I saw this quote on a slide the other day – and thought: what an inconvenient truth! But it’s not wrong: pedagogical change is hard. My perspective on this is hard-won: at R.E.A.L., we have worked with almost a thousand teachers to change how they run class discussion in the last four years. So: how have we done it so far – and what changes do we need to make to do it better this year? 

First: at R.E.A.L. Discussion, we pride ourselves on being realists. We swear by the mantra “name it to tame it” – though that means we sometimes say things out loud others don’t: One-and-done workshops don’t actually work! Curricular change is as much about managing generational differences in the workplace as it is teaching kids! Facilitating discussions does not mean you are teaching discussion skills! 

In the face of these challenges, we start small: trusting that changes in daily habits add up to intentional skill-building. And we never lose sight of the why behind the work: connecting the dots between what happens in the classroom today and what our world will look like tomorrow. 

As a result, we do not approach teachers who use R.E.A.L.®  as “customers” or “users.” We treat teachers as professionals, adults with agency who teach, learn, and reflect for a living. We believe that R.E.A.L.® teachers are pedagogical pioneers who understand that they are part of something bigger than themselves. They are creative, generous, reflective, and resilient. They stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in our mission: to teach discussion skills to kids growing up in our tech-centric, polarized world. 

Over the last year, we have been engaged in deep conversations with teachers and academic leaders about how we can design our program to best support teachers as they “pioneer.” Our initial instincts led to two now-familiar offerings: on-demand instructional coaching for individuals (“Office Hours”) and monthly, topic-based webinars (“Study Sesh”). While Office Hours have been widely used – teachers have called it “better than therapy,” “a luxury,” “the thing I didn’t know I was missing in my teaching life” – Study Sesh has been a logistical challenge.

Thanks to feedback from our community, we realized something was missing: we weren’t creating opportunities for practitioners to have real, consistent conversations with each other about their practice. That’s why in 2025-26, we are introducing R.E.A.L.® Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).

R.E.A.L.® PLCs will be virtual cohorts of R.E.A.L. practitioners who gather four times a year. Grouped first by experience level (i.e. New to R.E.A.L.; 1-2 Years with R.E.A.L;, 3+ Years with R.E.A.L.) and then in break-outs by department (i.e. English, History, Other). These PLCs will provide consistent opportunities for relationship-building and real discussions about immediate pedagogical challenges. In this first year, enrollment will be capped in order to maintain the integrity of the experience; we expect the Zoom-Rooms to be full of some of the brightest minds and biggest hearts in the network!

R.E.A.L. ® Teachers, if you are interested in joining a PLC, talk to your Department Chair ASAP. And R.E.A.L. ® Leaders, if you want to represent your school in PLC’s this year, let’s think together about which teachers to nominate.

Curriculum may be hard to change, but conversation is key to how it happens. At R.E.A.L. ® we are proud and grateful to facilitate. Here’s to the real discussions ahead in PLC in 25-26! 

Liza: Thanks so much for being here. Tell us about your path in education and your purpose. What’s been your true north, Bridget? 

Bridget: My path is a little quirky because I never thought I would work in education. In college, I majored in international business and finance and thought I wanted to be in corporate America. Well, I got to corporate America, and I hated it. I knew that it wasn’t for me almost instantly. I was an athlete in college, and I was still pursuing that after college, and my coach shared that a school needed a part-time coach for track.

I thought to myself, well, I don’t love kids but I should try this out, and I absolutely loved it, especially working with students. After a while, they offered me a full-time job as a registrar, then eventually I moved into admissions, which I was so excited about because I love to travel.  I got to learn so much about boarding schools in that period of time in my life, made so many friends, and traveled the world. I didn’t know that boarding school was an option when I was in high school, so traveling and sharing with students about boarding schools and helping them think about their education options was extremely rewarding. 

I went from living on campus and working in the admissions office to being a Dean of Students. I loved it so much, but at first it was extremely hard work. I had come from admissions and really did not have any experience in discipline, and I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so it was a really big transition both professionally and mindset wise. 

What I realized through that process is that there needed to be some support and professional development for deans, and that’s how the Deans’ Roundtable was created. 

 I created it with two other folks who were deans at the time, and we began running it in 2012. And, in my opinion: there is still not enough professional development out there for deans! I love the connection and relationship building that happens within Deans’ Roundtable. When you talk about a North Star, that would be mine – connecting people and providing support so that deans can foster a safe and supportive environment and community for kids. 

Liza: Wow – what a story, Bridget! You have held so many different kinds of roles in schools – from your perspective, what is the role that discussion plays in school life? 

Bridget: It is so important for many different reasons. First, when you have people coming from all different backgrounds, all different schools, especially in the boarding school environment, the importance of discussion extends far beyond academics. If you’re a ninth grader who’s come from a background that doesn’t exercise the discussion muscle, or you’re a student that is not comfortable speaking up in class, learning discussion skills is so important and so helpful. These discussion skills are the groundwork for  knowing how to have a conversation with each other, how to advocate for themselves, and how to make friends. Discussion skills are life skills. 

Liza:  I appreciate your empathy with the student experience, and I can tell you’ve spent a lot of time with kids. My guess is that as a dean, you’ve had to have a lot of difficult discussions. Do you have tips or strategies that you use for managing those hard conversations? 

