In This Issue:

1. A driven educator reflects on Gen Z’s approach

2. Angela Duckworth on the fallacy of willpower

3. Emotional regulation 101

4. A California school works on shifting from grades to growth

5. A Texas school’s framework for addressing well-being

6. Supporting students who have experienced trauma

7. A school head and his son discuss artificial intelligence

8. Books and ideas to boost students’ writing

 

Quotes of the Week

“The mental health crisis demands more than good intentions. It requires systemic, student-centered approaches to mental and emotional well-being in schools.”

Juan-Diego Estrada, Stephen Popp, and Zoe Tait (see item #5)

 

“The goal is to understand emotions as information, not existential problems, and to become emotion scientists rather than emotion judges.” 

            Juan-Diego Estrada, Stephen Popp, and Zoe Tait (ibid.)

 

“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

            John Kabat-Zinn (quoted in ibid.)

 

“The point isn’t to feel less. It’s to use feelings more intelligently.” 

            Marc Brackett (see item #3)

 

“Sleep, nutrition, and movement are not extra-curriculars; they are the infrastructure of leadership.”

            Marc Brackett (ibid.)

 

“Today’s students are growing up in a world that doesn’t ask them to have real live conversations. They can text instead of talk, ask a bot instead of a friend, swipe away something they don’t like, use self-checkout to avoid a cashier, and tune it all out with a pair of enormous, humanity-canceling headphones. And yet human skills – like the ability to interact authentically in a face-to-face conversation – are more critical than ever.”

            Liza Garonzik in “The Other AI” in Independent School, Winter 2026 (Vol. 85, #2, pp. 

77-81)

 

“When I was seventeen I was convinced my father was a damn fool; when I was twenty-one I was astounded by how much the old man had learned in four years.”

            Mark Twain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. A Driven Educator Reflects on Gen Z’s Approach

            In this Kappan article, Tennessee educator Meagan Booth describes her own experience as an elementary student in gifted programs in the early 1990s. At that point, she remembers, gifted education seemed “important, urgent, and slightly covert,” blossoming in response to national policy alarms like A Nation at Risk and calls for academic excellence to compete with other countries. 

            “Being in the gifted program felt like recruitment,” says Booth. “We were pulled from class for logic puzzles, abstract reasoning exercises, and timed challenges that seemed designed less for enrichment and more like preparation to crack codes or outwit a Soviet operative. The faster you could solve a math problem, finish a book, or master a Rubik’s cube, the more gifted you were believed to be… Help was for the others. Mistakes meant our talent had limits.”

            But over time, the pressure to be smart had a cost. “No one taught us how to step off the tracks,” says Booth. “Pauses felt like failure. Asking for help felt like exposure… Now I’m 40 with a family, four academic degrees, a growing career, and crippling anxiety… The anxiety isn’t about being busy. It’s about the nagging sense that we haven’t done enough, haven’t proven enough. We’re haunted less by failure than by the idea of wasted potential… Could you be doing more… I thought I was being trained to decode enemy ciphers. I was actually being trained to answer e-mails at midnight without blinking.” 

            Booth says her Gen Z colleagues are not afflicted by these demons. They’re less compelled to be constantly available, want to make a difference but define it on their own terms, are better at saying no without guilt, and treat rest not as a reward for performance but as an expected part of professional life. To some veteran leaders, the youngsters’ posture is entitled and lazy, but Booth sees it differently. “They’re not allergic to hard work,” she says. “They’re just unwilling to self-destruct to prove their worth.” 

            This insight has led her to rethink the way she works with subordinates. “I expected from others what I demanded of myself,” says Booth: “constant motion, constant growth. Somewhere between ‘growth mindset’ and No Child Left Behind, we stopped asking how people were doing and started asking how fast they could improve. What started as a philosophy of possibility turned into a mandate for constant forward movement. If things felt calm, I got nervous. Calm meant complacent. And complacency was the enemy of potential – something I’d been taught to fear since third grade.”

