In previous newsletters, I’ve made the case that, if schools are going to prepare students to flourish and thrive in the 21st Century, they must be completely reimagined and holistically transformed around four key circles to be:

→ Hubs of Innovation and Creativity

→ Centers of Purpose and Meaning

→ Communities of Care and Belonging

→ Hotbeds of Advocacy and Activism

In this newsletter, I want to talk about the third circle:

Schools as Communities of Care and Belonging

There is a loneliness epidemic in our culture

In fact, it is so severe that the U.S. Surgeon General released a new Advisory calling attention to the public health crisis of loneliness, isolation, and lack of connection in our country.

Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.

According to the Surgeon General’s report: 

Loneliness and isolation increase the risk for premature death to levels comparable to smoking daily

Please take a minute to read that again:

The physical health consequences of loneliness include a:

• 29% increased risk of heart disease

• 32% increased risk of stroke

• and a 60% increased risk of premature death

In teenagers, those statistics are even more frightening

• Cigna U.S. Loneliness Index shows that young adults are now the loneliest generation of Americans, more disconnected and isolated even than elderly

• A study published in July 2021 found that twice as many adolescents experience loneliness today as they did 10 years ago

• 16- to 24-year-olds are nearly twice as lonely as those over 75: 40% compared to only 27%

• Loneliness accounts for far higher numbers of depression, substance abuse, and, tragically, suicide attempts

• According to studies by the CDC, adolescents who say they lack authentic connections to others are significantly more likely to report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, consider suicide, or attempt suicide by almost double in every category

Unfortunately, the system and structure of traditional schooling is not doing much to help, and may actually be a contributing factor

According to research in this Newsweek article, the nature of school has fundamentally changed in recent years in a way that contributes to the spike in mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies

Indeed, schools that focus almost exclusively on grades and test scores foster in students not just anxiety but a sense of isolation as they are pitted against their peers for the credentialing believed necessary to acquire college admissions and scholarships.

The Gates Foundation research on school dropouts highlights this even further

The top two reasons students give up on school come down to:

1. Feeling like the classwork does not matter

2. Feeling like no one cares about them

In an era of unprecedented adolescent mental health crises, it is no longer acceptable to merely bury our heads in the sand and hope things get better.

It is time we as educators work upstream on behalf of the students we serve to ensure our places of learning are communities of care and belonging

It may be true that our students need to read Mark Twain, conjugate verbs, factor trinomials, understand the Pythagorean Theorem, memorize the state capitols, and write well-formed five paragraph essays

But it is essential that they feel seen, heard, cared for, valued, and valuable

Schools whose North Star is the flourishing of the students in their care understand that their primary role is to create communities of care and belonging where every student has a place and each one knows that they matter

It’s a bit like that song that introduced the old television show Cheers

Schools should be places where students feel everybody knows their name…and everyone is always glad they came.

Unfortunately, the structure of schooling makes little space for this when students are hustled classroom to classroom, told to sit in their desks quietly and take notes, stare at the back of the heads of the person in the desk in front of them, have little interaction with the elders in the space beyond competing for grades, and feel lost in the morass of the herd of individuals that make up the crowd that is traditional schooling.

**This is not to suggest that the adults—the teachers, coaches, administrators, support staff, cafeteria workers, etc—do not care for students or make time to engage them. The vast, vast majority do care and go far out of their way to make kids feel special.

The problem isn’t necessarily the individual educators in the school, but the system of schooling itself.

It just is not built for fostering rich, deep, vital community.

Schools operating under the cult of efficiency en masse are just not up to the task of cultivating the depth of care necessary to make every student feel like they belong

That is why we must shake the Etch a Sketch and dream new dreams, tell better stories, and work to transform and reimagine schooling itself

Schools as Communities of Care and Belonging must take seriously their primary role as institutions of human formation

That is, they must see students not as brains on sticks requiring only content absorption and consumption

But as fully integrated persons, consisting certainly of intellectual capacity (IQ), but also as persons of emotional, psychological, relational, moral, and communal capacity as well

They must reorient themselves from grades, GPA, and test scores as the primary mode of defining success to health, flourishing, and well-being

The research is very clear on this: the difference between a student making it and not often comes down to knowing that there is one caring person in their life, one person who believes in them, sees them, knows their name, and is always glad they came.

