Education in the United States faces significant challenges beyond academics, with systemic issues impacting students, teachers, and families. Despite high financial investment, the education system struggles to meet the holistic needs of its communities. Leading voices in the field are advocating for a fundamental shift toward prioritizing the human experience within schools, emphasizing mental health, connection, and strength-based approaches.
This movement aims to transform school cultures by addressing the well-being of educators as much as students, recognizing the essential role of psychological safety. Innovative strategies are being developed to create environments where learning is enriched by joy, trust, and meaningful relationships, supporting everyone involved in education to thrive and adapt to current realities.
The Current State of American Education
Political Influences and Systemic Barriers
Education in the United States has become deeply entangled with political agendas, impacting its core mission. This politicization often shifts focus away from students’ essential needs and human-centered learning. The resulting environment can feel dehumanizing for everyone involved.
Funding Levels and Educational Performance
The U.S. invests heavily in public education, with nearly $947 billion spent on K-12 and $1.64 trillion across all educational levels, amounting to 5.6% of the nation’s GDP. Despite this significant funding, educational outcomes often fall short, indicating that current investments do not fully translate into improved student success or school environments.
Challenges for Educators, Students, and Families
Students, teachers, and parents face ongoing struggles, particularly related to mental health and safety. Educators experience high levels of stress and burnout, which impacts their ability to support students. Families also encounter difficulties navigating a system under pressure from social and emotional crises.
Key issues include:
- Rising mental health concerns among students and staff
- The need for trauma-informed approaches
- Safety fears following incidents of violence on school grounds
Addressing these challenges requires a focus on creating supportive and psychologically safe learning communities.
The HumanizedEDU Movement
The Founders: Dr. Stacie Herrera and Sandy Herrera
Dr. Stacie Herrera is a licensed psychologist focused on strength-based and neuroscience-driven approaches in education. Sandy Herrera is an education innovator and CEO committed to transforming school culture to support both students and teachers. Together, as sisters and collaborators, they combined their expertise to initiate a new approach called Humanized EDU.
Humanized EDU aims to put human needs at the center of education. The movement focuses on creating psychologically safe, supportive, and empowering environments for students and educators alike. It challenges the current education system by prioritizing mental health, joy, and connection in schools.
Fundamental Beliefs of Humanizing Education
Core principles include:
- Proactively addressing mental health challenges among students and educators
- Using brainwired strengths to shape learning experiences
- Building school cultures based on psychological safety
- Supporting adults in education to better meet students’ social and emotional needs
- Emphasizing collaboration and community in schools
These principles guide the movement’s work toward safer, more empathetic, and effective educational spaces.
Putting Humans First in Schools
Ensuring Emotional Safety in Educational Spaces
Creating environments where students, teachers, and staff feel emotionally secure is essential. Psychological safety means fostering trust and openness, allowing individuals to express themselves without fear. Addressing mental health proactively, especially for educators and support personnel, is critical to preventing ongoing crises.
Encouraging Joy and Meaningful Relationships
Integrating joy and connection within schools transforms the experience for everyone. When students and educators find purpose and positive relationships, learning becomes more engaging. Cultivating these elements helps reduce stress and builds a supportive community that nurtures growth.
Empowering Positive Change in School Culture
Empowered school environments focus on strength-based approaches for both learners and educators. Supporting adults in education leads to better care for students’ social and emotional needs. Integrating values-driven culture and neuroscience-informed practices helps schools thrive as places of safety and growth.
Addressing the Student and Educator Mental Health Crisis
Addressing the mental health crisis in schools requires proactive, prevention-focused strategies that prioritize both student and educator well-being. Supporting educators is key, as their mental health directly impacts students and school culture. Effective actions include fostering brain-based strengths, psychological safety, and environments that promote connection and joy. Moving beyond surface-level fixes, such as addressing bullying or phone use, schools must tackle root causes through collaborative, ongoing mental health supports. This holistic, human-centered approach not only breaks cycles of burnout and trauma but also strengthens entire school communities, creating thriving workplaces and better learning experiences for all.
Brainwired Strengths and the Future of Learning
Neuroscience’s Influence on Modern Education
Understanding the brain’s wiring is changing how education is approached. Instead of a one-size-fits-all method, neuroscience encourages tailored learning that aligns with each individual’s cognitive strengths. This shift allows both students and educators to engage more deeply and effectively.
Neuroscience-driven strategies highlight the importance of psychological safety and emotional well-being in schools. By acknowledging brainwired strengths, teaching can move beyond rote memorization to foster critical thinking and resilience.
Focusing on Strengths for Both Learners and Educators
Emphasizing strengths in education benefits everyone within the school community. When adult staff are supported psychologically, they are better able to meet the social and emotional needs of students. This creates a more positive and productive learning environment.
Key components include:
- Recognizing unique talents in students and teachers
- Building school cultures grounded in trust and support
- Prioritizing mental health proactively rather than reactively
By adopting these strength-based approaches, schools foster growth, empowerment, and improved outcomes for students and educators alike.
Engaging Parents as Key Partners
Parents hold a vital role in transforming education by actively participating in solutions that prioritize student well-being. By understanding the mental health challenges students face, parents can advocate for their children’s needs and collaborate with educators to foster supportive environments. Their involvement creates a stronger foundation for change that values both academic and emotional growth.
Building Strong Links between Home and School
Effective communication and trust between families and schools are essential for nurturing student success. Establishing regular, open dialogue allows parents and educators to work together in addressing challenges and celebrating achievements. Schools that create welcoming spaces for parents promote a culture of partnership and shared responsibility, which benefits the entire learning community.
This combined effort ensures a unified approach to nurturing students’ academic and emotional well-being.
Exploring Joy: The Book and Its Influence
Building Confidence and Emotional Health
The book emphasizes fostering genuine self-trust and emotional wellbeing. It highlights the importance of nurturing mental health proactively rather than reacting to crises. By focusing on inner strengths and positive connections, it encourages individuals to create a brighter, more balanced experience in education and life.
Support and Advice for Teaching Professionals
Educators receive practical guidance to transform school environments into spaces where both students and staff feel psychologically safe. The approach stresses addressing the emotional needs of adults in schools as a foundation for supporting students. It promotes a culture based on respect, values, and understanding individual brain strengths to enhance learning and teaching.
Creating a Safe and Empowering Environment in Schools
Building a psychologically safe and thriving educational culture requires intentional focus on the well-being of both educators and students. Addressing adults’ emotional and mental health within school systems creates a foundation for supporting children’s social and emotional needs effectively.
Key elements include:
- Prioritizing brain-based strengths and neuroscience-driven approaches
- Establishing supportive relationships rooted in trust and connection
- Developing school cultures based on shared values and mutual respect
- Implementing proactive strategies rather than reactive solutions to crises
Fostering safety means moving beyond surface-level conversations about issues like bullying or technology use. Instead, the focus shifts to upstream, preventive measures designed to promote resilience and thriving for all school community members.
This movement emphasizes the interconnectedness of teacher and student well-being and seeks to transform education by placing human needs at its core.
Conclusion:
In this Real Money episode with Sandy Herrera and Dr. Stacie, we discussed the transformative power of prioritizing mental health and human connection in education. The conversation highlighted the importance of addressing systemic challenges by focusing on the well-being of both educators and students. By fostering psychological safety, joy, and meaningful relationships, schools can create environments where everyone thrives. The episode also explored the Humanized EDU movement, which emphasizes brain-based strengths, proactive mental health strategies, and collaborative efforts with parents and communities to build supportive, values-driven school cultures. This holistic approach aims to break cycles of burnout and trauma, empowering educators and students to succeed together.
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