Educational Fire Drills for Flourishing

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mental and emotional health close to 1

billion people

with depression and anxiety worldwide

prior to covet

and the numbers massively rising

interpersonal conflicts in our families

and communities

and students in school at home

these are three of the top challenges

currently reported around the world

and yet this year has been an

extraordinary gift

it has clearly identified needs

demonstrating how current

traditional forms of education have been

missing some vitally important things

things that not just children but all

humans need

not just to survive but to flourish

regardless of what situations occur

online searches and coping in crisis are

in constant demand

and leading health and education

institutions share many recommendations

in common

many go beyond coping to flourishing

in positive psychology this refers to

the ultimate human desire to be happy

to have a life worth living the greek

word eudaimonia describes it

as a sense of wellness of feeling

blessed and what it looks like

is having loving relationships

being able to cultivate positive

emotions like

hope appreciation for beauty and nature

engaging in pleasurable but challenging

activities it’s called being in a state

of flow

and finding a sense of meaning and

purpose

through serving something bigger than

ourselves

now every time a crisis hits people

scramble looking for

ways to cope not having practiced what

we need to deal with uncertainty

but i hope to show that through practice

so much more is

possible even in the face of crisis

because life will inevitably continue to

present unpredictable challenges again

and again

so we want to be ready to flourish over

and over

think about how much more agile we could

be with the skills we need

emotional and social intelligence

movement

and creative thinking just look what we

instinctively went for the top purchases

during the pandemic included

social connection platforms like zoom

that went from 10 million to hundreds of

millions

in months meditation app uploads rose

10 million a month exercise sales

equipment 600

and this went then to creative arts

performance art supplies and

games we organically intuitively knew

how creativity helps just look at this

dancer

performing for his neighbors and being

filmed and we went from filming

balcony concerts like this to online

global

dance parties and museums holding

challenges for people to recreate

famous works of art all this shows

is that we know what helps so why does

it take a global pandemic to get us

thinking and behaving differently

well how much time do students spend in

school

practicing social emotional learning

movement and creative arts for that

matter how much time did we as adults

spend doing that prior to the pandemic

not much the truth is anything we don’t

value in the adult world

doesn’t make it into schools if the

professional world valued it it would be

in schools tomorrow

just like subjects considered related to

success in business

and we practice business skills so we

can use those without thinking

just like we practice fire drills so

that we can use those in an emergency

and respond in

so whether it’s multiplication tables or

scales of a musical instrument or the

skills we need to manage anxiety

with something as simple as practice and

repetition we can more easily adapt

because

when we’re stressed or in doubt we’re

going to go to the thing we practice

not something new and these are skills

we can use

every day with or without a crisis

emotional and social intelligence what

this comes down to

is understanding and managing our

emotions and our responses

communicating with compassion and

empathy the ability to handle

conflicts constructively which helps us

make better decisions and this is known

to help

reduce stress and increase well-being in

schools it’s referred to as social

emotional learning

and it’s most often considered extra

enrichment nice but not essential

not necessary to be college or career

ready

and this is not surprising given that in

the professional world

even though we say we value it it’s

referred to as soft skills

nice but not essential

according to the world economic forum

the leading barrier

to programming in schools and in

business

is a supposed lack of evidence on the

benefits

buy-in for that because of the lack of

evidence

but think about the economic toll alone

of a world suffering from a pandemic of

depression and anxiety

according to the u n prior to the

current health crisis

the estimated cost to the global economy

was a trillion dollars a year

and just think about the benefits of a

society with more

emotional flexibility and empathy and

hope and optimism

and these can be practiced just like a

dancer practices plies or a basketball

pla

player shoots hoops we start with the

most basic

thing getting still and asking ourselves

how do i feel right now this builds

physical and psychological awareness of

our feelings

stop take a breath

and notice i feel like my head is going

to explode or my stomach is tied in

knots

maybe i’m just worried about next week i

think i’m going to go take a walk around

the block

and then after we deal with us we can

deal with others

listening skills and not just how to

listen to others but how to be listened

to

we start by allowing others to share

their thoughts without interrupting and

asking questions for clarification or

paraphrasing if we need

and since the majority of communication

happens on a non-verbal level

paying attention to tone and body

language and actions is pretty valuable

especially right now with virtual

communication or not being able to see

all of someone’s face i i think i heard

you say this

is that what you meant that’s the first

step in handling conflict

do you want to explain first and then

i’ll explain after

so wherever education takes place right

