What we kept hearing was that grades two through eight at the school were harder than anything after they left and moved on to high school and even college!

The request

Parents of kids in a school like this carry a particular kind of question. The school is doing something specific for their child right now, and they want to know what happens on the other side. They asked for alumni voices because they wanted the answer from people who had lived it, not from staff or administrators.

So we brought graduates back. Some had finished high school elsewhere. Some were in college. The point was to let parents hear directly from people who had been the kid in the seat their kid is in now.

The framework behind the questions

The way I organized the questions was based on Portrait of a Thriving Youth, which is another project I work on. It's about what thriving looks like, specifically for middle grade adolescents and their caregivers.

Using that framework meant the panel wasn't just an open-ended Q&A. The questions were structured around what we already know matters in youth development, which kept the conversation from drifting into anecdotes and gave parents something they could actually take with them.

What the alumni said

A lot of the alumni were saying school was harder in grades two through eight than it was after they left. That was the thing the parents had asked to hear about, and it was the thing the panel kept coming back to.

It's a counterintuitive message for a parent to receive in the middle of those grades. The years that feel hardest from the inside are, according to the people on the other side of them, the hardest part. That reframes a lot of what a parent is doing day to day during that stretch.

Why this format

A panel of alumni isn't a workshop. It isn't a speaker. It's people who went through the experience telling people in the middle of it what it was like. The family voice group exists to make those exchanges happen.

We have another session coming up, this time featuring teachers at the school sharing their perspectives on gifted students. The first one worked because the parents had named what they wanted, the alumni had something specific to say, and the questions were organized around a framework that gave the conversation shape.

If you're working on family engagement at a school, focusing on the middle grades or interested specifically in gifted learners, and want to talk about how to structure sessions like this, I'd love to connect.

It's totally different than anything I've done. I'm not quite ready to put a formal announcement on the site. But I've been thinking about how to share progress along the way, and this is the first time I'm saying any of it “out loud” in writing.

The Premise

It's set in a future world. I have this whole idea about teaching and learning versus schooling: they're two different processes. School is a place, but teaching and learning is a human thing that we do. The novel imagines a future designed around how I think teaching and learning should actually work, told through an almost-utopian community.

It's a lot about community mentors and learning in the real world, about how a person can be seen more in the learning process, and about how a community takes collective responsibility for teaching the younger generations while also learning from them in turn.

The Mentor and the Mentee

I'm telling the story through a pair, a mentor and a mentee, moving through this space together. Some of what they encounter along the way is the point. It's not a perfect world, and the challenges they meet show what could be different about how we approach teaching and learning.

Why Fiction, Not Nonfiction

I made a conscious choice to tell this as fiction rather than write a nonfiction book that's more preachy and says, here's how I think it should be. I'm telling it through these characters, so you can see it, interact with it, and feel it. And then you can ask: what does that mean for change in the world?

Bringing People In

One part of the work is going to be inviting people from my own personal community to give feedback. I'm planning to host an event at my house to gather reactions to what I have so far. Fiction is new for me, and I want the people who know me to push on it before it goes any further.

I'm also thinking about a fuller "I'm writing a novel" update for May or June, with photos from that event, as a way of bringing more of you along with the process rather than waiting until there's a finished thing to point to.

Wrapping Up

School is a place. Teaching and learning is something human, something a community does together across generations. The novel is my first attempt to put that idea inside a story instead of inside a framework or a curriculum.

If you think about teaching and learning this way too, I'd love to connect.

Next Generation Scholars, an established after-school and summer program for first-generation college students, asked me to help them codify what their teachers were already doing in the classroom, to make it standard enough that when new teachers came in, they could see how it worked.

The Project

We designed the curriculum around a community problem or challenge, and around a set of six skills students develop from sixth through twelfth grade. The program runs after school and through the summer for first-generation college students, and the six-skills framework became the structural anchor for everything I wrote. My job was to map what happens in 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th grade, respond to teacher feedback, and shape the materials so families, teachers, and program leaders could each use them.

Consistency across levels was one of the harder parts of this build. A base lesson has to level up gradually, so the seventh-grade version is a little more sophisticated than the sixth, and so on up the grades. A sixth-grade lesson sets the foundation; the seventh-grade version takes the same skill and pushes it further; by the time students hit the upper grades, the same thread has matured into something substantially more demanding.

