Category: Blog

Schools today face high expectations. Teachers are being asked to implement new curricula, participate in ongoing professional learning, and meet growing accountability measures. At the same time, districts are focused on ensuring students meet clearly defined standards. Compliance and High-Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) sit at the top of the priority list, and the pressure to get it right is real.

At World Savvy, we understand that reality. We do not come in with a separate agenda. Our goal is the same as the schools and districts we partner with: helping educators and students succeed within the systems they are already navigating.

The difference is how we support that success.

HQIM and required frameworks provide an essential foundation for instruction. But without intentional support, even strong materials can feel rigid or disconnected from students’ lives. World Savvy works alongside teachers to bring required content to life. We help educators embed student voice, real-world challenges, and culturally responsive practices into the lessons they are already expected to teach.

One powerful example comes from Ms. Awo Salad, an 8th and 9th-grade teacher at a STEM-focused charter school serving a predominantly East African, Somali-majority student population.

In Awo’s classroom, standards-aligned instruction became a way for students to engage with issues directly affecting their communities. With World Savvy’s coaching and tools, students analyzed articles to better understand their rights and the broader social and political context shaping their lives. They then created informational and uplifting posters focused on knowing one’s rights, countering misinformation, and affirming community dignity.

These were not just classroom assignments. They were public-facing pieces, soon to be displayed in a local Somali mall.

“The impact was immediate,” Awo shared. “Students were more engaged because the work mattered to them personally.”

Awo also described how dialogue frameworks, questioning guides, and sentence stems helped push students toward deeper, more critical thinking, especially around global issues, identity, and justice. The quality of classroom conversations shifted. Students became more thoughtful, more confident, and more willing to engage with complex ideas.

What changed was not the standards. It was how students were invited into the learning.

This is what it looks like when compliance becomes a doorway rather than a constraint.

World Savvy’s approach is rooted in listening. Over time, we have recorded and reflected on the voices of hundreds of students across the country. Students consistently ask for learning that feels relevant, affirming, and connected to the world beyond school.

Our work helps educators translate that understanding into daily practice. Student agency and purpose are not added on. They are integrated into existing goals and expectations.

The impact is tangible. Students remember lessons where their ideas mattered, where collaboration felt real, and where learning connected to their lives. These experiences support academic outcomes while also building confidence, skills, and a sense of belonging.

Turning mandates into meaning does not require lowering expectations or abandoning required frameworks. It requires rethinking how existing tools, content, and professional learning can be used to create purposeful learning experiences. Experiences that prepare students for life beyond the classroom.

As Awo put it, “As a Somali-majority, East African-majority school, we are deeply committed to becoming learned, engaged citizens of this country. Our students have so much to give back. We are educating the next generation of engineers, doctors, and leaders who will shape our communities with knowledge, empathy, and intention.”

This is the work World Savvy partners with schools to do every day. We help educators meet their mandated goals while creating classrooms rooted in relevance, agency, and purpose.

When this happens, students do more than meet expectations. They exceed them. They feel capable, connected, and prepared to contribute meaningfully to their communities and the world around them. 

As 2025 comes to a close, we’ve been reflecting on the power of student voice to spark change. Across our Changemaker Hubs, leadership cohorts, and comprehensive school partnerships, a clear thread has emerged. When students are given space to speak, they share the wisdom of this moment, insights into what needs to shift, what questions need asking, and what actions matter. And when communities listen and make a plan, learning moves beyond the classroom. It becomes a catalyst for change in the community, tackling real-world issues and creating ripple effects that stretch far beyond school walls.

We saw this in rural Michigan, where a group of students redesigned their school’s mental health programming. They listened to families, gathered data, and worked alongside leaders to create a plan for change. Their teachers didn’t direct them. They held space, guided, and helped translate ideas into action. In those classrooms, leadership wasn’t granted to students as a title or a project. It emerged organically from the issues they cared about most.

