Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal led U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan during his long military career. He was in charge of Joint Special Operations Command, the nation’s premiere military counter-terrorism force. But, quoting Abraham Lincoln, McChrystal told “CBS This Morning” Monday the greatest threat to the U.S. isn’t abroad.
“Describing what would destroy the United States, the greatest threat, he said there’d never be a foreign power who could do that. If we would die, it would be by national suicide,” McChrystal said. “I think that’s true.”
The general said people learn responsibility through experience and the ability to serve.
“So what I think we need is the opportunity to bring young Americans together for a year of paid full-time service,” McChrystal said. “And what it would produce is alumni of an experience that would change them for the rest of their lives.”
McChrystal is advocating for a campaign that provides just that opportunity. “Serve America Together” offers one year of paid national service for young Americans 18 and older. They would help communities in critical areas like education, the environment, and disaster relief.
“It’s a bipartisan idea. So it doesn’t have to be Republican or Democratic. It can be from all of us,” McChrystal said, describing a program that would make use of organizations already in place. “The Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, City Year, Teach for America. All of these added with many other movements brought together to create opportunities.”
Funding would come from a mix of the federal government, private philanthropy and other sources, according to McChrystal. He also said there would need to be good incentives for people to join.
“We have to create an environment where because it is not mandatory, it is socially accepted, culturally accepted, but also a young person who does it comes out of it better,” McChrystal said. “Maybe we’ll give them education credits, maybe we have a GI bill equivalent. You know, the idea of free college is great, but the reality is we value what we work or pay for.”
McChrystal emphasized that people serving would need to be paid in order to make it an option for everyone.
“You don’t want to be only people whose parents can afford to support them for a year,” McChrystal said.
Former Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal delivered a speech on the Gettysburg Battlefield last Wednesday calling for a universal national service program. It would give all U.S. citizens a chance to volunteer in their community with help from the federal government. This would address the “imperceptible,” but “insidious decline in our trust in one another, in our connection to our communities, in our sense of duty to serve our nation.” The mere mention of another federal “welfare” program instantly activates the gag reflex among most modern conservatives and libertarians. However, National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr. might not be so appalled by the notion. In fact he suggested a similar idea about 20 years ago, based solely on conservative ideals.
In Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country, Buckley proposes a national service program that would require all young adults to serve their local community for one year in exchange for a small living stipend, educational scholarships, and a $10,000 tax reimbursement after college graduation. Their service options would range from military service to assisting in nursing homes or libraries, whatever program they feel called to participate in. The time spent in the program would help repay the “debt” everyone owes to civilization. It includes the debt Americans owe to soldiers who fought and died for liberty. It is the debt we owe to those who took great and sometimes heroic risks to make life better for future generations.
Buckley argues that such a debt cannot have a measurable price. Rather, it can only be repaid with actions performed out of gratitude for the product that created the debt. A music lover could “repay” Bach’s contributions to culture by volunteering at a local symphony. A poetry connoisseur may decide to provide his services at a library. Whatever form of service a person chooses would be performed out of gratitude for our predecessors who built our very civilization; a fundamental principle of conservatism.
Conservatism is a perception “that the past is alive in the present,” Buckley argued. It is also a movement that perceives “connections between the individual and the community beyond those that relate to the state or to the marketplace.” Where liberal service reforms seek to reinforce the connection of the individual to the government, Buckley’s version of national service would work to strengthen ties between the community and the individual, the past and the present.
Another key distinction between Buckley’s proposal and other liberal alternatives lies in the extent of the government’s role. Unlike federal welfare programs or current national service groups, such as AmeriCorps, Buckley’s system would not allow the federal government to “finance service.” Rather, his national service “franchise,” as he called it, would be a barebones government office that focused simply on providing the small benefits to its “veterans” and collecting information to keep the program running.
