Month: July 2025

By Hamse Warfa

It’s mid-July, and across the country and the world, people are desperately searching for solid ground.

There’s war and retaliation on the world stage, with headlines shifting daily between destruction and diplomacy. At home, we’re watching the civic fabric fray: rising fear around immigration, growing political extremism, new education laws that silence educators and exclude students. The sense of instability isn’t abstract; it’s lived. Families are anxious. Young people are paying attention. And many adults, if we’re honest, don’t know how to talk about what’s happening. 

This is not about teaching students to “solve” adult problems. It’s about trusting them enough to explore complexity and to ask bold questions at a time when many grown-ups are hiding behind comfort or fear.  

Let’s be real: young people are watching us. They see adults deflect, divide, and dehumanize. They are learning in real time what leadership looks like, what cowardice sounds like, and who gets protected in moments of crisis. That awareness doesn’t have to harden into cynicism. But it will, if we don’t help process it together. 

This is a moment to redefine what school is for. Not just for content delivery or academic achievement, but as a place for civic repair. A place where we can name fear, examine complexity, and rebuild trust. A space where students don’t just prepare for the future, but a place where they can begin to shape that future with empathy, historical context, and a deep sense of collective responsibility.

So, what now? What can we actually do in a moment like this? We can start by helping schools become places of relevance and resilience. Where teachers are facilitators of dialogue, not just deliverers of content. Where students are seen and treated as human beings, now and not just as future workers or voters.   

We are swimming against the tide.. Community schools are being defunded. Institutions of higher education are under attack. Educators are being silenced. The public square is shrinking. But even in this climate, we see extraordinary courage in classrooms. 

We are not experts in war, immigration policy, or global diplomacy. However, we are deeply experienced in learning alongside young people. And in moments like this, when certainty fails and division surges, there is power in slowing down, listening deeply, and asking questions. 

What sustains human well-being in a time like this? What prevents it? What kind of conversations do we need to have, not someday, but now?

We don’t need to have all the answers. But we do need to model how to ask the right questions, with humility, urgency, and care. Because the world that students are growing into is unstable. And the stakes are not theoretical; they are real.

What happens next won’t be decided solely in Washington or at global summits. It will also be shaped in school hallways and classrooms, where identity is explored, trust is built, and new visions of democracy and belonging take root.

Let’s not miss the chance to get this right.

Let’s stand with educators. 

Let’s protect the spaces where inquiry, agency, and empathy can still thrive. 

And most of all, let’s trust students, not just to learn, but to lead.

By: Whitney McKinley 

Across the country and the globe, we’re witnessing moments that feel more like history repeating than a future unfolding: military vehicles in school parking lots, students afraid to attend graduation, immigrant families separated in broad daylight. At the same time, international conflicts escalate, images of war flood our feeds, and communities everywhere grapple with fear, division, and uncertainty. These aren’t distant stories from a textbook. This is the world our young people are navigating right now. 

And our collective response—as educators, caregivers, and community members matters more than ever. Because, in the most recent federal budget proposal, Full-Service Community Schools and Promise Neighborhoods are on the chopping block. Community schools are a blueprint for what democracy can look like when it is local, participatory, and human-centered. They integrate academics with health, social services, youth development, and community engagement. 

And we’ve seen it firsthand. In Minnesota, students at Ella Baker Global Studies and Humanities Magnet and Saint Anthony Middle School have just wrapped up their capstone projects, which are culminating exhibitions demonstrating what they learned and how they applied their knowledge. One student redesigned the school’s lunchroom logistics to reduce food waste and improve access. 

Another organized a community fundraiser to support families facing eviction. There were plans for preventive healthcare for students and even tackling 8th-grade disengagement with real-world applications. 

These were not isolated moments. They were the result of months of inquiry, collaboration, and the kind of learning that connects classroom content to real-world challenges. These projects aren’t just schoolwork stapled to poster boards. They’re living representations of what students care about and how they choose to act. Many of these efforts will continue into the summer and carry forward into high school and beyond, as they are rooted in real questions, real stakes, and real change. 

This kind of authentic learning happens because teachers choose differently. They moved away from rote instruction and toward interdisciplinary, student-led exploration. They created space for dialogue, reflection, and civic imagination. They trusted students with complexity, and in return, students showed up with clarity and purpose.

We know that democracy is not defended by tanks or tweets. It is defended every day by students asking better questions. By families showing up at school board meetings. By educators who teach not just content, but courage. To defund Full-Service Community Schools at this moment is not just shortsighted. It is dangerous. It hollows out one of the last remaining public spaces where trust, belonging, and collective action can still take root.

However, the hope in all this is that real and lasting shifts come from change that begins within communities, through seeing a multi-faceted system and doing what’s best for the greater good and progress of it. And no change in funding should hold us back from showing up in these spaces in a new way.

So why not volunteer in your classrooms, attend a school board meeting, learn more from your local teachers, and support student efforts to make positive changes in their communities?

Let it begin with all of us.

The path forward isn’t less complexity. It is more humanity. More connection. More courage.