Bridget:One thing I’ve learned is that you can write out what you will say. If it is a really important conversation, one that you haven’t had before, find someone you can role-play with to practice saying the words out loud first.The other thing is making sure to breathe and take intentional pauses. I’ve learned that you don’t have to jump into the conversation full speed ahead. If you say something, and feel that it is not quite what you meant to say, say that, and start over from the beginning of your point. I think sometimes we feel the pressure to be perfect in these moments, especially during difficult conversations and that is just not realistic. The other thing I’ve learned is to try to take the emotion out of conversations and deal just with the facts. That doesn’t mean you’re devoid of emotion, of course we are not robots, but there is a time and place for emotions and I think in difficult conversations it is important to keep your emotions at an even keel. If you are the person delivering the “difficult” information, you are also the manager of the conversation and in that role, you need to check your own emotions.  

Liza: What I really appreciated about all of those like a common thread connecting all of those comments is self-awareness. It’s similar to what we teach students in the classroom with R.E.A.L. We give students sentence stems for moments of disagreement or moments when they feel challenged! At R.E.A.L, we think a lot about how the world is in a “conversation crisis” right now. What challenges do you see specifically when it comes to school and conversations? What challenges do students and faculty face when it comes to discussion? 

Bridget: We’re in this era where people are so comfortable saying things behind the screen, but when it comes to actually having real conversations face to face, we are struggling.  It’s uncomfortable because we don’t do it enough, and students especially don’t have good role models right now in terms of what kindness in discussion looks like, or what civil discourse looks like. Trying to reign all of that in on school campuses is really tricky, especially when we haven’t taken the time to talk honestly about where we are in terms of discussion in our community, or have school norms around discussion. Schools need to say “this is how we treat each other” and “this is how we interact with each other” on a daily basis, you can’t just do it at the beginning of the school year, or when a difficult conversation happens! If you don’t, then you can’t get upset with kids who navigate hard conversations poorly – or, worse, avoid them in-person and handle everything via text or groupchat! 

Liza: Agree! When you think about the mechanics of culture on campus, how we treat each other in conversation is the bedrock of the culture. So amidst this conversation crisis, it feels so critical in schools to be providing guardrails for students in how to talk with one another, and providing guidance around communication norms that are intergenerational. There are no models in the external world, so it’s up to schools to define how we communicate on campus. 

Tell us about the current work and mission of Deans’ Roundtable

Bridget: As I said, we really felt like there was a void of professional development for Deans of Students in particular. Deans’ Roundtable gets deans together to talk about hot topics, to commiserate, to network, and most importantly to provide a support system for each other. We think about it as a group that you can call to say “Have you ever had this happen?” “How are you putting this in your handbook?”  “What policy are you doing for this?”

There was a strong reception and a vibrant community, so we’ve expanded, which is exciting. Now, we have a weekly blog, a new podcast series, and an online platform for what we call Student Life professionals. Our community has grown to include class deans, directors of residential life, directors of student life, and all these other folks who work outside the classroom and have important interactions with students. We are also launching a new Student Life Assessment tool for schools which will allow school to get real data on what’s happening outside of the classroom on their campuses! 

Liza: Thank you for sharing all of that! It is very clear to me that you began this work by listening to what folks needed and you are passionate about the work you all do. Thank you, Bridget, for being with us today. We’re so lucky to be discussing with you.

Bridget: I am so honored to be here, and thanks so much for having me.

For more on the Deans’ Roundtable you can check out their website here, email Bridget at bridget@deansroundtable.org, and learn more about their conference this summer here. 

What We’ve Learned Works – and Doesn’t! 

When I jumped in to build R.E.A.L.® full-time in 2021, I never would have dreamed that by 2024 we would have worked with seventy school partners. When independent school leaders see the variety of schools in the R.E.A.L.® community, we often get a raised eyebrow or a comment like, “well that is certainly an interesting list!” or “hmmm … you don’t see that line up of schools often!”

It’s a fair response. The R.E.A.L.® community includes rural schools and urban schools; single-sex and co-ed schools; boarding and day schools; regionally-all-over-everywhere schools; Quaker, Jewish, Catholic, Episcopal, Christian, and non-denominational schools; tuition-free and top-of-market schools; and the list goes on.  

Part of this is diversity was intentional and strategic on my end. I have wanted to test the robustness of the R.E.A.L.® pedagogy: can R.E.A.L.® work in all of these different contexts? What adaptations need to be made? This diversity mattered to me from a mission perspective, too: I have wanted to equip children from all kinds of backgrounds with the universal skills they need to talk across difference across their lifetimes. That is, of course, the ultimate vision and power of R.E.A.L.® Discussion. 

That said, I’ve been thinking a lot about what this oddball collective actually has in common. Put differently, what makes a school a great-fit for a partnership with R.E.A.L.®? Why does R.E.A.L.® Discussion thrive at some of these schools – and not others? 

It’s not a question of budget, as most schools have the resources to operationalize our program. It’s not a question of mission, as most schools have *at least* three abstract nouns in their mission statement related to discussion. It’s not a question of teacher skill or will, as most teachers are relieved to have a method to explicitly address the communication skills deficit that makes their job harder every day. 

Our strongest school partnerships are built on three shared beliefs and one operational reality. 

The shared beliefs?