However solid its logical foundation, any concept of national service may be difficult for conservatives to stomach after recent federal expansions, such as Obamacare. At a time where government overreach is rampant, it is necessary that conservatives reexamine the philosophical foundations of their ideology. Instead of solely focusing on eliminating wasteful spending, perhaps they could also devise conservative ways to further promote and protect private charities by promoting more tax credits and incentives for individuals to dedicate more time for volunteering. If conservatives performed such efforts, they could help the nation live up to Lincoln’s call for service in the Gettysburg Address.
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us —that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
by Joel Berg, opinion contributor – 03/20/17 9:00 AM ET The Hill
AmeriCorps is the conservative program that conservatives love to hate.
AmeriCorps, a domestic Peace Corps, is a federally funded program that provides modest living allowances and college aid to Americans who perform significant amounts of structured community service by responding to natural disasters, boosting education, bolstering public safety, fighting poverty, improving health, helping the environment and protecting homeland security.
AmeriCorps benefits go only those who work hard. Grants are awarded mostly by states. The vast majority of its participants work in nonprofit groups (not government agencies). And the program generates hundreds of millions of private-sector matching funds.
In theory, conservatives should embrace AmeriCorps as a model of how to boost self-reliance and empower communities.
In 1990, arch-conservative William F. Buckley wrote an entire book (“Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country”) promoting a government-funded system of national service, in which most of the money would be controlled by the states and participants would be provided a small living allowance.
That’s exactly how AmeriCorps works today.
It is no wonder, then, that key Republicans — including both President Bushes, former Republican National Committee Chair and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah) — have embraced AmeriCorps.
So why do many leading conservative ideologues of today hate it, why do House Republicans keeping trying to de-fund it and why is President Trump considering eliminating it?
Professed ideological objections simply don’t hold up. Some say it’s simply wrong to pay volunteers. But Republican members of the House who object to paying AmeriCorps Members an average of $15,000 annually for full-time public service pay themselves $174,000 each year for their own public service.
Given that Republicans keep saying that all social programs should require work, it makes no sense for them to claim to support Pell grants (which have no work requirement) but oppose AmeriCorps, which is entirely work-based.
About two-thirds of federal AmeriCorps funding is allocated by state commissions appointed by governors, exemplifying exactly the kind of state control that Republicans profess to love.
Others complain about the supposed high cost of AmeriCorps, but its total annual federal budget, about $750 million, isn’t much more than taxpayers spend supporting military music bands.
In exchange for that, taxpayers help 75,000 Americans per year (most of whom are from middle-class and low-income families) pay their own way through college or graduate school. This increased educational attainment boosts the overall American economy.
Not only that, but AmeriCorps members are placed with tens of thousands of grassroots nonprofit groups, many of which are faith-based, and provide vital services to millions of Americans.
While some conservatives claim that AmeriCorps somehow competes with the charitable sector, the reverse is true. Leading national nonprofit groups — such Teach for America, the American Red Cross, City Year, and Boys and Girls Clubs — have relied heavily on AmeriCorps to get the job done.
The nonprofit group I lead, Hunger Free America, utilizes AmeriCorps members from coast to coast to build the capacities of food banks and other anti-hunger organizations to increase food availability, and boosts participation of hungry kids in government summer meals programs.
Because AmeriCorps members often recruit, train and manage non-compensated volunteers, they dramatically increase volunteer aid to charities.
So why do many conservatives hate a program so in line with key conservative precepts?
I can only conclude that, for some, their top objection is crassly political: because AmeriCorps was started by President Clinton, and the law to authorize its potential expansion was signed by President Obama (albeit with strong GOP support in the Senate).
But if we want to stop living in a country that exists in a state of perpetual political warfare — in which we automatically denounce anything supported by our political opponents, no matter how laudible — then we should unite over commonsense programs like AmeriCorps.
From left- and right-brain thinking to the notion that talent beats persistence, these common myths can hinder student learning. Here’s how teachers can help.By Daniel LeonardFebruary 14, 20256
Misinformation is having a moment—again.
