This month marks the second birthday of the Education Collaboratory at Yale! It’s admittedly hard to reconcile all the lives we have lived with our collaborators over the past two years. In many ways, it feels like a cake smash is in order.
We scaled up our partnerships nationwide, learning with more than 2,500 teachers and 40,000 students across the past two school years. We branched out across the globe, launching partnerships and workstreams at the intersection of inclusion, evidence, and measurement, in numerous countries and counting.
We wrote, and talked, a lot. More than 80 papers, commentaries, and reports, spanning top tier journals and media outlets. More than 100 presentations, webinars, and lectures across national and international institutions, organizations, and conferences.
We stepped out of our comfort zone and invested in AI as a tool for evolution. We evolved what and how we communicate, and developed images, graphics, and videos. We launched two public facing websites as work arounds for our science being buried behind paywalls and firewalls.
We listened. We lived our commitments to young people in every step of our process. We launched two Yale approved youth programs. We can’t wait to share more about them with you when it’s safe to do so.
Because the reality is, it is not safe for all young people to be seen right now in the U.S.
We- well, I - got in trouble the way many two-year-olds do. When told to quiet down, I got louder. I view my role as a translational scientist to be a shield and a megaphone. And there’s never been more urgency to stand up and show up on behalf of the social and emotional health and well-being of all students, educators, and families.
As I write these words, I find our lab at an inflection point. We are in the midst of closing up an array of measurement partnerships, whose funding sunset this year due to the socio-political climate change. We are delicately walking the ever-narrowing line in pursuit of funding for the future we wish for education research, practice, and policy. As I shared on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, we are writing for a moving target with no safety net and not having had the opportunity to yet grieve the loss of our science and livelihoods.
In my opinion, it’s been demoralizing.
Rest assured, we are steadfast in our commitment to advancing the science of learning and social and emotional development in schools worldwide. We are in many ways just like a two-year old navigating their continuously changing environment – full of boundless energy, fearless creativity, and endlessly hungry to learn explore, and contribute to what we don’t yet know we don’t know.
And we’re here for it.
In community,
Chris