As we approach the winter break in schools, I wanted to take a moment to consider that we actually “do” to kids in schools each day. We often speak about education as if it is primarily a system to maintain — a machine that produces outcomes measured on state dashboards and annual reports. But students are not outputs. They are human beings with dreams, fears, brilliance, contradictions, creativity, trauma, humor, and hope. They are not raw material in an academic factory.
Yet somewhere along the line, the conversation shifted. Learning became synonymous with testing. Success became synonymous with metrics. And too many decisions about schools have been made based on data without ever looking into the eyes of the children behind those numbers.
So maybe the time has come to ask a different question:
What do students actually need from us — not eventually, but right now?
Not the adults’ agenda.
Not the political talking points.
Not the reform of the month.
But the real needs of human children trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world.
Below is what I believe sits at the heart of that answer.
1. Belonging — before achievement.
A brain in survival mode cannot learn. A child who enters school worrying about safety, identity, humiliation, hunger, home instability, or whether they will be accepted cannot focus on algebraic equations or literary themes.
Belonging is more than kindness. It’s climate. It’s culture. It’s the feeling a student gets when they walk into a room and think:
They know me here. I matter here. This is a place for me.
This means representation in curriculum, culturally responsive practices, pronouncing names correctly, honoring lived experience, and building relationships stronger than fear or compliance. Academics grow where belonging is rooted.
2. Purpose — not just pressure.
Students work harder when the work connects to something real. We can push them toward rigor, but rigor is empty when students cannot answer one simple question:
“Why are we learning this?”
Purpose is what transforms work into meaning. When students see how a math concept ties into engineering, how writing shapes voice and identity, or how science connects to public health and climate — the learning becomes theirs. Not an assignment to complete, but an opportunity to explore.
We don’t need more pressure. We need more relevance.
3. Thinking — not just performance.
We have spent years preparing students for tests, but not nearly enough preparing them for complexity. The world ahead will demand that they think critically, ethically, creatively, collaboratively — especially in an age of AI, misinformation, and rapid change.
Students need spaces to experiment, debate, build, code, question, fail, revise, and try again.
Performance shows what students know. Thinking shows who they can become.
4. Skills, pathways, and identity — not just credits.
A diploma should represent more than completion. It should signal readiness. Students need opportunities to be exposed to career-oriented experiences throughout their PK-12 academic years — not at the end of high school. And not to simply “get a job” after they complete school. But to begin formulating what they how they will lead organizations and positively impact the trajectory of the world.
Internships. Project-based learning. Career-connected experiences. Mentors. Exposure.
A student should leave school with:
✔ A sense of who they are
✔ A direction worth pursuing knowing what they like and what they don’t like
✔ Skills that transfer to real life
✔ Confidence to navigate what comes next
If the world is not linear anymore, school shouldn’t be either.
5. Adults who believe in them — consistently.
We remember the adults who saw us when we felt invisible. The ones who noticed when our spirit dimmed. The ones who held expectations high and held us with care while we grew to meet them.
Students need champions — not cheerleaders who applaud from a distance, but mentors who walk beside them and say:
“I know what’s inside you. We’re going to uncover it together.”
Belief changes trajectories. It builds resilience. It is the fuel of potential.
6. Joy — yes, joy — in learning.
Somewhere along the way, joy became framed as distraction instead of pedagogy. But laughter, curiosity, creativity, music, movement, art, and wonder are not breaks from learning — they are learning.
Joy is the spark that makes knowledge memorable.
It’s the thing that keeps students coming back tomorrow.
If school becomes only stress, compliance, and productivity, we are not preparing children for life — we are conditioning them for burnout.
The Work Ahead
Reimagining education is not just about innovation — it’s about listening. If we ask students what they need, they won’t ask for more testing windows or more passive content. They will ask for connection. Voice. Meaning. Agency. Support. Hope.
And they deserve all of it.
As leaders, we cannot continue designing systems around adult comfort more than student experience. We cannot look away from the mental health crisis, the disconnection, the disengagement, and the fact that so many students are in classrooms where they are taught but not known.
To serve students well, we must build schools where humans come first.
What students need right now isn’t complicated. It’s courageous.
And it requires us — educators, leaders, policymakers, communities — to put humanity back at the center of schooling.
Because when we get that right, learning doesn’t just happen.
It thrives.