1) Discussion instruction starts with skills: our goal is to teach students how to communicate—not what to say. Too often, we expect kids to have hard conversations before building their skills to engage in any conversation. Our best partners understand that students need to  walk before running, that before “engaging in civil discourse,” they have to teach both civility and discourse skills. 

2) These skills are high-stakes: discussion skills instruction belongs in core academic courses—not just advisory. This is a deal-breaker for a surprising number of potential partner schools! What we often hear is that it’s too hard to change core academic instructional practices – most often because of a culture of high autonomy faculty or academic initiative “windburn.” It’s true that Advisory can be easier: it hits all faculty and all students at once, no one is particularly vested in the content, and it can be pretty efficient (assuming there’s time between homecoming announcements, birthday celebrations, and the drug-education program all scheduled for next Tuesday). But our best partners don’t back away from this challenge. They recognize that this is too high stakes a skillset to relegate to Advisory or to have taught variably across classrooms through non-research based methods. These leaders work with us to design a pedagogical change management strategy – often but not always relating R.E.A.L. ® to initiatives already underway, like Competency Based Learning – and they begin with clear goals, not just “let me see who would be interested in attending this workshop!”   

3) This work is worth the time: at R.E.A.L.® meaningful growth comes from measurement and practice —not “one-and-done” PD. I sometimes joke that my auto-responder on my inbox should be “I’m so sorry but I can’t train your faculty in civil discourse in a ninety minute workshop on your next in-service day.” Why? At R.E.A.L.®, we don’t believe in or offer one-and-done PD, despite it being the industry model. Those quick-hits don’t do justice to our purpose – real behavior change takes time. Our best partner schools intuitively respect this: they are willing to be patient enough to be strategic. They are looking for a true partner to help them increase discussion capacity across their entire community over several years – and we are more than happy to fit that need (including delivering live workshops when the time is right). 

The operational reality? 

Across our diverse school partners, perhaps the biggest commonality is having a visionary, strategic, and authentic Academic Leader to act as our point person. That person can occupy different roles at different schools – most often it’s an Associate Head for Academics, Dean of Faculty, Teaching and Learning Director, or Humanities Department Chair – but they are utterly committed to our shared mission and to striking the balance between alignment and autonomy for faculty. This Leader thinks about change management across multiple levels and stakeholders; they are optimistic and pragmatic; they are curious and excited to engage in our Academic Leaders community; and they have a certain comfort level with managing external partnerships. (For the record: we have also had multiple Department Chairs successfully manage R.E.A.L. ® programs and independently describe our support as “a luxury.” We’ll take it!). 

An Invitation

So for anyone wondering about the line-up of school logos on our website, I hope this offers you insight! For anyone considering partnering with R.E.A.L. ® Discussion next year, I hope this gives you clarity on whether we are a fit. We are proud of and grateful for our diverse community.

And, if the above excited rather than scared you – please reach out.We are identifying our partner schools for the 25-26 school year now; I’d love nothing more than to discuss discussion together!

At R.E.A.L.® Discussion, we have partnered with Academic Leaders to launch and lead discussion skills initiatives across 70 independent schools since 2021. Here are two case studies exploring how leaders we admire have managed the alignment-versus-autonomy dynamic in launching and sustaining R.E.A.L.® Discussion at their schools.

Read more here!

It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 2013: Grandfriends’ Day in my eighth grade classroom. The kids had decided they wanted to show their grandparents a R.E.A.L.® Discussion, and I had pulled together a packet of primary sources related to the first Thanksgiving. I remember going into that day feeling relieved: the kids would carry the day instead of my running a dog-and-pony show!

The discussion wasn’t perfect, but it was authentic. Every child talked. They related, used evidence, asked questions, and listened to each other. They showed up prepared and stopped to take notes. They managed their time without me – and they ended with shout-outs, thanking each other for bringing up ideas that had helped them see a new perspective. They ran all of the R.E.A.L.® routines effortlessly, as if by muscle memory, and I smiled remembering how clunky these conversations had seemed even a month ago. A case study in intentional practice leading to mastery, indeed.

As we wrapped up class, a grandfather raised his hand. “Wow! That was extraordinary! Truly. You all did a better job than my Board of Directors does at my company. I can’t wait for you to run the world.” Other grandparents jumped in (they kept interrupting each other, which the kids thought was wildly entertaining): 

…“I wish you could teach this to Congress!” 

…“I wish we could do this at our Thanksgiving table tomorrow.” 

…“What would the world be like if this is how we talked to each other?”

…“We need this in every school in our country tomorrow!”

…“No offense, Anna, but I have never heard you talk in a class I’ve visited on Grandfriends’ Day … and now it’s been, what, nine years of them?! Your voice and ideas were beautiful and you were so confident!”

I felt the unadulterated joy of an exhausted first-year teacher encountering success at semester-end – and sent everyone on their way. When the kids came back after break and we got ready for our next R.E.A.L.® Discussion, one boy said: “Can I just say I didn’t realize we were learning skills for jobs and stuff with R.E.A.L.®? Like, I thought it was just for books.” A girl who was widely known to want to be a Supreme Court Justice said: “I know. Like when someone said that thing about Congress I was like THIS IS MY FUTURE!” A quieter voice piped up: “Yeah but also I don’t even know what I want to be and I feel like R.E.A.L.® is still helpful already. Even in little things – like, I’m a more respectful fighter with my brother.”