now the earlier and more often we have

opportunities to practice the greater

our potential is to reap the benefits

and we can all learn together just like

we did in the school where we taught

fourth graders

how to have conversations about conflict

and they asked if we could teach it to

their families on conference night

so as a mother an educator a

business owner and a futurist

i believe we can build in opportunities

every day in schools

and out for children and adults that

would increase our chances to have a

much better world

movement it’s no news flash

physical exercise is known to be a major

contributor to mental well-being

it’s known to help reduce and regulate

strong emotions like depression and

anxiety

and increase and boost executive

functions we need for learning like

attention and memory

the recommendation is for an hour a day

yet the average amount of physical

education in u.s schools is an hour and

a half a week

now this is not just a us problem or a

kid problem

according to the world health

organization insufficient physical

exercise is one of the leading risk

factors

for illness and death worldwide

and think about how much time how much

more time

we’ve all spent sitting over the past

several months

but there is good news new data shows

that an hour of even moderate physical

activity can help counter the effects of

too much sitting

and we can start small and do it

anywhere schools home work

get up every hour and move around three

yoga poses a walk around the block or

down the hall

dance to one song step outside and

stretch your arms to the sky

or maybe just walk over to the window

and water the plants

and finally creative thinking

in this past year we have seen every

sector of life

go through a tsunami of change schools

families communities around the world

forced to adapt overnight

who hasn’t had to be creative recently i

mean we’ve seen

kids come up with innovative ways just

to hug their grandparents through a

shower curtain

i have worked with thousands of

educators in hundreds of schools

who say they want more creative arts

education but feel tied to focusing on

academics

even in kindergarten five-year-olds

trading in imaginative arts and play

for skill and drill math and reading

exercises and nightly homework

again attributed to a supposed lack of

evidence

this time on the benefits of arts

education which is very often viewed as

a form of play

but there is lots of evidence for

example

in one 12-year study of 25 000

students it was reported that adults who

participated in arts had better outcomes

on academics

college attendance employment

relationships

civic and religious participation and

volunteerism

in other words flourishing

it doesn’t make any sense to cut out

play that doesn’t make anyone more

career ready

just look at how many top high

performance experts teach play to

executives to increase

joy and productivity and innovation

not to mention how it fosters our

humanity

every human being is creative

and we don’t have to be artists but

artists do know that taking advantage

of opportunities to not know is one of

the keys to creativity

it helps us learn how to think versus

what to think

it encourages us to explore it makes us

ready more ready to be uncertain

to make mistakes discover by accident

it is the essence of learning and at the

core of innovation

and it can even help with that search

for purpose and meaning

we can start by drawing writing making

something anything without an intended

outcome

and asking questions what if what don’t

i know about this

that’s what every major inventor in

history has done

what could be a more impossible or fun

or useful way to do this and by

cultivating our creativity we’re better

able to design

intelligent machines for the future

equipping them to handle challenges with

greater consideration for what helps

humans flourish

now this past year has been tough

and yet dealing with challenges

adapting and facing crisis is not new to

me

decades ago moving to new york city to

go to college

i was faced with many unknowns

including watching many of my young

friends die tragically to aids

then a mysterious disease not unlike

today adapting meant dressing in full

ppe

to take care of the people that we loved

years later the experience of living

near the world trade towers meant

dealing with

tidal waves of emotions that came with

the destruction

chaos loss and shock

and at the beginning of this pandemic in

the beginning

listening to non-stop ambulance sirens

and walking on the street

past morgue refrigeration trucks housing

thousands of corpses

all the while like so many people around

the world

living in isolation facing a steady

stream of unknowns and in the

continuing heartbreak of social

injustices

each crisis has required emotional

social physical and creative skills to

cope

and then to flourish and this choice to

flourish

is how i hope to model living as a

parent

and as an adult parent or not what we

model

affects and guides everyone around us

now i’d like to note no one

gets a certificate of completion in

flourishing

as life shifts

so do our responses and no one is immune

from falling down

or falling apart i’m quite familiar with

it

as my daughter would tell you i have a

lot of practicing to do

but that’s part of life and the learning

and the practicing is a lifelong

thing education never stops

and every location can become a place

of education we just have to think of it

like fire drills

just like we practice stop drop and roll

or the alphabet song

stop and breathe

stop and feel

stop and listen

move imagine play

we can all transform education today

practicing the skills we need for an

uncertain world

lives worth living no matter what the

future brings

stop and breathe stop and feel

stop and listen move imagine play

stop and breathe stop and feel

stop and listen move imagine play

thank you