Working with AI

What made this project different for me as a curriculum developer is that it was the first time I really leaned into AI as a support tool from start to finish. It was a hidden part of the architecture, more for me than for the students. People would tell me what they wanted, and I'd use AI as a support to work across all the documents.

I learned what I needed to write myself, what inputs I needed to put into AI, and how to optimize the AI over time so it could produce more and I could edit less. It also helped me communicate with a variety of audiences. I could distill a stack of material into a chart for curriculum leaders in a fraction of the time it would normally take. And when part of the program needed to reach families who only speak Spanish, I could rebuild the materials for that audience without starting from scratch. There were things I could do very quickly that would normally take a lot of time.

The Handoff

What I'm proud of is that the project leaves them something sustainable. Along with the curriculum, I gave the AI itself to the program, so they can do their edits in the future without meeting me and paying me to do it.

For a nonprofit, that's a much more sustainable model. It's not like it expires. It's going to be constantly useful to them.

NGS shouldn't be paying a consultant forever to sustain their curriculum. The idea is that they can do it themselves. I'm taking the knowledge and skills I used to build this and putting them on a path to use it in perpetuity, without having to pay a consultant. The curriculum becomes theirs, instead of being the thing that I'm writing on their behalf.

Wrapping Up

Closing out Next Generation Scholars feels less like an ending and more like a handoff. The program has the curriculum, the materials, and the tooling to keep editing it as they grow. That's what I wanted this project to be.

If you're working in curriculum design or nonprofit capacity-building, I'd love to connect.

The purpose of putting this on my website has changed with the work. First it was to make people aware of the opportunity. Then it was to say we were going through the review process. Now it's to tell the story of these projects and how they're doing along the way.

The Cohort

The 10 projects all fall into the credentialing space, but they look very different from each other.

A group in Oregon is creating a new certification for mobile crisis workers. These are people with lived experience of mental illness who join law enforcement teams during an incident, so the police aren't interacting directly with the person in crisis. They've got someone who knows what that mental illness is like to translate.

Another group in California is credentialing undocumented workers in janitorial roles, so they can move into leadership positions across a variety of organizations.

A third is working with incarcerated individuals who help clean up after wildfires, certifying them so that when they leave incarceration, they already have a job lined up.

My Role Right Now

This month I co-hosted the first community of practice meeting, with the group coming together to get to know each other. It's not just learning through their own project, it's what the group can learn from each other and together.

After that, I'm meeting one-on-one with each project team to figure out what each one specifically needs. That means aligning learning experiences, coaches, and experts that can help them get from point A to point B. I'm getting to know the projects and the people inside them, and helping each set its timeline.

Then I'm lining up resources at two levels. There's the individual project level, where a team needs something specific to their work. And there's the cohort level, where if three of these ten projects need the same thing, we bring someone in temporarily for that.

What's Next

This week we'll start doing the media blitz for the launch. There will be national press telling the broader story; this piece is my positioned view, what my role is and where I sit in the work. Over the next 18 months, I'll be sharing how these projects are doing along the way, so you can see what each one is building and how the cohort is learning together.

If this work resonates with you, I'd love to connect.

I've personally been exploring the leveling of durable skills for over 15 years, starting with the development of 21st Century skills for students in Virginia Beach City Public Schools, followed by developing future-ready skills with Defined Learning and Next Generation Scholars, all the way to working with Education Design Lab's Durable Skills Framework today.

The Core Problem

You can't get experience without a job. You can't get a job without experience. And somehow we're still surprised the talent pipeline is struggling.

This is what the report calls the "experience gap." Employers increasingly require validated work experience for entry-level roles, but traditional documents like resumes and transcripts rarely capture what a learner actually knows and can do. They're static. They're often inaccurate. And they fail to provide the trusted, contextual evidence employers need to make confident hiring decisions.

The solution isn't just new technology. It's a new shared language.

A Shared Framework

The report proposes a Common Language of Experience built around three core anchors that can be used to design, evaluate, or describe any role, project, or experience:

• Autonomy: the level of independence, discretion, and supervision involved
• Complexity: the intricacy, novelty, and ambiguity of the challenge
• Contribution: the ability to mobilize others and impact outcomes

Each anchor is measured across a three-level progression: Follow (Level 1), Assist (Level 2), and Apply (Level 3). This framework moves beyond static proficiency models by focusing on the context of the skill, not just the skill itself. A learner demonstrating Level 3 Autonomy has initiated and managed their own work. That's a different signal than someone at Level 1 following step-by-step instructions, even if they'd both claim the same skill on a resume.