At Meta, the parent company of Facebook, fact-checkers are a thing of the past. Elsewhere, fast-moving new technologies enable so-called “deepfakes,” realistic but entirely fabricated audio clips, public service announcements, and celebrity product endorsements. Even well-intentioned “education” content runs afoul of the truth: A 2023 study found that only 27% of the most popular TikTok videos about autism are accurate, while a whopping 73% were either “overgeneralized” or outright “inaccurate.”
As students progress from K through 12, it’s likely they’ll pick up some mistaken beliefs about their own cognition. Teachers must continue to prioritize their academic targets, so metacognitive discussions aimed at dispelling harmful misconceptions can often fall to the wayside.
In an article for ASCD, “Attack of the Zombie Learning Theories!,” the educator and ASCD CEO Richard Culatta lists some of the most pernicious learning myths in an attempt to help lay them to rest. Building on Culatta’s writing, here are seven of the top myths your students may believe, and some simple ways to steer them towards a more accurate understanding of how learning—and our brains—actually work.Start of newsletter promotion.
We Read the Research (Again!)
Our editors are always diving deep to find the most impactful education research. To see what really works, subscribe to our monthly newsletter, The Research Is In.I’ll take that!End of newsletter promotion.
Myth 1: Left- and right-brain thinking
Many students are stuck on the false notion that there are “left brain” and “right brain” thinkers, Culatta writes. Left-brain thinkers are more logical and analytical, the myth suggests, while right- brain thinkers are more creative and artistic.
There’s truth to the notion that specific regions of the brain are the primary contributors to specific mental functions, and that this division of labor sometimes falls along hemispheric lines—with language processing generally occurring in the left hemisphere and spatial and visual processing in the right. But left-brained/right-brained thinking is a radical oversimplification. As we reported in 2019, fMRI images increasingly reveal “that the brain is less like a collection of discrete, specialized modules—one for speech and one for vision—and more like an integrated network of functions that support each other.”
A 2013 study puts the debate to rest: Researchers examined the resting-state brain scans of over 1,000 people. “Our analyses suggest that an individual brain is not ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ as a global property,” the researchers concluded—and the scans “demonstrate that activity is similar on both sides of the brain regardless of one’s personality,” writes Robert H. Shmerling, MD for Harvard Health Publishing.
If your students have begun to divide themselves into “right-brained” and “left-brained” categories, it’s worth reminding them that “creativity” comes in many forms (software engineers can be creative!); that there are no biological or mechanical differences between creative and analytical brains; and that anyone can get more creative or more analytical with practice.
Myth 2: Intelligence is a fixed quality
By middle and high school, many students believe that their academic success is determined by an innate level of intelligence—a fixed intellectual capacity they were born with.
Standardized tests of intelligence like the SAT and the IQ propagate the myth. In reality, the tests have a checkered past, and fail as a consistent measure of a person’s intellectual ability. One of the earliest widely-adopted tests of general intelligence—the Binet–Simon scale, a precursor to the modern IQ test—was developed specifically to determine whether a student had an intellectual disability and should be removed from the general school population, as a 2013 article reveals. It wasn’t designed as a measurement of general intelligence.
Meanwhile, a person’s IQ test results can vary greatly over time. A 2011 study that tested and retested teenagers’ IQs found that their scores could fluctuate by as many as 20 points over the course of four years—the difference between a 50th percentile and a 90th percentile IQ score. “IQ tests are known to be sensitive to things like motivation and coaching,” cognitive scientist Steven Piantadosi told Discover Magazine.
Be careful: Your own students may sometimes view a single test score as a verdict on their overall intelligence. English teacher Kimberly Hellerich suggests offering exam retakes—at least periodically—as a means to demonstrate growth and to “improve their self-perception and the quality of their work.” To reinforce students’ confidence in their own abilities, mix hard problems with a few easy ones, a 2024 study suggests: The simple tactic dramatically improved students’ attitude towards hard work.
