Aug 16, 2019
Kristina chats with Houston Kraft, co-founder of Character Strong, an organization that provides curriculum and trainings that transform the way schools teach the Whole Child. That approach, Kraft explains, includes social-emotional learning, character education, and equipping educators with practical tools to create a compassionate culture. Character Strong has worked with more than 1000 schools globally, he notes. The average family spends about 30 minutes a day connecting with their children, he adds, while school personnel are interacting with those children six hours a day, Kraft points out. Empathy has dropped 40 percent among college students, which should be a wake-up call for educators, he adds. That character trait, he says, as well as that of perseverance, are among the foundational pieces that students should possess, which are just as important as academic knowledge. “We’re in an epidemic of anxiety and loneliness,” Kraft asserts, and depression is on the rise as well. The function of education is more than just academic achievement, he explains, and education excellence today should also be about “navigating behavior” to achieve personal success. This episode was sponsored by TESOL, www.tesol.org; Character Strong, characterstrong.com; and NWEA, www.nwea.org.