            Booth’s leadership style is gradually evolving. She’s letting go of the need to squeeze more out of every moment and thinking more about sustainability. “Gen Z didn’t make me less ambitious,” she says. “They made me more honest… Now, I pause before sending a late-night e-mail. I ask my team how they’re feeling before asking them what they’re fixing. I don’t flinch when a staff member says, ‘That’s too much for right now,’ because I’ve started saying it myself. This isn’t about easing up. It’s about creating conditions where excellence doesn’t require erosion.”

Her conclusion: “Leading today requires the wisdom to know when to push, when to rest, and when to model the balance we never saw ourselves… Maybe it’s time we stop asking who’s ahead and start asking who’s still whole.”

 

“What Being a Gifted Kid Didn’t Teach Me About Leading Schools” by Meagan Booth in Kappan, December 6, 2025

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2. Angela Duckworth on the Fallacy of Willpower

            In this New York Times article, psychologist Angela Duckworth (University of Pennsylvania) gives a definition of willpower from the children’s book, Frog and Toad: “Trying hard not to do something that you really want to do.” Duckworth says that worldwide, adults rate themselves very low on this kind of self-control. “Research also shows,” she says, “that exercising willpower feels pretty awful, whether you are resisting something fun or forcing yourself to do something unfun.” 

            People make New Year’s resolutions and feel bad when things aren’t going well by February. What’s the self-talk at that point? Try harder! Strengthen that willpower muscle. But that’s not the best approach, say Duckworth. “Successful people rarely rely on inner fortitude to resist temptations.” A better strategy is situational agency: structuring the situation so you don’t have to exercise willpower.

            This is especially important for young people, who are constantly tempted by social media and online videos. One young man said the “infinite scroll” is the most evil invention of his lifetime. The solution: when studying, the cellphone is in another room. Duckworth cites a study showing that students who did this (compared to those who had the phone in front of them) earned higher grades. The same is true of people trying to eat healthier: put junk food in inconvenient places. 

            Schools can support situational agency by requiring that cellphones be in students’ lockers or in a secure location for the whole day. Schools implementing bell-to-bell policies report that students are making more eye contact, talking to each other, and the cafeteria is louder – in a good way. 

            “No matter what your age,” says Duckworth, “situational agency empowers you to navigate what might be called an ultra-processed world – an environment saturated with temptations engineered to be irresistible… You cannot change the conditions of modern life, but you are the sovereign of what enters your personal space. Physical distance creates psychological distance; draw close what you want more of; push away what you want less.”

 

“Willpower Doesn’t Work. This Does.” by Angela Duckworth in The New York Times, January 2, 2026; Duckworth can be reached at [email protected]. 

 

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3. Emotional Regulation 101

            “Schools are emotional ecosystems,” says Marc Brackett (Yale University) in this article in District Management Journal. “Students and staff don’t just listen to what leaders say; they feel how leaders are.” The key variable that helps leaders navigate the challenges of today’s K-12 schools, he says, is not IQ, experience, or charisma; it’s the ability to regulate emotions – their own and those of others. 

Brackett’s research has shown that this ability directly affects student achievement, school climate, community trust, and teacher retention. “Leaders who regulate well think more clearly,” he says, “sustain better relationships, and make wiser decisions under stress.” Conversely, being emotionally dysregulated results in clouded judgment, mistrust, a negative school culture, and burnout. 

            Brackett and his colleagues have identified four ways that people misunderstand emotional regulation:

-   It’s not denying emotions – anxiety, anger, fear, and sadness are valid responses.

-   It’s not indulging in emotions – wallowing isn’t helpful.

-   It’s not suppressing emotions – that tends to intensify them so they pop up later.

-   It’s not faking calm – people can sense when a leader is seething under the smile.

“The point isn’t to feel less,” says Brackett. “It’s to use feelings more intelligently.” And that couldn’t be more important at a time when 81 percent of U.S. teachers say student behavior has gotten worse and they’re spending up to 10 hours of instructional time each month dealing with disruptions. 

            The good news is that school leaders who aren’t already good at emotional regulation can develop this skillset by adopting these mindshifts and practices:

• Shift from labeling emotions good or bad. “What matters is how you channel the data that emotions provide,” says Brackett. “Anger can fuel justice; anxiety can sharpen preparation.”