Myth 3: You can multitask effectively
The myth of multitasking plagues almost everyone, even adults who know better—but it’s especially pervasive among students. In tech-friendly classrooms, one 2016 study found, students spent a full third of instructional time on non-academic work like playing browser games or shopping—earnestly believing that they could process the lesson at the same time.
But multitasking is a myth. “Human brains are not able to focus on multiple things at one time,” Culatta writes. “What is actually happening is that our brain is quickly switching from one task to another, but still only focusing on one of them at any given moment”—leading to substandard performance on each of the tasks we’re engaged with.
This is particularly true when the competing tasks are relying on the same brain circuitry. A 2021 study offers a prime example: “Listening to lyrics of a familiar language may rely on the same cognitive resources as vocabulary learning,” and so playing lyrically intensive music while reading or writing about challenging topics can “lead to an overload of processing capacity and thus to an interference effect,” the researchers assert.
To help break their multitasking habit, “I recommend that teachers explain the ‘why’ around everything,” educational consultant Catlin Tucker told Edutopia. Kids “aren’t reading cognitive science articles about these things,” so many of them genuinely believe that they can multitask—and that things like cell phone bans are just unfair regulations. After explaining the research to her class, Tucker even made a deal with one student: He could wear AirPods during class one day, but not the next, and he’d be quizzed after both lessons. When the student saw the difference in his scores, “it was not a struggle anymore,” Tucker says.
Myth 4: You have a “learning style”
This is one of the most enduring education myths, capturing the hearts and minds of teachers and students alike. The learning styles framework suggests that every student has a biological predisposition for a particular form of learning—an innate preference for learning visually, kinesthetically, or verbally, for example. It’s an enticingly simple idea. In fact, many students who have never heard the term “learning styles” might develop it independently—or hear about it secondhand—and start to believe it themselves.
This myth also shapes how adults perceive a student’s potential, 2023 research concluded. In the study, teachers and parents rated “visual learners” as more intelligent and “hands-on learners” as more athletic, by wide margins. Even teaching colleges can perpetuate these misconceptions, the study found, falling back on casual misstatements like “chemists and engineers are often kinesthetic learners.” Such faulty notions can lead teachers to pigeonhole kids based on their apparent abilities—and thus limit their potential.
While “it’s true that we have individual preferences for learning activities, […] our brains are not wired differently to learn better from one style or another,” writes Culatta. A comprehensive 2009 review of decades of research found no evidence that students learn more effectively when instruction is tailored to their preferred “style.”
On the contrary, “research suggests that students will learn, remember, and apply novel information better if they process that information in multiple different ways,” wrote professor of educational psychology Jonathan G. Tullis for Edutopia— as this “creates elaborated and detailed memories, which enhances the long-term retention and generalization of that knowledge.” For example, when learning about cells, all students should see diagrams, read about them, draw them, and even build models by hand—rather than only doing one thing or another in accordance with their preferred “style.”
Myth 5: Talent beats persistence
Whether it’s math, English, or art, if a student is struggling in a particular subject, the talent beats persistence myth may lead them to throw up their hands and say “I just don’t have the knack for it.”
Unfortunately, this myth is often perpetuated by the adults in students’ lives—sometimes unintentionally. In a phenomenon called the “naturalness bias,” evaluators tend to rate a person who appears naturally gifted at something more highly than someone who had to work hard at it, even when their overall performance is comparable.
But persistence is a more important factor than innate ability in the majority of academic endeavors, research suggests. A landmark 2019 study led by psychologists Brian Galla and Angela Duckworth found that high school GPA is a better predictor of on-time college completion than SAT scores. Unlike standardized test scores, “grades are a very good index of your self-regulation—your ability to stick with things, your ability to regulate your impulses, your ability to delay gratification and work hard instead of goofing off,” Duckworth told Edutopia in 2020. Their predictive power suggests that perseverance is what truly determines long-term academic and professional success.
