Schools are becoming an epicenter of culture wars, but there is a solution to the conflicts

School board members are receiving death threats. School board meetings have become shouting matches. The national news is regularly reporting about the most local of politics—school board elections in tiny districts. The two primary topics causing all this conflict are COVID-based mandates for masking and/or vaccination and teaching about racism in social studies classes. This post is about…

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solutionary

Be part of the solution

Zoe Weil is a blogger for Psychology Today, and we share her blog posts with you here. Despite the fervent hopes of so many that the dawn of 2021 would quickly turn the page on the traumas of 2020, we should not have been surprised that the year got off to such a dangerous and violent start….

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Teaching Critical Thinking: An Interview with Steve Pearlman

I recently read Steve Pearlman’s excellent new book, America’s Critical Thinking Crisis: the Failure and Promise of Education, and I immediately reached out to him. At the Institute for Humane Education, we share Steve’s conviction that critical thinking is critically important, and we’re thrilled that he offers pedagogical approaches for creating critical thinkers. Steve is…

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julie stern

Education to Save the World: An Interview with Julie Stern

 Julie Stern is the co-founder of Education to Save the World and the best-selling author of Tools for Teaching Conceptual Understanding, Elementary and Secondary, and the upcoming book Learning that Transfers: Designing Curriculum for a Changing World. Her passion is synthesizing the best of education research into practical tools that support educators in breaking free…

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solutionary

How to ORIENT ourselves to prevent catastrophe

Zoe Weil is a blogger for Psychology Today (PT), and twice a month we share her blog posts here. Enjoy! Last winter, I fell through the ice into the frigid Maine ocean. My fall was not an accident. While I didn’t purposely seek to submerge half my body in 35-degree water, I was so preoccupied…

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“Yes, and….” How Improv Comedy can Disarm Conflict and Reduce Polarization

Zoe Weil is a blogger for Psychology Today (PT), and twice a month we share her blog posts here. Enjoy! My husband and I have been practicing improvisational comedy for more than a decade. When we began taking classes, I didn’t anticipate that the fundamentals of improv would be so relevant to addressing real-life conflicts,…

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blog post

Equity in Education: An Interview with Victoria Chiatula, Ph.D.

Victoria Chiatula, Ph.D., is an educator, consultant, scholar, and the CEO & Founder of EdPro International, an Educational Management Organization. For Dr. Chiatula, education is a vocation and a life calling that has given her the opportunity and charge to empower others to create positive change. She serves, leads, and advocates for equity and access…

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A young person's hands cupping dirt with a green plant growing out of it

6 Resources for Finding Meaningful Solutions to Global Challenges

by Marsha Rakestraw It’s true that the world is facing numerous grave challenges. And we’re exposed to many of them during our 24/7 omnipresent news cycles. Occasionally we’ll also find some positive stories about people doing good. But usually these stories are focused on small acts of kindness or Band-Aid solutions. And while every compassionate…

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