A similar current ran through our Changemaker Hub at Wayne Finger Lakes. Students there weren’t just generating ideas. They were interrogating the very foundations of schooling, how it responds to the needs of their generation, what purpose it serves, and how it must evolve. Educators didn’t step in with answers. They stayed in conversation, working with students to turn questions into pathways for action.

At Ella Baker, the change is growing district-wide. Students began by reimagining their playground, how it could be inclusive and welcoming for all. That experience led to new conversations, new planning, and now, the beginnings of a community garden designed to benefit the broader neighborhood. The work didn’t stop at a single achievement. It set in motion a culture of student-led initiatives that move outward, step by step.

In Howell, classrooms have explored global perspectives while honoring neurodivergent learners’ voices, ensuring that students who experience the world differently also help shape it. And in Alexandria, educators are rethinking course design so that curiosity leads to civic action, projects that affect real neighborhoods and real people. In each of these places, when school systems hold space, listen deeply, and respond, learning transforms into something far more than academics.

World Savvy’s role is not to deliver programs from the outside. It is to nurture the conditions where this transformation becomes inevitable. Our Changemaker Hubs, leadership cohorts, and school partnerships aren’t isolated efforts. They are connected opportunities for adults and youth to grow together. Teachers, leaders, and community members learn alongside students how to embed durable skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, empathy, and problem-solving into every lesson and every decision. Students see their ideas valued and acted upon. Communities witness tangible change and begin to expect more of what young people can do. Momentum spreads not because we push it, but because people experience its impact firsthand.

In a time when societal challenges feel urgent and complex, these local movements matter more than ever. Communities will be the change that the government alone cannot deliver. What we’ve seen this year is that when schools center student voice and adult leadership, they spark action, foster learning, and create ripple effects across our nation. The academic space becomes a launchpad for real-world transformation, demonstrating that the future is not something students inherit. It is something they actively create.

As we look toward 2026, this groundswell continues. Every project, coaching session, and leadership reflection adds momentum. Not as a collection of isolated moments, but as a growing network of people committed to an education system that prepares young people not just to navigate the world, but to shape it. Together, educators, students, and supporters like you are building the kind of education, and the kind of future, every student deserves.

On Election Day last Tuesday, as voters across the country cast ballots to shape the future of their communities, young people were speaking up for their own lives, communities and futures at a World Savvy Changemaker Hub. Spaces like the Changemaker Hub give students practice in the very skills that sustain healthy communities: empathy, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. These are not abstract ideals. They are the durable skills that empower young people to engage fully in civic life and advocate for their future.

Beyond a Single Day

By embedding durable skills such as curiosity, adaptability, and empathy into education, we prepare young people not only to succeed but to participate meaningfully in democracy. At the Hub, students led by naming challenges and co-creating solutions alongside educators and community members.

At one Minnesota school, students built on past work they led with World Savvy to make their playground more accessible to all kids. This time, their focus was on recess, how to make it more enjoyable and inclusive for everyone. Their poster read:

“Our idea is to help recess be more enjoyable for everybody. We will do this by organizing the soccer field and making more choices for toys and equipment available.”

They didn’t stop there. Students mapped out an action plan that included service and philanthropy, recruiting volunteers to paint the soccer field and organizing a fundraiser to purchase new equipment. These ideas reflected what World Savvy’s approach is all about, turning empathy and collaboration into concrete steps for community improvement.

And when the day ended, the work did not. The ideas and energy carried forward into classrooms, staff meetings, and homes, fueling new questions and new approaches to teaching and learning that honor student voice.

Building community by embedding life skill

When education creates space for young people to use their voices, communities grow stronger. This Minnesota Changemaker Hub showed what happens when we connect learning to civic life: students see themselves as changemakers, not someday, but right now.

A single day of dialogue can spark a movement, because when students know their voices matter, they do not just imagine a better future. They help build it.

