to learn more about AAPI history, Jane Hong has a couple of resources for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>One docuseries that I always recommend is the Asian-Americans docuseries on PBS. It’s five episodes, covers a long expanse of Asian-American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Her second resource recommendation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>The AAPI multimedia textbook that’s published and being published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. It is a massive enterprise with really dozens and dozens of historians, scholars from across the United States and the world. It’s peer reviewed, so everything that’s written by folks is peer reviewed by other experts in the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> For Jane and others committed to Asian American Pacific Islander history, the hope is that the complexity of American history is better understood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. This episode was made possible by the Stuart Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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},
"closealltabs": {
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
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"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
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"meta": {
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"source": "NPR"
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"hyphenacion": {
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"order": 15
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"jerrybrown": {
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
},
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"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
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"source": "American Public Media"
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"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
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"meta": {
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"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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},
"morning-edition": {
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"planet-money": {
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"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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"meta": {
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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