Remind struggling students that hard work, not inborn skill, is what matters in the end. “World-class experts start off like everyone else—they are awkward, clumsy amateurs,” Duckworth said; “It’s through thousands of hours of deliberate practice that they attain greatness.” To drive the point home, as we wrote last year, “Consider praising students for their improvement instead of their raw scores” and think about periodically assigning “reports on the mistakes and growing pains of accomplished writers, scientists, and artists.”
Myth 6: Learning is “filling your brain”
In his ASCD article, Culatta points out that many educational metaphors involve “filling” your brain with information, as if it starts as an empty bucket that could one day be filled to the brim—or “a hard drive or filing cabinet where you store things.”
That language obfuscates how the brain really works. Rather than simply dropping bits of information into an empty container, “our knowledge grows by making connections to things we already know,” Culatta writes.
“As we amass knowledge over the course of our life and connect events in our memory, we learn to model complex contingencies and make inferences about novel relations,” writes neuroscientist Anthony Greene for Scientific American. “It is the connections that let us understand cause and effect, learn from our mistakes, and anticipate the future.”
To help dispel this myth, reconsider the language you’re using to describe learning in the classroom. Instead of a storage system, “a better analogy might be to compare the brain to a strip of velcro where new things stick if they have enough hooks to build a connection,” Culatta suggests. To align your pedagogy with the science, kick off lessons with activities that connect new material to learned material, like concept mapping, Venn diagrams, or structured think-pair-share activities.
Myth 7: Study as close to the test date as possible
Students’ fondness for cramming is understandable; the strategy requires much less effort than studying a bit each day, and it can even feel effective, since a single night of intense study may be sufficient to pass a test. But the approach ultimately sets students up for failure: Kids who cram will often perform poorly on the exam—and subsequently forget the material more quickly, robbing themselves of the foundation needed to succeed in the future.
Committing information to longer-term memory requires students to engage in “distributed practice,” Willingham says—reviewing the material a little bit at a time over an extended period of time. In particular, research supports the practice of “spaced retrieval,” wherein students recall information from memory (without notes or aides) on a number of spread out occasions. Flashcards and self-quizzes are a few ways students can do this on their own.
To help students break their cramming habit, consider coaching them to schedule out their studying in advance, Duckworth recommended to Edutopia in a 2021 interview. For example, in a group activity at King Middle School in Portland, ME, eighth grade teacher Catherine Paul calls on students to name each of the assignments that are in progress across all of their classes; one student stands at the board to write them down. Through a whole-class discussion, the class decides how to rank order the assignments in terms of their priority—factoring in their deadlines and the level of effort each one is likely to require.
In fact, a 2017 study revealed that students who received explicit encouragement to prepare for an upcoming test—and were prompted to consider which resources would be most useful to their studying, such as the class textbook or practice problem worksheets—scored a third of a letter grade higher than their peers who did not receive this advice.
Dear Meghan: My daughter is 9 and is generally a great kid. However, for years I’ve noticed she has a very low tolerance for frustration or failure. When trying something new, if she can’t immediately master it, she completely freezes. This generally means whining and begging for someone to do the task for her, often getting angry if they refuse. “It’s impossible,” and “Why won’t anyone help me?!” are common refrains.
I don’t think these things are beyond her ability, they just require her to push herself a bit. And she will do this for activities she has repeatedly completed in the past. Unless she is 100 percent confident in her ability to do something right the first time, her instinct seems to be to balk.
My general rule is I will help her but not unless she has at least tried on her own. This often leads us to frustrating impasses. I’ve tried talking to her when things are calm. We’ve discussed that her coaches and I give her challenges we think she is ready for — not impossible ones! — and how if she doesn’t think she can do it, she’s setting herself up for failure. I often say, “We can do hard things.” I’ve also honestly told her my patience for doing these activities, which are hobbies she enjoys and wants me to do with her, is limited if she behaves like this. She always insists she wants to continue said activities though generally tunes out of my “hard things” pep talks.
