Episode 5: Building Conditions for Learning, Well-being, and Thriving
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Eight individual discussions with Megan Bang, Zaretta Hammond, Stephanie MacMahon, and Kim Schonert-Reichl by David Osher
Description
Learning is not just the transfer of information. It is not just memory, cognition, or skill acquisition narrowly understood. Learning is deeply human. It involves emotion and attention, identity and meaning, culture and context, relationships and belonging, the body and the brain, the present moment and the histories that young people bring with them.
Those conversations showed us what is possible. They helped us understand the human potential for deep learning: learning that is active, meaningful, culturally connected, socially supported, emotionally engaged, and capable of changing how young people understand themselves and the world.
At the same time, our work on equity-centered thriving helps us name the larger aim. Thriving is not only about individual success or academic performance. It includes wellbeing, groundedness, agency, belonging, meaning, contribution, and the capacity to live well with others in a more just and sustainable world.
This podcast discusses how to build strong conditions for learning, well-being, and thriving in schools and communities. Listeners will learn about the elements of supportive environments, understand why these conditions drive both equity and robust learning, and explore the principles of application. Organizations, tools, materials, and research will be identified that can support implementation and adaptation.
Bios
Zaretta Hammond, M.A., is a teacher educator and international education consultant. Ms. Hammond is a former high school and community college writing instructor. Through her company, Transformative Learning Solutions, she supports schools, school districts, teacher education programs, and other institutions in understanding how to integrate culturally responsive practices, the science of learning, and authentic assessment. She is the author of the bestselling book, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students, and of the recently released Rebuilding Students' Learning Power: Teaching For Instructional Equity And Cognitive Justice.
Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl, Ph.D., is the NoVo Foundation Endowed Chair in Social and Emotional Learning and Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. From 1991 to 2020, she was a Professor in the Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, and Special Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Her research focuses on identification of the processes that foster positive human qualities such as empathy, compassion, altruism, and resiliency in children and adolescents. She is editor of the Journal of Social and Emotional Learning and a board member of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). Before her graduate work, Kim worked as a middle school teacher and as a teacher at an alternative high school for adolescents identified as at risk.
Megan Bang, PhD., (Ojibwe and Italian descent) is a Professor of the Learning Sciences and Director of the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research. Dr. Bang studies dynamics of culture, learning, and development broadly with a specific focus on the complexities of navigating multiple meaning systems in creating and implementing more effective and just learning environments in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics education. She currently serves on the Board of Science Education at the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Education and an AERA Fellow. She was Deputy Director of the Spencer Foundation and is a co-editor of the 2025 Review of Research In Education.
Stephanie MacMahon, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in the Science of Learning and in Arts Education, teaching in both the ITE and post-graduate programs in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, and is the program coordinator for the newly established Science of Learning Field of Study. She has over 20 years of experience as a P-12 educator and school leader. Stephanie is also the Program Director of the UQ Learning Lab: a group of multi-disciplinary researchers, educators, and industry partners who collaborate to transform learning, teaching, and training in diverse school and post-school contexts through the science of learning.
Across these conversations, you will hear several ideas return.
First, the conditions for learning and the conditions for thriving are deeply connected. Relationships, culture, safety, challenge, voice, place, and measurement all shape what and how young people learn — and whether they can thrive.
Second, thriving is relational. It is not something we can locate only inside a child. It is shaped by the classroom, the peer group, the adults, the community, the land, and the systems that surround young people.
Third, equity requires more than access. It requires cognitive justice, cultural and epistemic respect, and the opportunity for every young person to become a powerful learner.
Fourth, educators need the same kinds of conditions that students need: trust, time, challenge, feedback, community, and the chance to learn by doing.
And finally, the work is practical. It can begin with a greeting by name. It can begin with asking students what helps them learn. It can begin with going outside and learning from the place where the school sits. It can begin with examining whether students have important adults at school. It can begin with redesigning professional learning, so teachers are not passive recipients of strategies, but active makers of knowledge.
The promise of the sciences of learning and development is not that they give us a single formula. They help us see what is possible. The work on equity-centered thriving helps us see what we are aiming toward. Session 5 asks what conditions make both real — the conditions that enable the science to become practice, and the practice to become a pathway for young people to learn deeply, thrive fully, and contribute to a more just and sustainable world.
Please note that the transcripts are AI generated.
Introduction and context setting – David Osher
Part A – Megan Bang (two parts)
Part B- Zaretta Hammond (two parts)
Part C – Stephanie MacMahon (two parts)
Part D – Kim Schonert-Reichl (two parts)
Selected materials mentioned during the interviews:
(Materials will be added to this list over time)
Jones, D. E., Greenberg, M., & Crowley, M. (2015). Early social-emotional functioning and public health: The relationship between kindergarten social competence and future wellness. American Journal of Public Health, 105(11), 2283–2290. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302630
Hammond, Z. (2025). Rebuilding students' learning power: Teaching for instructional equity and cognitive justice. Corwin.
The World Bank. (n.d.). What is learning poverty? https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/education/brief/what-is-learning-poverty
DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement. National Educational Service.
Deloria, V., Jr., & Wildcat, D. R. (2001). Power and place: Indian education in America. Fulcrum Publishing.
Hammond, Z. L. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Corwin.
Schonert-Reichl, K. A., Guhn, M., Gadermann, A. M., Hymel, S., Sweiss, L., & Hertzman, C. (2013). Development and validation of the Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI): Assessing children's well-being and assets across multiple contexts. Social Indicators Research, 114(2), 345–369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0149-y
Jacobs, D. M., & Lytwyn, V. P. (2020). Naagan ge bezhig emkwaan: A dish with one spoon reconsidered. Ontario History, 112(2), 145–173. https://doi.org/10.7202/1072237ar