• Describe emotions. Vague words like upset aren’t helpful. “Precision guides strategy,” he says. “Are you apprehensive, overwhelmed, or under pressure?” Are you stressed because you’re trying to make a decision without enough evidence?

• Reset your nervous system. “Emotions get expressed in the body,” says Brackett. “Ground yourself before you enter a high-stakes moment.” One principal began each faculty meeting by having everyone do two minutes of mindful breathing. People rolled their eyes at first, but soon they embraced the practice. This principal, says Brackett, “didn’t just regulate herself; she co-regulated her staff, and the ripple effects reached classrooms.” 

• Reframe the situation. “Cognitive reappraisal is a leader’s superpower,” he says. “What looks like resistance may be fear. What feels like failure may be growth. This mental shift turns conflict into opportunity.” 

• Build emotional alliances. Regularly checking in with trusted colleagues can prevent unproductive rumination and help find ways to deal with a fraught situation. 

• Take care of yourself. “Sleep, nutrition, and movement are not extra-curriculars,” says Brackett; “they are the infrastructure of leadership. A tired, depleted leader cannot model regulation.”

• Bounce back. Leaders won’t be cool, calm, and collected all the time; emotional resilience might consist of recovering more quickly after a stressful incident. “The goal is not perfection but progress,” says Brackett; “showing up as our best selves more often, and teaching those around us to do the same.” What fuels this kind of resilience is filling our tank with joy, rest, and connection, both inside and outside of work.

“And let’s not forget,” he concludes, “that these are the same skills that help us stay present with our children at the dinner table, manage conflicts in our marriages, and show up for friends in moments of need.” 

 

“Why Emotion Regulation Is the Skill Every School and District Leader Needs Now” by Marc Brackett in District Management Journal, Winter 2026 (Vol. 35, #1, pp. 6-9)

 

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4. A California School Works on Shifting from Grades to Growth

            In this Independent School article, faculty dean Stella Beale (Marin Academy, California) describes how her high school worked to improve its grading system – which she describes as “rooted in outdated norms of efficiency and ranking” and unable to “capture what students truly knew and could do and, even more critically, who they were becoming.” A committee’s initial analysis focused on two specific problems:

-   Struggling 9^th graders – Every year, some incoming students did poorly, and the key variable seemed to be the knowledge and skills deficits with which they entered, which were not remedied by their first-year courses. 

-   Grade grubbing – Many students saw grades as statements of their worth and did everything they could to get A’s. This was discouraging because the school was committed to experiential education and the intrinsic rewards of learning. 

The committee decided competency-based education was the best approach to address these and other problems and zeroed in on building students’ proficiency in five core areas:

-   Demonstrated empathy – building awareness and engaging with self and others;

-   Imaginative curiosity – exploring and creating;

-   Intellectual flexibility – scrutinizing and researching;

-   Compelling expression – engaging in openness, argumentation, and communication;

-   Strategic boldness – solving problems and taking action.

So far there have been two important changes. The first is that the school has done away with grades for the first semester of 9^th grade, replacing them with competency-based reports emphasizing progress toward worthwhile learning outcomes. The idea was “to create an equitable education that encourages risk and rigor,” says Beale; “it is designed to support 9^th graders in their transition to high school, to encourage curiosity and authentic learning, and to deemphasize grades as a motivator.” The second change is a set of second-semester competency-graded electives for seniors. Students have found both “transformative,” says Beale.

            Frustratingly, the initial years of moving toward the committee’s goals have been “surprisingly difficult” and “painfully slow,” she says. “Why is this work so hard?” The root of the problem has been the deeply entrenched belief that good grades are credentials rather than meaningful descriptions of learning. Trying to move toward competency-based assessment kept butting up against that traditional bulwark. The school is still in the “messy middle” of change, she says, but she believes they’re making progress and have learned three valuable lessons:

            • Listen to students. First-year students and seniors say they appreciate being graded on growth, getting prompt and actionable feedback, knowing exactly where they can improve, and being less stressed about grades. “I never feel overwhelmed, but I always have something to improve on,” said one 9^th grader. “I love the fact that it is so open-ended and the possibilities are limitless,” said a senior.