Learn more about how schools can embed these future-ready skills and how to support this work.

When we think about education, it is easy to picture classrooms filled with textbooks, worksheets, and tests. For decades, this has been the default approach: the acquisition of knowledge measured in isolation, how much a student can memorize, regurgitate, or reproduce on an exam. But the world outside school does not work that way. Ask any workforce leader: Work does not hand you a multiple-choice test when you need to solve a problem, negotiate a disagreement, or launch a project. Life asks: Can you take what you know and use it to make a difference

Context, the ability to see how knowledge matters in the real world, is what bridges this gap. It transforms abstract skills into tools for impact. Math becomes meaningful when it helps plan a community garden, analyze local air quality, or budget for a school project. Literacy becomes powerful when it allows students to advocate for themselves or craft messages that inspire change. Critical thinking becomes urgent when applied to real questions: How do we balance competing interests? How do we solve problems when solutions are not clear-cut?

At the same time, much of today’s education landscape has been shaped by priorities like standardized testing, structured curricula, and managing large classrooms, all of which serve important purposes. But when these elements become the whole story, we risk losing the deeper “why” behind learning. Students are eager for relevance; they want to see how what they learn connects to their lives and communities. The opportunity before us is to bring context back into focus, to make learning both rigorous and real so every young person can see their education as a pathway to purpose.

At a World Savvy partner school, Sejong Academy Korean Immersion School, students in the K-Pop Club, led by teacher Kyungnam Hur, explored questions of identity and community through collaborative songwriting and performance. They considered how to express who they are and how they relate to their communities through music, how to create songs that reflect shared identities and experiences, and why collaboration in artistic creation matters. Two original songs emerged from this student-led project, each exploring universal themes such as friendship and graduation. Through songwriting and performance, students expressed both the emotional depth and celebratory energy of these life transitions. Taking the lead in every stage of production—from composing melodies and writing lyrics to recording, editing with production software, and creating music videos—students built confidence and technical skills as creators. Their work brought multicultural perspectives to life, blending diverse influences and honoring their identities. This collaborative process modeled inclusion, storytelling, and respect for global perspectives.

The stakes could not be higher. Young people entering adulthood today will inherit challenges that are global in scale but local in impact. Preparing them is about giving them the tools, the agency, and the context to act. We know that passing tests is important for gaining more opportunities, that’s why making test content relevant and engaging is holisitc to academic achievement and real world preparation. When learning is grounded in the real world, it stops being a set of abstract requirements and starts being a preparation for life itself. 

Education without context leaves potential on the table. Context without education leaves energy unfocused. Together, they create a generation of learners who are not just knowledgeable but empowered to make change.

Written by Anne Soto

What is school really for?

I grew up a farm kid in a community of 500, where the school wasn’t just a building– it was the heartbeat of the town. Friday night lights, FFA competitions, school musicals, the science fair weren’t “extracurriculars,” they were community life. Everyone showed up, and in turn, community shaped my future.

That’s the unique gift of rural education: the porousness between K–12 education, community assets, and local leaders. Students don’t just learn in classrooms; they’re shaped by business owners, coaches, elders, and neighbors. When schools lean into this porousness, they create the conditions for young people to stay, lead, and reimagine the future of their hometowns.

Yet too often, learning stops at the textbook or the worksheet and the connection to the community ends there. But what happens when knowledge leads to action in the community? Imagine moving beyond an occasional farm field trip or Indigenous history guest speaker to units designed with local leaders. What if students worked with an ag-business to solve a real-world challenge applying math to farm yield data or partnered with the local conservation board to improve water quality in nearby lakes? That kind of learning not only prepares students for meaningful careers, it strengthens the region itself.

Why Rural Matters
Greater Minnesota reflects the dynamics of rural America rooted in agriculture, manufacturing, and natural resources, while navigating shifts in workforce, demographics, and technology. Schools are at the center of this transition: when they thrive, the region thrives.