Do I just keep on? Is there anything else I can try? I hate to withdraw from these activities because I hope the exposure to frustration will eventually build some tolerance.
Quitting: Just reading this letter leaves me frustrated; that’s a lot of back and forth. And I get it: With a typical kid, all of the tricks you’ve been using may work. You let her try on her own, and then help. You’ve tried talking to her when she’s calm. You’ve told her you and her coaches only give her challenges you think she can handle. You give her pep talks. You’ve told her about your own frustration. This perfectionism has been happening for years, so my curiosity is around whether she started whining and then the power struggles began, whether there’s another issue that needs more support (anxiety, neurodiversity, other challenges) or whether it’s a combination (which is most likely the case).
Meghan Leahy is a parenting coach and the author of “Parenting Outside the Lines.” She has given advice about toddler tantrums, teens and mental health and co-parenting.Ask Meghan for parenting advice here.End of carousel
Let’s begin with the basics and stop doing what isn’t working. I would guess there is too much talking happening here. When we talk endlessly at and to our children, they tune out (which you’re already experiencing). No one — adults or children — takes in a lecture or pep talk if they don’t feel understood first, and it could be that your daughter doesn’t have a lot of room to be frustrated. Are there techniques and ways to help her? Sure, but none of them will work until you stop lecturing her and start listening to her.
Try listening more and you may find solutions in her complaints. If you begin mirroring her emotions — “So, this task feels impossible to do” or “You feel like no one will help you” — she may begin to relax enough for you to say: “So, tell me what would change if someone helped you?” or “What about this task feels impossible?” Maybe she won’t have an answer or maybe, just maybe, your daughter will give you a response that makes sense! While I get the “waiting to help her until she tries once” rule, you actually don’t need to adhere to that. It’s not building the resilience you want to see.
If your daughter is suffering from anxiety or another challenge, you may need more support, starting with her pediatrician. As tiring as this may be, please write a detailed list of when the whining and wanting to quit began, as well as everyone it happens with. You will want to look at patterns; it will be helpful if you need to reach out to specialists. To be clear, you will need to parent differently, regardless of whether a diagnosis calls for it, but you will parent more effectively with more information.
In the meantime, let’s shift our perspective on helping her build some more tolerance for failure. Most humans (children especially) learn best in apprenticeship-like relationships. Of course, some children seem to forge ahead on their own, unafraid of trying things and, even if they fail, they keep going, but most children like to work next to their parents or teacher. I would try bypassing all the power struggles with the talking and back and forth, and begin by teaching her. Model the activity or challenge, have her try, rinse and repeat.
Rather than focusing on the mastery of the task, we focus on building resilience for years to come. When kids fail with a compassionate parent nearby (who doesn’t shame or bypass their emotions with false cheer), it’s more likely they will feel sad, move through it and try again.
At Thanksgiving, Americans think about the spirit of community that animates the country at its best. But in a year characterized by so much political and racial discord, you have to wonder whether the communal quilt is fraying at the edges.
Here’s an idea for reweaving our country’s fabric through a program of national service. This proposal was outlined by two Americans with very different backgrounds: Tom Brokaw, the former NBC News anchor, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. They’re joined by dozens of other advocates in an initiative called the Franklin Project at the Aspen Institute.
Brokaw, who was awarded the Medal of Freedom on Monday by President Obama, explored in his book “The Greatest Generation” the shared ideals that kept the country together during the Great Depression and World War II. He wrote recently, in promoting the national service idea: “For an emerging generation of Americans, now is an opportunity to renew and strengthen [our] tradition of rising to meet the challenges an unpredictable world places in its path.”
McChrystal has led U.S. men and women in the most demanding form of service — on the battlefield. In an article this summer for the journal Democracy, he argued: “What we need is to create a culture of service in America, one in which a year of service is culturally expected, if not quite mandatory by law.” He contended that making civic participation a rite of passage for young Americans could “mend an increasingly shorn society.”