Why I Care

We know that measuring durable skills is important, but the tools required are not the same ones we use for academic or technical skills.

Tough questions like how do we know a skill has been demonstrated, how much does context matter, and how can we agree on what quality looks like keep us from doing this work quickly, but the demand for this kind of information calls us to do the hard work.

AI tools that can quickly align skills frameworks and the appetite for out-of-school experiences make this the right moment for this work.

Who It's Built For

One of the things I appreciate most about this framework is that it was designed for everyone in the system, not just one stakeholder.

For learners, it provides a structured way to reflect on and articulate their own growth. Instead of saying "I had an internship," a learner using this framework can describe their actual level of independence, the complexity of what they navigated, and the impact they had on outcomes. That's a story employers can trust and act on.

For employers, it shifts hiring from guessing about potential to verifying capability. The framework can be built directly into interview rubrics, giving hiring managers a precise, behavioral way to probe the scope of a candidate's real experience.

For educators, it provides a shared blueprint for co-designing high-impact learning experiences with employer partners, and a new kind of rubric that captures the context of student capability, not just whether they completed a course.

The Infrastructure Behind It

For this to work at scale, the framework needs to be paired with digital infrastructure. The report outlines an evidence-driven credentialing pathway where learners gather evidence, that evidence is validated against the framework, and the resulting credential is stored in a portable digital wallet. The goal is a Learner Employment Record that functions as a trusted, verifiable, and equitable record of human capability.

This requires three commitments: expanding access so the system works for all learners including those on the margins, expanding the types of experiences that count, and expanding the value of these new credentials so that both learners and employers trust and use them.

What's Next

This work doesn't stop at the page. I'm co-presenting at an upcoming town hall with Getting Smart where we'll dig into the findings and explore what it looks like to put this framework into practice.

The session, "Experience Matters: A Common Language for Talent, Trust, and Economic Mobility," will walk through the interoperable framework built on the three core anchors and the three-layer implementation model of Evaluation, Design, and Storytelling. The goal is to show how this common language can empower learners with confidence while giving employers and educators a trusted, high-fidelity talent signal for the modern workforce.

Join us on April 8th at 10 AM PST. You can register and read the full report at gettingsmart.com/whitepaper/experience-matters.

Wrapping Up

The talent market has a broken feedback loop, and this publication offers a practical way to fix it. The core ideas are simple: experience has measurable value, learners deserve tools to articulate that value, and employers deserve trusted signals to act on it. When all three pieces are in place, the system works better for everyone.

This framework represents the kind of systemic thinking the field needs. It's not about replacing degrees or credentials. It's about building a more complete, more honest picture of what people know and can do.

If this work resonates with you, I'd love to connect.

I was part of the team that helped bring this to life, and I'm proud of what it represents for learners who have never had tools like this before.

My Role

This was one of my first major projects working directly with AI, transitioning what I already know from assessment design to an automated system.

I worked with Wingspans to develop a set of questions and field-tested the responses with real users, which were used to train the AI tool to be responsive to future interactions.

We analyzed and coded feedback to refine the questions that landed in the final tool, making sure it felt personable, transparent, and accurate for users.

What TAL-E Does

TAL-E stands for "Talents from Experiences." At its core, it helps adult learners translate their lived experiences into skills, tell their story, and match those skills to new careers.

It was built to honor what people already bring to the table. Someone with food service experience can use TAL-E to uncover skills like time management, sanitation, and performing well under pressure, and see how those transfer to healthcare. A single mother working and going to school at the same time can learn to recognize that juggling as a superpower and communicate it to friends, educators, and employers. A veteran can translate their service into workforce language, surfacing strengths like leadership, adaptability, crisis management, and teamwork, and connect those to careers in operations and project management.

The core message is simple: learners don't start from zero. They start from experience.

Why It Matters

There are many tools coming out to help people find their next path, but this one feels different. TAL-E leverages the stories of real people Wingspans has collected over time, giving users information about someone thriving in their career alongside how they would answer the same questions.

It is also transparent at a time when so many AI tools are opaque. For each result, users get a summary stating "What You Said" and "What TAL-E Heard," clarifying how the results were gathered. This layer of respectful transparency is essential in AI-powered tools, and it's something I'm glad we built in from the start.

Who Built It

TAL-E was developed over 1.5+ years in partnership with Calbright College and the Education Design Lab, with funding from the Tools Competition.