This made me smile even more widely than I did on Grandfriends’ Day. In that moment, I realized: R.E.A.L.® is so much bigger than my classroom. Eli was exactly right: R.E.A.L.® is not only about teaching kids academic skills for better discussions about literature and history … it is preparation for life and leadership. Discussion is how the most meaningful parts of the human experience – like love, friendship, faith, professional impact, community, democracy – actually happen. Kids deserve to know this as they practice discussion skills daily (as adults: we need to do a better job telling them!).

Every Thanksgiving, I feel grateful for that classroom of students and grandparents who helped me dream bigger. And in the intervening decade of building R.E.A.L.®, my gratitude has grown exponentially. It now extends to the thousands of teachers and tens of thousands of students who have used R.E.A.L.® Discussion. Their on-the-ground feedback, experiences, and brilliant ideas – and generosity in sharing them – have strengthened our programs and our community. Their continual discussion about discussion and commitment to what we call “pedagogical pioneering” – the project of developing the first research-based approach to explicitly teach and assess face-to-face discussion skills in school – is inspiring, authentic, and proof of why lifelong learning matters.

I am also grateful for the generosity of spirit and intellect I have found among leaders in education and social impact: their hard-earned wisdom, expertise, and tough-as-nails questions have helped me chart the “hockey stick” path for this fledgling organization. I left my full-time work in schools – which I loved and, if I’m honest, still miss! – because I felt called to this mission, compelled by the question of: “If I didn’t do it, then who would?” I stumbled into social entrepreneurship, but I have survived because of other leaders who help me think differently in the challenging moments. 

So, this Thanksgiving, my shout-outs are to everyone who has ever shared your thoughts with us at R.E.A.L.®. Thank you for your perspectives, questions, and great-big-ideas. They have taught me so much and kept me going, day after day, as I pursue the dream of providing discussion skills instruction for every young person growing up in our tech-centric, polarized world. Together, and through our extended conversation, we have kept the faith: by teaching discussion skills today, we empower the next generation to build a better tomorrow. 

Here’s to another decade of real discussions ahead – starting with those around your Thanksgiving table this week! 

This summer I spoke with hundreds of teachers across nearly a dozen workshops about a near-omnipresent anxiety: how can teachers help students navigate moments of polarity with their peers during this U.S. Presidential election season?

It’s worth noting that at R.E.A.L.®, we are big believers in taking a proactive approach to mitigate these moments: we don’t expect students to be able to have hard conversations until they have had explicit instruction in how to have any conversations. Ideally, this means that when discussion across difference does get difficult for kids, they already have the language to name and the skills to solve for these moments in real time. But the reality is that not all schools take that skills-based approach – and kids are going to be talking about politics this Fall. So what can teachers do?

Here are two scenarios that teachers will likely encounter soon (if they haven’t already in the first weeks of school!), along with tried-and-true strategies for managing them with students of all ages.  

Scenario #1: Interrupt Intentionally

You come across a contentious conversation among students and know you need to intervene. What can you do? Use a strategy we call INTERRUPTING INTENTIONALLY. 

We’ve all had those moments: you come around the corner and see a small group of students who are suspiciously focused, dramatic, or quiet – and are clearly engaged in a tough conversation. This might be in a classroom before the bell rings, or a cafeteria, or a library, or even during a student-led class discussion. The location doesn’t matter, but your instinct that you need to intervene does. Here are steps you can take to do so thoughtfully:  

Step 1: Interrupt and get to ‘we’ – fast.

In a moment where kids are clearly feeling disconnected from each other, insert yourself as a lever and ground them in what you know they share – namely, they are members of the same school community. Use your school’s language to reaffirm that discussion across difference is important – even when it’s hard. Do not shame the students for the fact that their disagreement seems to have gone off the rails. This might sound like: “it can feel so hard to have conversations where we disagree – but we need to recognize that by doing so, we are living out [our school mission] and also practicing skills the world desperately needs.” 

Step 2: Apologize, filibuster, and make it about yourself.

When students are engaging in a contentious conversation, they are likely experiencing “amygdala hijacking” and in fight-or-flight mode. Before expecting them to continue the conversation rationally, you should filibuster – buy them time to catch their breath and re-orient. Note that the kids probably won’t be “on-receive” for what you say in this moment, but that’s not the point – yo the goal is just to communicate your personal investment in their experience. This might sound like: “I’m so sorry – didn’t mean to derail the whole conversation here, this kind of stuff truly is how great friendships across difference are built, just wanted to remind you all of our shared values.”

Step 3: Restructure the start, pass it back to students, and stay with them.

As a teacher, it can be tempting to stop after step two once you’ve successfully defused the situation. But to kids, stopping after step two can feel like getting “shut down” or doing something wrong, when in fact – and especially if they haven’t had explicit discussion skills training –  they were probably doing their best to have an important, if difficult, conversation. It’s critical that you as a faculty member structure the continuation of the conversation and stay with the students through it. This communicates your confidence in them to “try again” as well as your belief that real discussion is how we grow. This might sound something like: “So where were we? Do you each want to say what you heard last before I jumped in?”  or “So where were we? Why don’t you each share what you were saying before I interrupted?” 

