What We Learned This Summer about Discussion Skills and Human Skills

This summer, the “conversation about conversation” showed up in more places than we could have hoped, and that’s a real sign of momentum. Publications we care about picked it up. National podcasts gave it real airtime. Our Substack that started as an experiment grew into something we all looked forward to each week. 

None of that happens without the teachers, school leaders, and R.E.A.L.® schools who’ve been living this work in their classrooms and making it real long before anyone else talked about it. We’re grateful to the educators, hosts, and publications who made space for this work this summer, and even more grateful to all of you who’ve been building this momentum with us from the start.

Here’s a look back at where it all showed up, and what’s ahead.

Reflecting on the Summer of Human Skills

Back in June, Liza launched Conversation Comeback, a weekly Substack built as a kind of Town Square to think through the Conversation Crisis in the open. We didn’t know exactly who would show up, but you did, week after week, and that’s what made it feel less like a solo project and more like a genuine community.

We called it the Summer of Human Skills and covered real ground: why AI can’t solve the Conversation Crisis, nuance as a muscle we can rebuild intentionally, the case for conversation as academic infrastructure rather than an advisory add-on, a new Stanford and ETS paper praising conversation-based assessment, a summer novel with more to teach about presence than most nonfiction, and a reflection on why middle school might be the single highest-leverage window we have.

The series closed with a rule we lean on across every R.E.A.L.® classroom: Every Voice, Every Class, Every Day. It’s a small, repeatable structure, and it’s exactly the kind of consistent practice that turns a conversation skill into a habit. It’s also the same commitment so many of you are already carrying into your own classrooms this fall!

Before you go

If you haven’t subscribed to Conversation Comeback yet, now’s a great time.

For everyone who believes conversation is a human skill worth teaching—and that teaching it changes everything.

Subscribe to Conversation Comeback on Substack

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Discussion Skills Are Having A Moment

We’re grateful whenever a publication decides this conversation is worth their space, too. 

In Teach Every Student the Same Discussion Skills for MiddleWeb, Liza argued that middle school is one of the most overlooked windows for explicitly teaching discussion skills, and laid out where to start. 

MiddleWeb also published a review of Conversation Comeback from middle school teacher Tracy Green, who named four culprits behind the Conversation Crisis and called out R.E.A.L.® Discussion as a model packed with practical routines. 

And for NGLC/LEAP Innovations, Liza co-wrote Human First, AI Forward: Why Discussion Is the Skill That Changes Everything alongside Nora Landon, English teacher and department chair at William Penn Charter School, about Humanities and Humanity in an AI World. 

On air, Liza joined host Cindy Blackburn for The Other AI: Authentic Interaction on The School Leaders Project from Toddle, talking about why authentic human interaction might be one of the most important things schools can teach in the age of AI. 

And on the Getting Smart Podcast, she and host Nate McClennen dug into why discussion is such a powerful entry point for human skills, and why every school needs a conversation lab the way schools once needed a computer lab. 

We’re always grateful for the space to think out loud about this work with a wider audience.

Bringing Conversation Skills Into This School Year

As we head into the school year, here’s how we’ll keep showing up. This blog will keep bringing you teacher features, program updates, and exciting news from across the R.E.A.L.® community. Conversation Comeback on Substack will stay the place for Liza’s personal and professional reflections, the space where she thinks out loud, tests ideas, and writes in her own voice about what she’s seeing in the field.