Season 2 opens with Jen, Kyle, and Stuart dusting off the microphones, forgetting how to introduce themselves, and immediately diving into the deep end: mental health in schools, the crisis facing students and teachers, and why everything seems to be on fire.
Our heroes talk social-emotional learning, trauma, the impossible pressure on educators, and the growing push toward community schools as a way to actually meet human needs instead of just…performing education.
There’s history, there’s snark, there’s a surprising number of references to cannons, and there’s a whole lot of honesty about the state of things.
If you work in a school, send a kid to a school, or ever went to a school, you’ll probably relate.
Season 2 starts by asking the same question the trio always end up circling back to: How do we build systems that actually help people thrive?
Resources mentioned
Old Sturbridge Village
Sturbridge, Massachusetts
OId Sturbridge Village is the largest outdoor history museum in the Northeast. It depicts a rural New England town of the early 19th century. The Village is designed to approximate the look and feel of a historic landscape and includes more than 40 historic buildings, such as houses, working farms, meetinghouses, a district school, country store, water-powered mills, professional and trade shops – all situated along the Quinebaug River on the homeland of the Nipmuc peoples. Kyle and Stuart mentioned as the model for a dream community-school setup and as an inspiration for imagining hands-on, educational environments.
Catamount Community Schools Initiative
University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont
The Catamount Community Schools Collaborative (CCSC) is a dynamic and longstanding research-policy-practice-partnership (RPP) between the University of Vermont, the Vermont Agency of Education, and state and community partners to support a sustainable ecosystem of community schools across Vermont.
Full-Service Community Schools Program
U.S. Department of Education
While we can’t promise the Trump Administration’s Department of Ed. will continue to award these grants, the FSCS Program provides support for the planning, implementation, and operation of full-service community schools that improve the coordination, integration, accessibility, and effectiveness of services for children and families, particularly for children attending high-poverty schools, including high-poverty rural schools.
What Is A Community School?
YouTube, Partnership for the Future of Learning
A quick primer on the concept of community schools provided by the Partnership for the Future of Learning, a 900-person-strong, self-governed network organized to advance a shared vision for the future of learning and an equitable, racially just, and democratic public education system.
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
By Jonathan Haidt
Penguin Press, 2024
Once again, The Anxious Generation appears in a Four Winds episode. The book delves into the mental health crisis among young people, examining the roles of social media, parenting styles, and cultural changes, while offering thoughtful solutions to foster resilience and emotional well-being.