Educators here carry immense responsibility not just to prepare young people academically, but to equip them with the skills and mindsets needed to sustain local industries, lead civically, and imagine new opportunities that will keep these communities vibrant for generations. And when students present solutions to local employers, town councils, or community organizations, they gain the confidence and sense of purpose to lead right where they are.

What We’re Building Together
Through partnership with Lakes Country Service Cooperative, and with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, World Savvy is launching the Future Ready Rural Schools Learning Lab starting with two West Central Minnesota schools. Together we will:

• Elevate student voice so young people are co-creators of solutions for their schools and towns.

• Equip educators with tools and networks to connect learning with real-world impact.

• Keep schools at the center of civic, cultural, and economic life.

In doing so, we’re not only preparing students for the future — we’re strengthening the fabric of rural communities themselves.

Looking Ahead
In the months ahead, we’ll continue learning alongside educators, students, and community leaders, co-creating models of readiness rooted in the strengths and aspirations of rural Minnesota.

We are grateful to walk this path with Lakes Country Service Cooperative and Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies and most of all, with the students who remind us daily that the future of our communities begins in our schools. We invite you to follow this journey as we share stories of young people shaping what’s next for Greater Minnesota.

What began as a quiet shift is now undeniable: change is unfolding all around us, reshaping how we think about preparing young people for the future. The spark has caught.

Students today are telling us, through their questions, their organizing, their leadership, that the systems meant to prepare them for life, work, and democracy are falling short. Employers echo this truth: durable skills like problem-solving, collaboration, and adaptability are the most critical skills for success, yet they remain underdeveloped in schools. Communities feel it too, as civic participation wanes and trust in institutions falters. The problem isn’t new, but the urgency is sharper than ever.

Communities need to reimagine the role of education not as a pipeline to content knowledge alone, but as a living system where young people practice applying their learning to real-world challenges. Where students connect with community partners, local businesses, and colleges to build the skills they’ll need to thrive. Where education becomes a bridge to purpose.

Look at New York’s P-TECH schools, where partnerships between high schools, community colleges, and local industries open doors for students to step directly into meaningful careers. Or schools that begin with a simple but profound shift: seeing and understanding their students first, and then reshaping learning conditions around them. This isn’t theory—it’s practice, and it’s working. Because when students have both inner awareness and external platforms, support, and tools, the results are unstoppable.

This isn’t isolated. It’s a groundswell.

There are many organizations out there who see the importance and relevance of pulling communities together. World Savvy has partnered with more than 922,000 students and 7,400 educators in 45 states and 32 countries, working with district and community at the center. And we are not alone in this movement. Thousands of other organizations are all part of this rhythm, a powerful wave of local change building into national transformation.

The question now isn’t if the change will happen, but: What conditions in communities spark school systems to adopt and sustain durable skills at scale?

We believe the answer lies in bringing community into schools and schools into community life. What we’ve learned from decades of education initiatives is that there is no one-size-fits-all model that can simply be plunked into any community and succeed. Communities are different, with distinct needs, strengths, and ways of being. For educational change to take root and last, it must be responsive to that unique ecosystem.

It’s like thinking of a community as the air in the environment: if you want to shift the system, you have to shift the air itself. Change is reciprocal, like a food web, where any movement in one part of the system reverberates across the whole. This means that durable skills such as adaptability, empathy, collaboration, and problem-solving cannot just be “taught” in isolation; they must be cultivated in connection with the life of the community.

When schools build authentic partnerships with local organizations, businesses, colleges, and civic leaders, students gain real-world platforms to practice these skills. And when communities see schools as vital partners in their own thriving, the conditions are set for transformation that lasts.

Because the challenges ahead, whether in our economy, our democracy, or our neighborhoods, require young people who are not just knowledgeable, but deeply connected, adaptable, and prepared for real life.