            • Find openings. The biggest challenge for the 9^th-grade and senior elective initiatives has been translating competency-based assessments into the letter grades required by the University of California system and others outside the school. Beale and her team have learned the hard way, she says, that competency-based assessment “is most effective when it is a complete replacement as opposed to a partial one.” But for the time being, grades matter.

            Nevertheless, some teachers have found ways to implement competency-based assessment short of final grades. They’re using the school’s aspirational competencies (empathy, imagination, flexibility, expression, and boldness) as guides for backwards curriculum design and as a starting point for new classes and programs. This spring the school is piloting a 9^th-grade course on multi-disciplinary learning designed to get students thinking about who they are and what they care about. 

            • Provide support. Many teachers, says Beale, “are being asked to work in a context they have never experienced.” She’s organized groups of “competency captains” and brought in consultants to review and pilot the implementation of the core competencies across the school, sometimes bringing in substitute teachers to free up an entire department for an in-depth reimagining of core classes. 

            At its best, assessment is “an act of care,” concludes Beale. “It tells students: I see you, I understand your process, and I want to help you grow. The future our students face will demand adaptability, collaboration, and ethical reasoning. Our assessment system must prepare them not just to perform but to participate meaningfully in a shared world.” 

 

“From Promise to Practice” by Stella Beale in Independent School, Winter 2026 (Vol. 85, #2, pp. 82-87); Beale can be reached at [email protected]. 

 

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5. A Texas School’s Framework for Addressing Well-Being

            In this article in Independent School, Juan-Diego Estrada, Stephen Popp, and Zoe Tait (John Cooper School, Texas) say that a decade ago, an alumna’s suicide and several other young people in the local community taking their own lives sent shock waves through the school. Intense conversations among administrators, faculty, counselors, and students produced the Five A’s plan: Aspirational, Aware, Active, Accepting, and Available. 

“The framework,” say Estrada, Popp, and Tait, “guides us to be aware of our mental and emotional state, take effective action to support it, approach challenges with a curious and nonjudgmental attitude, and remain available to ourselves and to others in the community.” At the beginning of each year, the school revisits the Five A’s through presentations and wellness messages, emphasizing that it is an integral part of the school’s purpose. The details:

            • Aspirational – What kind of school do we want to be? was the question that drove the process. What emerged, say the authors, was a determination “to become a community that understands well-being not as a luxury but as a fundamental need for everyone – and something we actively cultivate together, not just when crisis strikes… where students, faculty and staff, and families feel seen, supported, and empowered.” Rather than students asking, What’s wrong with me? they should ask, What do I need right now?

            • Aware – “We cannot change what we don’t recognize,” say Estrada, Popp, and Tait. The school committed to regular discussions, wellness messages, and guest speakers – including Yale psychologist Marc Brackett, followed by reading his book Permission to Feel (see article #3 above). When Tait was a 10^th grader at the school (she’s now a graduate), she noticed that on the day of an evening lecture on mental health, every teacher agreed not to assign homework. “At that moment,” she says, “I realized that the school was prioritizing mental health alongside ensuring students could meet their academic goals.” 

            • Active – The school embraced a quote from John Kabat-Zinn – “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf” – as a metaphor for developing the skills of dealing with challenges like exams, homework, and disagreements. An Active Minds chapter was launched in 2015; all students can join, taking on a leadership role in schoolwide wellness activities. These include interviews with doctors, business leaders, and other professionals about how they deal with stress in their working lives. 

            • Accepting – “The goal is to understand emotions as information, not existential problems,” say Estrada, Popp, and Tait, “and to become emotion scientists rather than emotion judges.” They adopted the RULER acronym from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, Regulating) to deconstruct and better understand feelings. 

            • Available – The message to everyone on the campus is to be aware of their own emotional state, cultivate the right mindset, and support others in their journey. The school adopted another acronym – VAR: Validate, Appreciate, and Refer – and included parents in the school’s ethos of outreach and support.

