Thrive24

Target Audience: Adminstrators, Teachers 6-8 Teachers 9-12, Mental Health Professionals, Special Educators, Specialists (Arts, Music, PE)

Students and teachers face unprecedented division, conflict, and polarization in the classroom and across school communities. We need educational spaces today, more than ever, that will empower school community members to leverage compassion and curiosity, build authentic relationships, and resist the toxic influence of political polarization.

In this 3 hour workshop, educators develop the skills and confidence they need to engage differences in ways that create authentic connections, rich mutual understanding, and resilience to political polarization. This highly interactive workshop will anchor participants in the theory of communication across differences and provide a new framework to foster more constructive conversations. Participants will learn and practice tools that strengthen the skills of dialogic listening, inquiry, reflection, and speaking in order to promote healthier dynamics, encourage meaningful interpersonal connections, and halt the spread of polarization in their classroom or school. These interventions are adaptable for classroom learning, extracurricular activities, and the school culture at large.

Objectives:
To identify patterns that can make communication difficult
To gain a basic understanding of a framework for more constructive conversations
To learn and practice tools for listening, inquiry, speaking and reflection that interrupt dysfunctional patterns and support more constructive conversations.

Participating educators will receive a ten-lesson-plan curriculum (grade levels 6th-12th) that they will be equipped to deploy immediately with students to put what they learned into practice.