Scenario #2: Deploy Go-to Sentence Stems

You are facilitating a discussion and a student says something – perhaps intentionally, perhaps unintentionally – that sucks the air out of the room.  What can you say? Consider our GO-TO SENTENCE STEMS:

Tell me more about why you’re saying that…I’m really curious.

The trick here is to add the “I’m really curious” at the end – if you just say “tell me more,” it can feel robotic or like you’re “setting up” your student to be deposed or to misspeak. 

Where do you think that perspective comes from?  It’s crazy when you realize that ideas come from all over everywhere – news articles, personal experiences, social media, family members, the place you grew up…?

By adding the editorial about all the “places” ideas come from, you are giving students several different paths to answer the question – as well as processing time. 

What I’m hearing you say is ABC – what did I miss? Is there any part you want to emphasize or clarify?

This communicates to the rest of the class or group that you are holding a student accountable for what they said – while also making that student feel heard and allowing them a second chance to “say it better.” 

How else might someone think about this? When we feel strongly about something it can be hard to imagine there are other lines of logic or perspective that might make sense, but it’s a good exercise to think through.

Again, the editorial here helps the student understand why you are directing the conversation this way – and creates an on-ramp for lots of other voices to pitch in. This is also a go-to question for any classroom looking to cultivate “intellectual diversity” – a pillar of the E.E. Ford Framework for Civil Discourse. 

What’s home like for you when it comes to this stuff?

This question only makes sense in some situations, but it can be useful in helping students move from political generalities to their own, personal lived experience. It is intentionally vague – allows students to define “home” and “stuff” for themselves (rather than asking, specifically, about parents, or  political opinions, for example) and to go a million directions. When students move from political to personal, others are more able to connect. 

As educators, navigating this polarized election season can feel daunting, but anticipating and practicing strategies for tackling common scenarios can make it less so.

Skills for Life 

Ultimately, at R.E.A.L.®, we see this Fall as a moment to teach discussion skills that will stand students in good stead for discussion – well beyond any election. In order to be engaged scholars, caring friends, and thoughtful citizens, kids need the abilities to listen attentively, to share their opinions with confidence and respect, to give other opinions credence, and to leave open the possibility for mind-changing as evidence of learning. 

The strategies shared above are just two of many we use to empower educators to help students have real discussions. My hope is that this tactical approach empowers teachers to facilitate the discussions the world needs! 

Desperate to redeem the day, I decided to ask everyone to put their phones away: we were going to talk to each other for as long as it took food to come. The kids looked at me, incredulous – Now?! After today?! About what?! I offered basic instructions in how-to-start-a-conversation: someone ask a question, then let’s talk about it. I reminded them we were doing this to reconnect as a team after a disappointing day, and that everyone’s voice should be heard.

The team captain rolled her eyes but piped up: “Ok, so if you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?” 

At first, silence. Then – three kids at once, with different answers. The loudest voice kept talking and didn’t really acknowledge she’d run over the others. After that, a few other kids chipped in — some repeating each other’s answers and rationales without acknowledging that they were doing so. Less than five minutes later, sullen silence. 

We tried again with another question. Different voices chimed in, but the result was the same: this conversation just didn’t take flight.  I realized the kids were talking, but they weren’t actually engaging with each other. I decided to stop and ask them what was so hard. 

One girl offered an insight: “Well, I think it’s hard because on phones, you get to respond with what you think without waiting for everyone else. Or, if you aren’t ready to respond, you aren’t on the spot …you can just wait and see what everyone else says before you add.”

BINGO. Neither she nor I had the language at the time to describe these dynamics, but this is an example of technoference: a new-ish term used to describe the phenomenon of electronic devices impeding in-person relationships. 

That night, I resolved to never again make fun of Gen-Z kids for not knowing how to talk to each other. I decided instead to adopt a lens of curiosity: by understanding their experiences, I hypothesized, could help solve the conversational challenges they faced. For the past five years, R.E.A.L.® has been doing exactly that.

R.E.A.L.® is a program that teaches, measures, and celebrates discussion skills. My particular area of interest is how, exactly, on-screen communication norms undercut the skills and norms we know are foundational for any great, face-to-face discussion.

We’ve surveyed and interviewed kids across the country and studied tech design and communication science. Here are a few examples of what we’ve observed:

• On-screen, if you disagree with or dislike something, you can disengage invisibly: just swipe, open a new tab, put it on 2x speed. In-person, you have to keep paying attention — and then, you also need to be able to respond respectfully. 

• On-screen, you choose when and how to contribute to a conversation (like? comment? ghost?): in-person, you’re expected to read body language and practice “live” conversational turn-taking. 

• On-screen, you have 108 emojis that are “sentence starters” for self-expression; in-person, you have to identify, name, and share your feelings—quickly and publicly.

Kids today are spending unprecedented amounts of time on screens – and we can’t expect students to let go of these on-screen communication norms the second they put down their phones. When you consider that for many students there is additional fear around being judged for what they are saying – not just how to engage – it’s not surprising that students struggle mightily to have authentic conversations with each other. As adults, it’s easy to mock, pity, or get frustrated by what I often call “the conversation crisis” among teens. 