The project brought together contributors from Axim Collaborative and a dedicated team at Wingspans who built it out.

What's Next

TAL-E is an exploration and guidance tool. It does not explicitly validate skills or provide credentials.

In future work, I'd like to continue exploring how we might reach levels of accuracy and fidelity in actually validating skills with evidence. That feels like the natural next frontier.

Wrapping Up

TAL-E is a practical tool built around a simple but powerful idea: lived experience has value, and people deserve help communicating that value. This project reflects the kind of work I want to do more of, building things that meet learners where they are and help them move forward.

Adult learners are one of the most overlooked groups in workforce and education design. Tools like TAL-E show what's possible when we design with them, not just for them.

If you're working in adult learning, workforce development, or education design and want to talk about what TAL-E could mean for your work, I'd love to connect.

Session Details

I'll be presenting with my colleague Nishita Chheda at 1pm on 2/19. Our session is titled "From Friction to Flow: Insights into Skills Assessment and Validation." Who's joining? Let's connect and collaborate! This is a great opportunity to engage with others who are passionate about

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  Building Successful Communities of Practice Course

  Sep 23, 2025

  Building a successful community isn't just about bringing people together. It's about creating something that…

around digital credentials and skills validation.

Conclusion

The 2026 1EdTech Digital Credentials Summit brings together professionals shaping the future of learning and work through trusted digital credentials. Join us in Philadelphia from February 18–20 to explore insights on skills assessment and validation. Events like this are where real

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  Meeting Change Makers at CBExchange 2025

  Oct 31, 2025

  I am excited to be presenting at this year's CBExchange, the premiere event for changemakers…

come together to move the conversation forward. Hope to see you there!

More Details

On January 8, we will launch Advancing Workforce Mobility: An RFP for Credential Transparency and Skills Validation.

This $3.5M initiative will support an estimated 7–12 projects that make workers’ skills and credentials more visible, trusted, and transferable, leading to economic mobility for learners and workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs).

Planning Ahead

If this work aligns with what you’re building or exploring, now’s a good time to take a look and mark your calendar. Click this link to get a sneak peak.

More details coming soon!

In this article are five books that did that in different ways.

A note on where to buy: Choose Bookshop.org over Amazon to ensure your purchase truly supports local, independent bookstores. With every book you buy, you help strengthen community shops, keep money in local economies, and sustain a diverse, vibrant literary culture—all while still enjoying the convenience of online shopping. Also consider supporting your local library!

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

This book was intense. It's challenging, dark, emotional, mysterious, sad, tense, and fast-paced. Everything I want in a book that really sticks with you.

I felt conflicted at first about how much goes unknown throughout the book. Part of me wants to know everything about the timeline and world of the book, but another part of me is pleased to have to fill in the gaps myself.

I was surprised after I read it to learn this book was from 1995. I was too young for it at the time, but would've loved to have read it in high school a few years later. It reads like The Handmaids Tale in that it could be from nearly any time, which is frustrating and thought-provoking all at once.

It’s been months since I’ve read this, but I still regularly recommend it. Dare I say that the plot haunts me, even!

If you want a book that doesn't hold back and creates this unsettling, moving experience, this is it.

Click here to buy it on bookshop.org.

The Fourth Turning Is Here by Neil Howe

I needed to slow down for this one, and I'm glad I did. This book is challenging, informative, inspiring, reflective, and definitely slow-paced. But it rewards you if you stick with it.

Howe looks at historical patterns and cycles, helping you understand how history repeats itself and what that might mean for us now. It's the kind of book that makes you think long after you've finished reading. If you're willing to sit with complex ideas and take your time, this book will give you a completely new way of looking at history and the future.

I gifted this book to a friend who is transitioning to a career as a social studies teacher after years in military leadership. It captures something about how I wish we taught and learned history - with a conceptual lens that does not discard chronology, but also doesn’t see dates and times as the whole story.

I am not exaggerating when I say I think about this book every single day since I read it.

I've written more about this in Speaking at the 2026 1EdTech Digital Credentials Summit.

Click here to buy it on bookshop.org.

Trust by Hernan Diaz

I won this book in a White Elephant at work and was SO happy to get it! I’ve never read anything like it and now that I’m reading my way through the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, I was delighted to see it listed at number 50.

I saved Trust for a trip to New York just after finishing brushing up on HBO’s The Gilded Age. So engrossing was it that I bypassed the touristy view of the ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty to read instead!