            “Behind every mental health statistic,” conclude the authors, “millions of students struggle to find hope. The mental health crisis demands more than good intentions. It requires systemic, student-centered approaches to mental and emotional well-being in schools. The Five A’s framework has helped us move our school toward a culture of well-being.” 

 

“Present Tense” by Juan-Diego Estrada, Stephen Popp, and Zoe Tait in Independent School, Winter 2026 (Vol. 85, #2, pp. 60-63)

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6. Supporting Students Who Have Experienced Trauma

In this article in Communiqué, Samantha Mae Flores (University of California/Santa Barbara) and Mireille Ukeye (Saint Mary’s College) say researchers have found that more than two-thirds of young people have experienced at least one traumatic event by age 16. This might be economic hardship, parents’ separation or divorce, living with someone struggling with alcohol or drug abuse, being the victim of violence or witnessing violence, sexual abuse, unfair treatment because of race or ethnicity, and natural disasters. 

Any of these can profoundly affect a student’s ability to learn, with adverse effects on memory, focus, emotional regulation, and following the rules. Flores and Ukeye list six types of trauma and specific ways they can show up in classrooms:

-   Acute trauma from a single event: withdrawal, increased fear and anxiety, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance, emotional outbursts;

-   Traumatic grief caused by the loss of a loved one: sadness, disinterest in school activities, frequent crying, difficulty connecting with peers, regressive behaviors;

-   Chronic trauma from multiple traumatic events or long-standing trauma: persistent emotional dysregulation, inconsistent academic performance, difficulty trusting adults, and behavioral challenges like aggression or withdrawal;

-   Complex trauma from exposure to chronic events, typically caused by the actions of adults in the child’s life: poor impulse control, difficulty forming relationships, attachment concerns, low self-esteem, and heightened reactivity to minor stressors;

-   Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) that affect brain development and physiological health: chronic health complaints, inability to focus, delayed academic milestones, oppositional behavior, and overreaction to authority figures;

-   Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from chronic exposure to traumatic events, affecting neurological development: recurrent intrusive thoughts, avoidance of certain topics or situations, exaggerated startle response, nightmares, and dissociation during lessons.

With an awareness of different types of trauma, schools can implement a multi-tiered system of supports with several overall themes: reassuring students that they are not to blame for traumatic events, that they don’t need to feel ashamed about their feelings and thoughts, reinforcing social support, modeling healthy coping strategies, and connecting them to helpful resources. Some key practices at each tier:

            • Tier 1 – Schoolwide practices for all students that foster a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment, including clear expectations for student behavior, transparent classroom routines, teaching emotional regulation, mindfulness practices, flexible seating and sensory tools, and staff access to trauma-informed specialists, especially school psychologists. 

            • Tier 2 – Targeted support for students at risk of trauma, including a cognitive-behavioral intervention program, small-group interventions, daily check-ins, mentorship programs pairing students with a trusted adult or peer, skill-building groups focused on problem-solving and conflict resolution, and collaborating with parents to support trauma-sensitive approaches at home.

            • Tier 3 – Individualized support and intensive interventions for students with significant trauma, including external providers and community resources, one-on-one counseling focused on trauma narratives and coping skills, functional behavior assessments resulting in behavior intervention plans, and referral to specialized mental health services or clinicians.

 

“Empowering K-12 Schools with Trauma-Informed Practices” by Samantha Mae Flores and Mireille Ukeye in Communiqué, January/February 2026 (Vol. 54, #5, pp. 20-23)

 

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7. A School Head and His Son Discuss Artificial Intelligence

            In this Independent School article, school head Tom Flemma (North Shore Country Day School, Illinois) and his son Max Flemma (a senior at the school) explore the perils and potential of GenAI:

            • Cheating – Max describes this as “making the busywork of school easy.” Challenged by his dad to give an example of “busywork,” Max says that one of his AP Government assignments was to find resources on Robert Yates, a delegate at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. ChatGPT provided eight firsthand and secondhand sources, including several he wouldn’t have found doing a standard Wikipedia or Google search. He adds that of course he can’t fully trust GenAI tools and a lot depends on asking the right questions and checking the results.

