In R.E.A.L. Time:
From the Founder

I remember the moment I began to believe in the power of R.E.A.L.® Discussion.  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…

What Teachers Can Do to Help Students Through Moments of Polarity 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…

Adults everywhere lament kids’ conversational skills (or lack thereof) – in schools, restaurants, around family dinner tables. The causes are debatable and myriad: blame iPads, TikTok, parents, politics, COVID – the list goes on!  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…

As we head into 2024, “Civil Discourse” is a buzzword – and for good reason. The next Presidential election cycle looms large. Many campuses are still recovering from the hydra-headed ways politics ravaged their communities in 2020.  The most strategic school leaders I know are taking a proactive approach, asking: How can we use ’23-24…

For many teachers, class discussion is a chance to dive into content: to unearth new meaning in a text, debate the impact of a historical event, draw connections among ideas.  At R.E.A.L.® we believe all of those things are true – but in today’s world, class discussion serves an even more important purpose: it may…

Back-to-school season just might be our favorite time of year here at R.E.A.L.® Discussion. Why? We have spent the summer connecting a diverse group of educators across geographies, backgrounds, teaching styles, and career stages. Despite their differences, all share a commitment to teaching discussion skills to students growing up in a screenbound, polarized world.  R.E.A.L.®…

In what feels like a divided, screenbound world, here’s something I think most Americans would agree on: we need to re-learn how to talk (and listen) to each other. How can we do that? One step would be to make the instruction of conversation skills a national priority.  Why? Discussion skills are democracy skills. They…

I feel like I need to preface this post with a disclaimer (which I encourage students – especially girls – never to do). But here goes: I am an optimist. No one has ever accused me of not being idealistic enough, not seeing the sunny side, not hunting the good. I’d even say that I…