About ten years ago, a colleague and I traveled to three rural schools in Maricopa County to meet with kids and teachers that were going to participate in a distance learning program. We were going to deliver STEM instruction using video conferencing to three rural schools that didn't have highly qualified math and science teachers.

Before we kicked things off, we thought we should meet all the players in person to build some face-to-face relationships. We had planned a STEM lesson that we were going to do with the kids to get to know them and assess their instructional levels. We met with the first group of students, posed the challenge and asked them to "turn to a partner and discuss possible solutions." They just stared at us. They had zero idea what we were talking about. We attempted to scaffold and provide support for the collaboration, but nothing. Crickets.

The kids had never been asked to talk with each other and discuss solutions to a problem. And they weren't about to start now with these random city ladies. We chalked it up to under-resourced teachers and set off to make it better.

Fast forward ten years. What we saw in those remote, under-resourced schools is now more common in schools with well-trained, highly skilled teachers. We now have classrooms filled with kids who spent months, if not a year, receiving teacher-led instruction on a screen or in an in-person classroom separated by six feet from the next student. And that's the best-case scenario. Lots of kids didn't even go to school. Or, if they did, rarely.

As much as we may freak out about our "post-pandemic" students not reading at grade level or being able to compute complex mathematics problems, a much bigger issue is that our kids don't know how to productively collaborate.

(Here's the part where I rip off content from the book When You Wonder, You're Learning.)

Learning scientists have long known that something powerful happens in social, collaborative settings, partly because hearing and generating language helps forge new neural pathways. The very act of discussing ideas, articulating difficult concepts, and hearing other people's perspectives can re-write children's brains and deepen their understanding.

As important as knowing how to work with each other is, the decline in group skills has been happening for a long time. In 2017, the US Congressional Joint Economic Committee published, What We Do Together: The State of Associational Life in America. The report chronicles how we as a society relate less with each other beyond our inner circles. "The connective tissue that facilitates cooperation has eroded, leaving us less equipped to solve problems together within our communities. So too, are we less able to collaborate across communities."

Don't believe that? Spend about 15 minutes on Twitter.

COVID made it much, much worse.

Several years ago, in Google's quest to dominate the world, they decided it was in their best interest to find out what contributes to the best group dynamics. For the stronger the group, the better the outcome. And the better the outcome, the more quickly they will become our sovereign overlord!

Google's inquiry collided with a Harvard professor investigating the same concept. Professor Amy Edmonson combed through Google's findings and found that the most effective teams were those that cultivated psychological safety. That is a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up.

To create classroom and workplace environments where kids and adults can effectively collaborate and learn more effectively, everyone in the room has to feel psychologically safe. Period.

Psychological safety exists where members (kids and adults) see others as equally human, capable, and worthy of inclusion. Psychological safety is the difference between being interviewed by the police and having dinner with your family. Psychological safety is exactly what our A Safe Climate pillar is about. You can't learn without it. You can't re-imagine education without it.

Take, for example, the Girls of Steel Robotics team. This group exemplifies the practices of creating psychological safety. The all-girl, hyper-diverse FIRST Robotics team crushes their competitors. They aren't necessarily any better resourced or guided than most champion robotics teams, but their tight focus on creating a safe, collaborative team seems to set them apart.

Terry Richards manages their team. Terry says of their success, "Every girl needs to feel like she's making a contribution. Every girl needs to know that her ideas matter, and that when she speaks, her team is going to listen. Her idea might not work for whatever reason, but we emphasize that that's okay. The important thing is that she puts her voice out there and helps her team coordinate and create something."

One way that they do that is by holding weekly "all-hands meetings." During the meeting, the team leaders present real-life problem scenarios (generated from the girl's actual lives) and ask every girl, "What would you do if you encountered this scenario?" The leaders make sure to connect each problem to the team's core principles. This activity builds problem-solving skills, empathy, and trust that each girl understands one another—psychological safety.

One other strategy to support the building of psychological safety (in kids and ourselves as team members) is repeating the following statements during conflicts or difficult situations:

This person has a body and a mind, just like me.
This person has feelings, emotions, and thoughts, just like me.
This person has experienced physical and emotional pain and suffering, just like me.
This person has felt unworthy or inadequate, just like me.
This person worries and is frightened sometimes, just like me.
This person has longed for friendship, just like me.
This person wishes to be loved, just like me.

You deserve to feel safe. Your coworkers deserve to feel safe. Our kids deserve to feel safe. For without that, we will not be who we are met to be. World dominators of awesomeness!

Leadership and Learning