By building R.E.A.L.®, my goal is to empower adults to respond differently – to proactively and explicitly teach the face-to-face communication skills kids need for real discussions in school and life. Our research-based programs teach, measure, and celebrate the skills students need to have effective, respectful, and authentic conversations off-screen. This work usually starts in an English or History classroom but the skills transfer naturally and quickly beyond third period. To quote a ninth grader: “I have skills for discussion in class but honestly these feel like life skills, like for jobs and relationships.” 

These skills are teachable. We’re teaching them. If you’re interested in learning more about how, please reach out – perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s little we love more than a conversation!

Here’s what’s not up for debate: today’s students struggle to communicate…especially live, in-person, and across any kind of difference. As teachers will tell you, this is true in second grade and senior year alike. 

The good news? Discussion skills are teachable – but in today’s world, we have to teach them explicitly – and before kids need them most. At R.E.A.L.®, we’ve been proponents of a skills-based approach to discussion in school for a decade, but we often get asked what that kind of approach actually looks like. Here’s how we think about it. 

Discussion is Not a Pick-Up Sport 

Our theory: we can’t expect kids to learn how to have hard conversations without first teaching them how to have a conversation. It is only by explicitly teaching, learning, and practicing discussion skills in lower-stakes contexts – like, a class discussion about Macbeth or science lab results — that students build the relational and critical thinking skills they need to be able to show up for each other in moments of tension and disagreement. 

In reality, schools rarely do this. Instead of breaking the art of discussion into teachable, learnable skills and holding students accountable for developing them over time, schools launch straight into “having discussions!” Effectively, we treat discussion like a pick-up sport: everyone shows up with a vague understanding of what to do, specific rules are subject to change according to context, and some kids — the tall ones! the extroverted ones! – have a big advantage over others. The bell rings, discussion ends, and we move on without much reflection – and when we do reflect, we’re usually focused on outcomes, not skills. 

R.E.A.L.® programs equip teachers to offer intentional instruction in discussion skills instead of approaching discussion as a “pick-up sport.” Our programs extend from elementary to high school and are built to develop skills over time, the same way a child might learn, practice, and master a sport. Here’s a peek into what that looks like. 

Lower School: Teach Discrete Discussion Skills

In PE, elementary years are devoted to learning the individual skills athletes need to play a game. Children learn how to shoot, dribble, and pass – and practice those things through specifically designed drills (Shuttles! P-I-G! Obstacle Courses!). We approach discussion the same way. 

In R.E.A.L.® Basics, R.E.A.L.® Discussion’s elementary school program, teachers teach students the four essential discussion skills: Relate, Excerpt, Ask, and Listen. We train teachers to embed skills-based lessons in different places throughout the school day – much the way a little league coach might plan skills-focused “drills” – so students can practice asking clarification questions in Morning Meeting, or relating to each other in Math Group Work, or excerpting during Reading Circle. 

R.E.A.L.® Basics students have a workbook in which they document their discussion work across content areas throughout an entire year. This helps kids see their skills add up over time – and also visualize their versatility! For example, these Listening and Reflection pages might be filled up with notes from science and social studies. Students take well-deserved pride in their R.E.A.L.® Books. 

We developed this approach with an elementary school leader who believed that today’s students need discussion instruction that is as explicit and rigorous as common approaches to literacy and math – and not just relegated to a component of SEL. She knew students do not bring these “off-screen” social skills into school – that they are key to success in all areas of school life. 

Middle School: Let’s Use R.E.A.L.® Skills To Scrimmage! 

Come middle school, it’s time to learn the rules of the game and start scrimmaging. Just as a seventh grade basketball team might talk about the decisions you make when you get the ball – When should I pass? When should I shoot? When should I dribble? When do I get to make a choice and when is there a rule by which I have to abide? – R.E.A.L.® Discussion middle school programs equip students to start making intentional choices about when and how to use their R.E.A.L.® skills. Teachers transition into a coaching role, offering skills-based feedback at every turn. 

The Rules of the Game are R.E.A.L.® routines, some teacher-facilitated (such as preparation techniques, goal-setting, post-discussion debrief conversations) and some student-led (pass-off system, note-taking rituals, non-verbal communication cues, reflection noms, end-of-day shout-outs). We’ve designed these routines in accordance with leading-edge education research to make each discussion as inclusive, rigorous, and pro-social as possible. 

In middle school, students move from completing a workbook to building a Discussion Portfolio: a printed book in which they document a full year’s worth of discussion work. Like the R.E.A.L.® Basics workbooks, these portfolios span content units and make both growth and transferability visible to students. But during a time when many kids also start communicating more and more on-screen, there’s another benefit: R.E.A.L.® Discussion remains screen-free. This encourages deeper learning, better attention, and evidence-based assessment by teachers. 

Scrimmages are meant to be low-stakes: a time to practice and get feedback. But it takes a well-trained, attentive coach to be able offer clear, specific, and confidence-building feedback to a team. In the R.E.A.L.® system, we prepare middle school teachers to do exactly that, empowering them with language and tools to replace who-talked-how-many-times and I-wish-I-heard-your-voice-more-often! with precise, growth-oriented, and evidence-based reflections.

High School: It’s Game Time – and R.E.A.L.® Discussions are a TEAM sport!

In High School, it’s game time – and it’s also the moment to learn, practice, and reflect on what goes into great discussion performance, both individually and as a group. In many schools, ninth grade is a big intake year where students from a variety of backgrounds come together, so the first thing R.E.A.L.® Classic does is give kids a common language and set of routines that they will use across high school.