Trust is dark, informative, mysterious, and medium-paced. It's a mix of plot and character-driven storytelling, which kept me engaged the whole time. The characters are notably unreliable, complicated and interesting in their own way, and Diaz makes their flaws a main focus of the story without spelling them out for you directly.

What really got me was how the book plays with truth and perspective. You think you know what's happening, and then everything shifts. It's mysterious without being frustrating, and the character development is just as strong as the plot, reminding us that “truth” is relative and trust is always a bit of a gamble.

Click here to buy it on bookshop.org.

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

This one hit me hard in the best way. It's challenging, emotional, hopeful, informative, inspiring, reflective, and fast-paced. Coates manages to tackle really difficult subjects while still leaving you with hope.

I appreciated how the book made me think deeply about important issues without feeling heavy-handed. It's fast-paced enough that you stay engaged, but reflective enough that you need to pause and really absorb what he's saying. The chapter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict completely shifted my thinking on the entire conflict for very different reasons than you might expect.

Coates speaks like a poet, yet somehow also manages to communicate plainly. If that’s not art, I don’t know what is. I’d read anything of his without hesitation and regularly gift his books to others, including this one.

Click here to buy it on bookshop.org.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

The meta narrative in this book was so compelling! There's literally a book within the book that parallels the main story, and watching those layers unfold was fascinating.

This one is mysterious and medium-paced, which lets the tension build naturally. It's plot-driven, but the characters are complex enough to want to stick with them. I listened to this one and felt annoyed by the first person narration eventually, in a way that showed just how frustrating the characters can be!

Korelitz does such a good job of making you question everything while keeping you completely hooked. If you love a good mystery with characters who feel real and a structure that surprises you, you'll love this. The Sequel (which is, of course, the sequel) is also compelling, but I recommend you, like I, wait a little before diving in so it does not feel redundant, even though you might be tempted to find out what happens next!

Click here to buy it on bookshop.org.

Conclusion

Looking back at these five books, I see some patterns. They all have complicated characters who feel real. They all made me feel something deep. And they all challenged me to think differently, whether about history, truth, identity, or human nature.

Two of these—The Fourth Turning and The Plot—are also on my list of all-time favorites. Read more about the books that have shaped me in My Favorite Books.

Some of these books are dark, some are hopeful. Some moved fast, others asked me to slow down. But all of them gave me something I couldn't forget and felt completely 2025 in the best possible way (in a year with relatively few “bests”!)

What are you looking for in your next read? A challenge? An escape? Something that will stay with you? Pick the one that calls to you and dive in.

Enjoyed reading? Follow me on Storygraph for more.

In this article I talk about the reason why we started hosting parties, our first party experience, and our second party success.

Why We Host

We were intrigued by the idea of a 2-Hour Cocktail Party for several reasons:

1. It sounded fun!
2. It sounded grown up and now that we're in our 40s, we wanted to host a different kind of party
3. We liked the emphasis on talking and getting to know each other. I host lots of communities professionally and knows how special this kind of deep connection can be and Kevin works at a restaurant that emphasizes the importance of hospitality, so he has his own take.
4. We have separate friend groups that we wanted to mix together, from Kevin's two jobs at the fire department and a restaurant, to my work and community projects and friends we've met through parenting or in the neighborhood.
5. 2 hours in the middle of the week is such a delightful interruption to the grind!

Our First Party

We hosted our first party this summer and had a blast! It was relaxing, inspiring, and super fun. We served light snacks, cocktails and mocktails that reminded us of the summer months and of course, had to put our own twist on the icebreakers Nick recommends, making it just a little weird with a deck of cards we found on a family trip to South Dakota by one of my favorite authors Chuck Klosterman.

Here's how we introduced the idea to our guests:

"Some people are extremely good at making small talk. These people are better known as "idiots". These are the kind of humans who can talk to a stranger for 40 minutes without learning anything essential about who that stranger is - they talk about the weather and about other people, and they mention what kind of car they drive and how old their children are. They have conversations in public that are ultimately no different than silence in an empty room. We refuse to be that kind of person. This party will feature several hypothetical questions where how one answers matters far more than the literal conclusion. If you want to find out who other people really are, these are the conversations you need to have. Prepare to become more interesting."

Not only do the questions quickly generate great conversation, every single person at the party gets a chance to talk and get to know each other. It builds instant camaraderie in a short period of time!