            • Flabby mental muscles – Max says that several students in his English class came up with the same sophisticated explanation of a difficult chapter in Their Eyes Were Watching God; it was clear they’d used GenAI. “So it kind of kills creativity and creative thinking,” he says. “AI can be used as a supplement for learning, but it can also be used as an excuse not to learn.” 

His father agrees, saying, “Teachers and administrators feel there are certain things that are important to learn, and there are certain ways that you need to learn them. And these tools can shortcut that learning. They can make you lazy. If you don’t practice your critical thinking skills, if you don’t exercise that muscle, it will atrophy. And if you never develop that muscle because you’re always using AI or technology, then what is the value of the education? You won’t learn those core skills that you are going to need in the world.” But he acknowledges that he himself uses GenAI in ways that make him more efficient, and believes it’s important for students to understand the new tools for their postsecondary lives.

• Test prep – Max says ChatGPT was very effective as he studied for a science test. For a previous biology test, he’d prepared by watching videos on the subject and doing practice problems he found online. His grade was 82. For the next test, Max fed Claude (another GenAI tool) the study guide provided by his teacher, the relevant textbook chapter, a sample test question he’d found online, and a request for a 100-question multiple choice exam based on the information. After practicing on that, he got a 93 on the test. “I didn’t pay more attention during class,” says Max. “I didn’t take better notes. I just studied differently with different aids.” His father asks him if he learned more that way, and Max said he definitely did.

• Synthesizing – Max describes another assignment for the AP Government class. In a simulated Constitutional Convention, he had to give a presentation to the class on Robert Yates’s views on federalism. He read and took notes on 14 primary and secondary sources and then put everything into Google NotebookLM and asked for the top 10 ideas and phrases, and it produced a two-page, double-spaced speech. “I suppose you could argue that is an attack on the critical thinking aspect,” he says. “But what it didn’t do, which ChatGPT would have, was write it for me.”

His father responds, “It sounds incredibly useful but I do wonder if the x number of hours you previously would have spent thinking, organizing, and outlining is an essential part of the learning process. I know you read all the documents, but you did lose out on the hard work of having to find those patterns and sift and organize. For someone of my generation, that was a really important part of learning.” 

• Workload – Max takes his father’s point, but says the reason so many kids are using GenAI “is because we have a ton of work to do.” He’s taking four AP classes, Chinese, and playing three seasons of varsity sports. He can’t afford the extra time, and the AI shortcuts are irresistible. And it “only gives back as much as you can give it,” he says. In addition, says Max, “there are kids who don’t learn by sitting in a class listening to a teacher lecture. And once they figure out how they learn best, I think that opens a million doors for them.”

• Second-guessing GenAI – Max describes how a teacher had ChatGPT produce an extended response to a prompt about behavioral economics and then asked students to figure out where the answer was right on target, where it was partially correct, and where it was wrong. His father loved this: “You had a really wonderful human teacher who carefully designed that exercise to develop critical thinking skills in the best sense of the word while teaching you about this new technology.” 

 

“New Frontiers” by Tom Flemma and Max Flemma in Independent School, Winter 2026 (Vol. 85, #2, pp. 99-101); Tom Flemma can be reached at [email protected].

 

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8. Books and Ideas to Boost Students’ Writing

            In this Edutopia article, literacy consultant Sarah Cordova recommends six books to inspire students’ writing (click the article link for cover images, brief summaries, and classroom activities):

-   One Boy Watching by Grant Snider, grade K-2

-   Tiny, Perfect Things by M.H. Clark, illustrated by Madeline Kloepper, grade K-2

-   Little Tree by Loren Long, grade 2-4

-   Farmhouse by Sophie Blackall, grade 4-5

-   Time Is a Flower by Julie Morstad, grade 4-5

-   My Pen by Christopher Myers, grade 4-5

 

“Fantastic Picture Books to Inspire Student Writing” by Sarah Cordova in Edutopia, January 7, 2026

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