In high school, the skills and routines “level up” significantly from middle school – for example, relating becomes more rigorous, holding students accountable not just for agreeing or disagreeing but also compromising and synthesizing – but the bigger leap is helping ninth and tenth graders realize that discussion is not only about “getting your voice in.” R.E.A.L.® teaches kids that discussion is not just about being heard; it’s also about listening, observing, facilitating, and tracking the dynamics of a conversation. 

How do we help Gen-Zers zoom out beyond their own experience in discussion? We offer group-level feedback that teachers say is the key to “teaching students that discussion is a team sport.” The R.E.A.L.® Portfolio-Survey-Dashboard system asks students to complete a survey after every three discussions, and those results populate a teacher-facing dashboard. These surveys are a collection of quantitative and qualitative indicators that capture the group’s growth in discussion skills, belonging, and sense of purpose. Example survey items include gauging student responses to statements like: “I feel confident disagreeing;” “When I speak it feels like my classmates listen;” “I know I can get my voice in when I have something to say;” and “It feels safe for discussion to be student-, not teacher-, led.”

This data provides valuable feedback to the teacher while also reinforcing her role as a coach: it’s up to each educator to choose which data to share, emphasize, and debrief with students. What teachers choose to share looks different depending on  their instructional goals, school culture, and student body, but here’s an example. Last year, a ninth-grade English teacher in Tennessee decided that learning to disagree without feeling “impolite” was a major goal for his students. Initially, less than 25% of students in his classroom felt confident disagreeing, a stat he shared with the students. The students found it concerning that less than half of them felt comfortable speaking up – and generated ideas as a team they could use to change the in-class vibe so, in the words of one student, “we can disagree with each other’s ideas – not whole entire identities.” After six discussions, nearly 70% of students reported feeling confident disagreeing with each other! 

Ready to get in the game?

Equipped with the R.E.A.L.® skills they’ve developed over months (or even years!), teams of students learn to make decisions as just that: a team. 

It’s easy to visualize how to teach athletic skills and habits from an early age. Thinking about teaching something as abstract as discussion, though, can be a little trickier. 

It needn’t be. At R.E.A.L.®, we’ve done the work and applied the research, and we’ve created a multi-age system that enables teachers across schools, subject areas, and grade levels to take a skills-based approach to discussion. 

We know this work isn’t just about helping students check a box for their “discussion participation” grade – it’s about endowing kids with the skills they need to share their voices, make space for other perspectives, and disagree thoughtfully and respectfully. When they’re fully prepared and ready to get in the game, the result is incredible – and we can’t wait to see the impact they make on the world.  

Want to learn more about R.E.A.L.®’s skills-based approach to discussion? We’d love to chat. Reach out to our team today to get started!

The below post was originally published on Pete’s blog Sense and Sensation, and it explores some of the themes most central to the work we’re doing at R.E.A.L.® Read on for Pete’s thoughts on why you need to talk to your students about AI.

It’s time to have “the talk.” You’ve been avoiding it. It’s a little awkward because you’re not really sure how to go about it. Students are getting anxious for lack of clear information and they don’t know who to go to for advice. Some teachers really want to dive right in, but others don’t think it has any place in school. Parents are asking questions about how to navigate this important moment in their children’s education…

It’s time to talk with kids about AI.

Education has three purposes: to prepare students for the workforce, to prepare students for participation in civil and democratic society, and to prepare students for a fulfilling life. AI is already propelling significant changes in each of these areas. So great is the impact on each of these areas that failing to talk with students about the role of AI in their (and our) lives amounts to a level of professional negligence. As educators and citizens, we failed to prepare young people for social media, so kids and technology companies figured it out on their own — with disastrous results for mental health worldwide. We can’t fail like this again.

Here are three reasons why you need to have conversations with kids about AI, and then several suggestions for how to go about it:

1. AI and Workforce Preparation

This is the most obvious of the three. The workplace is changing. Study after study  is showing that AI’s capabilities are having a significant impact on who does what kind of work and with what tools. Low performing employees are seeing huge productivity gains with AI, and high performing employees are seeing improvement, too. Employees using AI are happier at work. In the schools I’ve been working with, the overwhelming majority of faculty, even if they are opposed to using AI in their classrooms, recognize how important AI literacy will be for their students in the future. Failing to provide foundational AI competency for students fails to prepare them for the workforce.

2. AI and Civic Engagement

Less obvious, but perhaps more important is that the political and legal landscapes are shifting in the age of AI. On the surface, AI first poses risks. Already, it is being misused to deceive citizens in the electoral process. AI generated robocalls are audio deepfaking political candidates to spread misinformation. Political campaigns have already used deepfaked images depicting false representations of other candidates’ actions. Foreign governments have created AI-generated false news reports to influence public perceptions of government. Students/citizens must have strong media literacy skills informed by knowledge of AI to be discerning consumers of political media.

One level deeper, however, is that legislation about the use and abuse of AI is only just emerging and will grow increasingly complex. If being a responsible citizen means voting with an understanding of different positions on important issues, then part of our role as educators is to prepare students to be able to critically examine different stances. For example: should AI technology be open source for anyone to have access to it, like library books, or should AI development be confined to highly regulated corporations, just as high-grade military weapons are? Also: who should be responsible for a crime committed using AI: the individual perpetrator, the company that made the AI, or both?  While we may not need to study all these questions with students, we nonetheless have a responsibility to help students understand how AI works so they can reach informed conclusions on different political positions that emerge — and vote accordingly as they might for any other issue.