Our Second Success

We hosted our next party on Election Night. We were all sick of the ads (our state had a prominent governor's race this year) and were frazzled by school schedules, so it seemed the perfect time to interrupt our usual programming with a little party.

Our guest list was about ¼ returning guests, the rest all new. Each first timer left with a book hand selected from my personal library with a handwritten note for why it was picked and our second timers got a handwritten recipe from Kevin's personal favorites.

Conclusion

We knew the party was a success when our group photo thank you message led to a lively group text of folks remembering the party together, with one friend taking some creative liberties to turn our photo into a depiction of the wild and crazy discussion!

If you'd like advice or encouragement to host your own 2 hour cocktail party, reach out! Or, better yet, come to our next one!

The theme for this year's conference is "Wrangling Skills in this Wild West Environment."

The Competency-Based Education Network, known as C-BEN, hosts this annual gathering of innovators and thought leaders.

Event Details

The conference takes place November 10 through 13 in Phoenix, Arizona.

I will be joining several colleagues from Education Design Lab for multiple sessions throughout the event.

The Sessions

Naomi Boyer, Doctor Tara Laughlin, Nishita Chheda, and I will present on a variety of topics alongside our incredible partners.

Each session focuses on different aspects of competency-based education and validating skills.

Why This Matters

This conference brings together innovators working on the future of work and skills-first practices.

The sessions cover everything from developing durable skills in K-12 education to building employer partnerships.

We will also explore how to design trust when validating skills in hiring processes.

My work supporting educators and changemakers extends beyond conferences. Learn more about my work with Edjacent.

Conclusion

I hope to see you in Phoenix this November to discuss more about competency-based education and skills-first practices.

Connect with me on LinkedIn for more insights.

by Meghan Raftery

Last week, I earned my certification in Mental Health First Aid, a national training program that teaches participants how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges. The course, developed by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, equips everyday people with the tools to offer initial support to someone experiencing a crisis and connect them to appropriate help.

As an educator and designer of learning experiences, I found the training both practical and profound. It reframed something I’ve always known but sometimes struggled to articulate:

Teaching and leading are acts of care.

Seeing Students as Whole Humans

In schools, we talk often about “the whole child.” We design lessons to build critical thinking, empathy, and resilience. But we sometimes forget that the students sitting in front of us (and the adults working alongside us) carry invisible stories. Anxiety, grief, trauma, or burnout can show up as distraction, frustration, or withdrawal.

Mental Health First Aid gave me a framework to notice those signs without judgment and to respond in a way that prioritizes safety, connection, and respect. The course reminded me that support doesn’t always mean solving a problem; sometimes it means sitting beside someone in their struggle and helping them take the next small step, which aligns well with my coaching philosophy.

Building Belonging in Educational Spaces

The training also deepened my commitment to creating environments where belonging is a daily practice. Whether I’m facilitating professional learning with teachers or designing a curriculum for students, I want every participant to feel seen, safe, and valued.

Mental Health First Aid is one more tool in that effort. It offers language and structure for talking about difficult topics—depression, panic, substance use, suicidal thoughts—in a way that is compassionate and clear. It gives educators confidence that they can respond appropriately, not perfectly.

Creating environments where belonging is a daily practice is central to my work. I explore this more through my work with Edjacent.

A Call to the Field

I believe every educator, school leader, and community partner should consider this training. Not because it will turn us into counselors, but because it helps us become better listeners, advocates, and neighbors.

We already perform emotional triage every day when we comfort a crying child, check in on a stressed colleague, or notice when a student’s spark fades. This certification doesn’t change what we do; it validates it, strengthens it, and gives it structure.

When we commit to understanding mental health as part of our shared humanity, we move one step closer to schools that truly nurture the minds and hearts of everyone inside them.

If you’d like to learn more about Mental Health First Aid, visit mentalhealthfirstaid.org. I’m grateful for the opportunity to add this training to my practice and to continue learning how to support wellbeing in every space where people learn and grow.

After completing Tacit's Thinkific Building Successful Communities of Practice course, there are some key insights about what makes communities not just survive, but truly thrive.

What Works

A Community of Practice (CoP) works best when it's informal, voluntary, and driven by shared passion. The magic happens when communities go beyond just sharing information. They create support networks, bridge knowledge gaps, grow people's capabilities, and make real collaboration possible.

Member Types

Understanding different member roles is crucial for community success.