What if, instead of starting the day with quizzes and worksheets, we started it with community time: time students spend in small peer groups of accountability and acceptance?

What would it look like if, instead of handing out numerical transcripts, we provided narrative transcripts that highlighted not only the intellectual work our students did in class, but the ways they grew in kindness, collaboration, creativity, ingenuity, open mindedness, and courage?

What if, instead of desks and rows that separate and divide, students and teachers sat in circles looking at each other, eye to eye, face to face, human to human?

What if teachers greeted each student at the door with a big HI and a fist bump?

What if we made big deals about birthdays and drivers licenses?

What if we did weekly shoutouts and celebrations, catching students doing good?

What if our calls home were to brag on the way we notice students being the best versions of themselves?

If we took seriously the opportunity, privilege, and responsibility we have to the well-being of the students in our care, we would do whatever it takes to see that they know and believe in their marrow that they are welcomed and accepted into a community of people who are so very glad they are there.

Transforming schools into communities of care and belonging will take work, but there is no work more vital, more necessary, more urgent, or more sacred that we are called to as educators.

→ Key Takeaway: If we want to reverse the statistics of loneliness, isolation, and self harm affecting our students, there is no work more vital or more urgent than making care and belonging central to schooling.

→ Key Resource: I highly recommend the work of Nel Noddings, who literally wrote the book on Care Ethics. Everything Dr Noddings writes is gold, but I would recommend starting with The Challenge to Care in Schools

Today’s Action Step:

→ TEACHERS: Get to know your students beyond the grades. Learn their favorite hobbies, show up at their extracurricular events, do class shoutouts when it’s their birthday, bring them a cake, write them notes of encouragement, call home to brag on them. Let your room be the place they know they are seen, heard, cared for, and valued. Let your space be the place of belonging for them.

→ SCHOOL LEADERS: Begin taking your school Upstream. Think about creating micro-communities of belonging within the school day. Get creative with how you make use of the time given to you. Champion student well-being as the highest Good in your community and support the initiatives that foster care and belonging at your site

→ For those genuinely interested and truly ready to make caring for kids the primary reason for being in education, I invite you to check out the work we are doing at Odyssey Leadership Academy. We start each day with a 45 minute mentor time where we play volleyball, eat donuts, drink lots of coffee and, most importantly, let students know they matter. It’s a beautiful thing that impacts everything else we do.

If you want to see what that looks like in action, join us for our next ReimaginED Educator Site Visit is September 28-29, 2023. Come spend two days with us and see the magic firsthand.

My life’s work is to help see schools transformed into places of human and communal flourishing.

When you are ready to make the move towards belonging and community at your site, here are 3 ways I can help you:

→Check out my website: If you're looking for direct, one-on-one advice on transforming your school or classroom, my website is where I take all the wisdom, experience, struggle, knowledge, and expertise I have learned over my 30 years as a thought leader in reimagining education and bring it all to YOU! From one-on-one dream sessions, to consulting with your team, to sharing at your site, I am passionate about helping you make a difference in your learning community.

→ The Flourishing Schools Podcast: For a more in-depth, deep dive into thinking imaginatively about schooling, check out my “Flourishing Schools” podcast, where I jam with thought leaders, experts, community leaders, educators, students, and parents on all things related to the intersection of schools and student well-being

→ The Odyssey Center for Transformative Schooling: If you are looking for more upstream, systemic resources, the OCTS is just the thing! From leader cohorts to educator collaboratives, onsite training to inspirational retreats, this is the hub for inspiring hope and resourcing transformation! The OCTS partners with insightful, innovative educators just like you from around the world to help bring about upstream, systemic change.

**For a deep dive, come join us this November 2-4 in Scottsdale, AZ for the OCTS RecenterED Retreat where a group of intentional thought leaders in education will engage learning for human flourishing in the 21st Century

If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends.

And be sure to subscribe (if you have not already) for more insights. It’s free and you can unsubscribe at anytime

Follow me on Twitter (X) @drscottamartin and let me know your thoughts on the power and urgency of transforming schools to be places of purpose and meaning