One step even deeper: as artificial intelligence further suffuses society’s inner workings — employers already use it to filter job applications, corporations use it to inform decisions in boardrooms, government offices use it to streamline workflows — what protections need to be set up in order to prevent bias embedded in AI from unfairly treating citizens? Citizens — students — need to be able to make discerning decisions not only at the ballot box but also on juries and in other public contexts about how laws about AI should be written and interpreted. 

Failing to prepare students to critically engage in these civic contexts fails to prepare them for life as good citizens in a digitally saturated world.

3. AI and Personal Fulfillment

Perhaps most important of all — depending on how you see the purpose of school — is that we want to prepare students to live the most personally fulfilling lives possible.  One doesn’t need social media to have a robust social life, and one doesn’t need AI to have a happy and fulfilling personal life.  But intentional use of social media can immeasurably enrich one’s social life, and intentional use of AI can immeasurably enrich one’s personal life. Fulfillment looks different to different people. 

For many readers, the prospect of AI serving an important role in one’s personal fulfillment may seem laughable, but this is not the trend in today’s society.  Today’s emerging AI technologies are not only creativity tools and productivity workhorses, but also philosophical and spiritual guides, personal thought partners, and conversation buddy. With AI, anyone can make extraordinary art, can develop complex plans for starting a business, plan a trip, try a new recipe, and more. Recent AI tools have provided valuable counseling services, even reducing suicidal ideation. In today’s age, whether through enabling new forms of creativity, providing individualized counseling services, or simply helping achieve a goal or complete a plan, generative AI has become a personal assistant for people everywhere. 

Failing to prepare students to engage with AI personally may not harm students in their personal endeavors, but it may keep them from opportunities to pursue their dreams.

How (When?) do we talk with kids about AI?

So when and how do we have these conversations? Cramming a new unit into the curriculum isn’t sustainable. Instead, integrating discussions into what we already teach both adds relevance to what we already teach and ensures learning is recursive. Opportunities for this kind of integration abound. The interdisciplinary nature of artificial intelligence invites discussion in humanities classes about the social and ethical risks of AI models, in STEM classes about mathematical or technical constructions of the software, in any class about how to use the technology for writing, and even in extracurricular activities for understanding the role of artificial intelligence in journalism, entrepreneurship, government, and more.

Included below is a starting point: discussion prompts for humanities classes. 

We listened, and we agreed. But per usual, we had a lot of follow-up questions. What does it look like to design an elementary school curriculum? Does the research support the anecdotal perspective that this is a real need? We partnered with experienced lower school teacher, administrator, and curriculum designer Kathryn Moriarty to design R.E.A.L. ® Basics: our inaugural lower school program. As Kath says: “For this generation of students, discussion skills should be taught hand-in-hand with literacy and SEL. These are skills students need not just for academics, but for belonging, friendship, and leadership. Teachers deserve tools with this specific focus and until now haven’t had them!” 

R.E.A.L ® Basics – the first skills-based, research-backed approach to discussion for grades 2-5 – will officially launch this summer with PD for educators ahead of widespread roll-out in Fall 2024. We’re piloting our initial materials this Spring with a dozen classrooms across a few schools – and as ever, we are very grateful to and inspired by these pedagogical pioneers!

A few weeks in, here are our key takeaways so far. Stay tuned for a second batch of learnings later this spring.  

Our top takeaways from piloting R.E.A.L ® Basics

Developing a common language for the skills that go into any discussion – whether it’s happening on the playground or during social studies – supports students in connecting the dots between SEL and Academics. How these skills look and sound are different according to the context – including student age, school culture, and where the teacher chooses to integrate. 

Anytime-anywhere Mini-Lessons empower teachers to teach critical discussion skills when it works best for their students.  Whereas our middle and upper school programs primarily occur in Humanities classrooms – and students transfer those skills out into other classes and life beyond school – Lower Schools’ R.E.A.L. ® Basics program can happen anywhere – in science, social studies, reading groups, or even morning meeting. 

The R.E.A.L. ® framework allows teachers to isolate and develop targeted practice for the skills that seem hardest for today’s students. According to our pilots so far, those skills include listening, disagreeing respectfully, and relating texts to something bigger than your own life. 

Building the R.E.A.L. ® Basics foundation will prepare students to thrive in R.E.A.L. ® Jr, our middle school program. Our goal is for students to build familiarity with these discrete skills in lower school, so that by the time they reach middle school they are able to start fully “having student-led discussions.” R.E.A.L. ® Jr. approaches discussion like a sport – positioning the teacher as a coach who helps students work as a team as they all choose when and how to contribute. Just like in soccer, you choose what move to make – should I dribble, pass, shoot, dodge? – in a R.E.A.L. Junior Discussion, you’re choosing to relate, excerpt, ask or listen.  

With the launch of R.E.A.L. ® Basics on the horizon, we’re glad we listened to our partner schools – and we’re eager to keep listening and learning as we continue to workshop this new program. To learn more about any of the R.E.A.L. ® programs, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team today.