There are four main types:

• Core members who drive the community forward
• Active participants who regularly contribute
• Occasional contributors who join when it's relevant to them
• Peripheral members who observe and learn.

Each type brings unique value to the community.

Key Elements

Three things keep communities strong: clear purpose, consistent rhythm, and genuine human connection.

Simple touches like member shout-outs and co-creation opportunities build the momentum and trust that communities need to stay alive and growing.

Beyond Events

A true Community of Practice isn't just a series of meetings or events.

It's an evolving ecosystem of relationships and ideas that grows and adapts over time.

Building communities that support educators and changemakers is core to what I do. Learn more about my work with Edjacent.

Conclusion

The most successful communities happen naturally when people share genuine interests and passions. They work because they focus on building relationships, not just sharing information. When communities have clear purpose, regular interaction, and real human connection, they become trusted spaces where people can learn and grow together.

The Skills Validation Network Community of Practice shows how these principles work in practice, creating lasting value for everyone involved.

Ready to build or strengthen your own community? Start with these fundamentals and watch your community transform from a simple gathering into a thriving ecosystem.

In this article are the four books that have made the biggest impact on me.

The Overstory by Richard Powers

The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world.

From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us.

This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

For generations, readers have been charmed by the special world of Green Gables, an old-fashioned farm outside a town called Avonlea. Eleven-year-old Anne Shirley has arrived in this verdant corner of Prince Edward Island only to discover that the Cuthberts--elderly Matthew and his stern sister, Marilla--want to adopt a boy, not a feisty redheaded girl. But before they can send her back, Anne--who simply must have more scope for her imagination and a real home--wins them over completely.

Anne of Green Gables--the inspiration for the Netflix series Anne with an E--is a much loved classic that explores all the vulnerability, expectations, and dreams of a child growing up. It is a wonderful portrait of a time, a place, a family...and most of all, love.

The Fourth Turning Is Here by Neil Howe

Twenty-five years ago, Neil Howe and the late William Strauss dazzled the world with a provocative new theory of American history.

Looking back at the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly eighty to one hundred years, the length of a long human life, with each cycle composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about twenty years.

The last of these eras—the fourth turning—was always the most perilous, a period of civic upheaval and national mobilization as traumatic and transformative as the New Deal and World War II, the Civil War, or the American Revolution.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

The Plot is a psychologically suspenseful novel about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he's teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what's left of his self-respect; he hasn't written--let alone published--anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn't need Jake's help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.

Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker's first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that--a story that absolutely needs to be told.

Conclusion

Here is a quick rundown of my four favorite books:

• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• The Fourth Turning Is Here by Neil Howe
• The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Each one holds a special place in my life and has shaped the way I think and connect with others.

Looking for more recommendations? I share five recent reads that earned my highest rating in 5 Books That Earned My 5 Stars.

Want to see what I am reading right now, along with many of my other recommendations? Follow me on Storygraph to explore my current reads and discover more of my favorites.

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What We Offer

Edjacent partners with individuals committed to education and positive change.

It delivers a blend of content, coaching, and community to help them innovate and grow.

Who We Serve

• Changemakers: These are people actively seeking to bring about social transformation. Edjacent supports them in developing creative approaches and mobilizing resources to inspire meaningful community impact.
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Edjacent’s Mission

Edjacent exists to inspire and support individuals and organizations in creating meaningful change.

Through its mix of learning, support, and collaboration, the organization helps people reach their full potential and make a lasting impact.

Interested in how communities come together effectively? I share insights from my training in Building Successful Communities of Practice.

Conclusion

Here is a quick look at what Edjacent stands for:

• Provides coaching, content, and community to spark innovation and growth
• Supports changemakers, educators, edupreneurs, and micro-business owners
• Helps people scale impact ethically while honoring their values
• Embodies a mission to elevate individuals and organizations toward their best possible impact

Interested in transforming education or amplifying your social impact journey? Visit our website to learn more and explore how you can get involved.

With a career built at the intersection of teaching, curriculum design, and community partnership, I bring a passion for helping learners and organizations thrive. My work spans classroom teaching, program design, facilitation, and leadership development, with a focus on creating equitable, engaging, and future-ready learning experiences. From developing innovative curricula to fostering collaborative networks, I specialize in helping individuals and organizations grow their capacity to learn, adapt, and lead with purpose.

View my resume: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v2OIZ77XYZtLSJdzs6M8BbGweeD8zoaXi0BZ4O-7Vrs/edit?usp=sharing