A wave of change is not chaos. It is rhythm and momentum. Youth, education, and community movements have that rhythm. Our role is to help them scale.

The nonprofit sector faces headwinds such as funding pressures, political polarization, and narratives that undervalue this essential work. And yet, against those odds, the movement grows. That paradox, pressure alongside unstoppable progress, is proof of its strength.

So whatever role you play, educator, funder, nonprofit partner, parent, or friend, you are part of this ecosystem of change. Like any living system, when one element shifts, the whole adapts. Each action, each investment, each voice strengthens the web of relationships that makes transformation possible. Together, we are not just imagining a different future, we’re co-creating it with our communities.

The groundswell is here. It’s urgent. It’s growing. Let’s keep moving together.

By Hamse Warfa 

Every night, millions of adults scroll through the digital world young people built. The audio clip stuck in your head? Sampled and shared by a 16-year-old. The trending phrase in your group chat? Lifted from a meme born on a high schooler’s finsta. Is the political take gaining traction in your feed? First surfaced in a TikTok stitched together by students who understand narrative, virality, and timing better than most elected officials.

While adults debate whether students are ready to lead, young people are already doing it. Not in some far-off future, but in the now. Not waiting for permission, platforms, or professional titles—but shaping the cultural, digital, and ideological scaffolding of the world as it exists.

We don’t give them nearly enough credit.

A 2023 McKinsey & Company report estimated that Gen Z controls or influences more than $360 billion in annual U.S. spending—more than just pocket money or allowance. They shape family decisions, fashion markets, entertainment industries, and global trends. Their power is both economic and social, quietly moving through the algorithms adults consume daily. On TikTok and YouTube, young creators define what goes viral. A Luminate Data study from 2024 found that over 70% of viral songs that eventually climbed the Billboard Hot 100 charts were first amplified through youth-driven digital communities. These weren’t top-down industry pushes. They were movements ignited by teens remixing sounds in their bedrooms.

But it’s not just music or fashion. Culture is political, and young people are proving they understand that deeply. 

A Pew Research Center survey in 2024 found that 84% of users under 25 had either created or shared content around political or social issues—from climate change to racial justice, reproductive rights to misinformation. They’re not passive consumers of the internet; they are architects of civic discourse. In some cases, their influence is tangible—legislative campaigns gaining traction thanks to meme culture, mutual aid networks born on Discord, or protests organized and scaled through Instagram reels.

They’re also confronting issues many adults avoid. In one study from Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, researchers found that Gen Z not only had the highest levels of media literacy across age groups, but were also the most proactive in identifying and correcting disinformation. They are scanning headlines, questioning systems, and asking better questions than many of us raised in institutions built for a different era.

And still, inside many schools, their leadership is framed as “extra.” A bonus. Something to tap into during Spirit Week or student council elections. But let’s be honest: if young people can build cultural momentum that influences global markets, political movements, and public sentiment, then surely they can help design a more relevant education system. One where their questions, creativity, and lived experiences don’t get sidelined for standardized rubrics or five-paragraph essays.

What’s trending in our culture didn’t come from a policy memo. It came from students. From communities where access didn’t always mean resources, but where curiosity and urgency turned into innovation. The Ella Baker 4th graders who challenged how playground rules were made ended up co-creating new conflict-resolution strategies for the whole school. Sejong Academy students using music to explore identity and modeled inclusive storytelling and respect for global perspectives. St. Anthony 8th graders developing proposals for city council by framing questions, analyzing evidence, and drawing thoughtful conclusions. This proves that when we center student relevance, everything shifts. 

These aren’t outliers. They’re blueprints. They show us what’s possible when we stop asking if students are ready and start asking if we’re ready to follow.

The culture you see, hear, and share each day is shaped by young people. They are the originators. The signal before the noise. The pulse before the platform. While the world sees them as future citizens, they’ve already taken the lead.

It’s time we see them clearly—not just as students in desks, but as cultural architects in motion.