The Franklin Project envisions a network that by 2023 would allow 1 million Americans between 18 and 28 to serve the country each year through the military or civilian programs such as Teach for America or the Peace Corps and eligible nonprofit organizations. Unlike a wartime draft, this program would rely on a cultural norm that service is expected.
F
McChrystal argues that a belief in service is already embedded in U.S. culture but that it isn’t mobilized. He refers to a 2010 Pew Research Center poll that reported that 57 percent of the millennial generation (those born after 1980) had done volunteer work in the previous 12 months.
Data from existing programs show a striking imbalance between the desire to serve and the opportunities to do so. McChrystal cites AmeriCorps, a program to encourage service in schools, nonprofits and other civic organizations. In 2011, it had 580,000 applications for about 80,000 slots, he writes. Similarly, Teach for America, a program to recruit teachers for schools in disadvantaged areas, had 48,000 applications for 5,200 openings in 2011.
To match demand and supply, the Franklin Project is creating a “service year exchange.” This online platform would match young people seeking service positions with qualified organizations. Opportunities would include nonprofits, schools and colleges, and state, local and national governments. The driving force for young people, McChrystal says, would be the expectation that spending a year helping others is part of American citizenship.
A laboratory to test this idea is being developed by Arizona State University, one of the nation’s largest and most innovative universities. Michael Crow, the school’s president, has proposed a Public Service Academy that will open in fall 2015.
“We must train the next generation to work together as leaders,” says the Web site for the academy. Crow said in an e-mail that he wants his new venture to “prime the pipeline” for the Franklin Project’s work.
What’s attractive about this approach is that it isn’t an old-fashioned draft that compels service but a modern, technology-driven network that matches people with jobs. The paradox of social networks is that they sometimes seem to fragment people into niche groups and political affinities. Here’s a social network that would connect diverse communities rather than reinforce dividing lines.
Brokaw writes that he got the idea for “The Greatest Generation” during a 1984 reporting trip to the Normandy beaches where the D-Day landings had taken place 40 years before. He sensed that the American victory was a story of “ordinary people whose lives are laced with the markings of greatness.”
The ethic of service may have been easier for a nation rooted in farms and small towns, but it’s an idea that could bond and energize a diverse and fragmented 21st-century America. “They answered the call to help save the world,” Brokaw writes of his heroes. Still an attractive challenge.
I woke up the morning of Nov. 6 with a sinking feeling. Turning on both my phone and TV, I learned to my shock that Donald Trump had been elected.
I was in denial for several days, my stomach in turmoil. Then, I realized what I was really experiencing: grief. I looked up Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I moved on from denial to anger to bargaining. What could I have done to prevent this from happening? I should have been out on the streets protesting the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling and ringing doorbells. What kind of poor excuse for an American was I, not to have acted?Make sense of the latest news and debates with our daily newsletter
Then, I got severely depressed. I took an antidepressant and called my old shrink. (A lot of good that did. He was as depressed as I was!) How was I going to live with my deepest fears? When was I going to get to acceptance?
That’s when I turned to meditation.
I had joined a Zen sangha (community) outside Boston the year before. It’s led by Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard University, co-author of “The Good Life” on happiness and the director of the famous Grant Study, the Harvard Study of Adult Development. The sangha meets every Monday at 7:30 p.m.
I was not new to meditation. But this sangha was different. It was a weekly commitment. I enjoyed attending via Zoom. As the election neared, the hour was sometimes the only clarity I found all week, even when some of the chants made no sense to me at all. One, the Heart Sutra, completely baffled me: “Nor is there pain, or cause of pain, or cease in pain, or noble path to lead from pain; Not even wisdom to attain! Attainment too is emptiness.”
When we discussed it, everyone else in the group seemed to understand. I finally got up the courage to say, “I don’t get it.”
Everyone laughed, and, at first, I thought they were laughing at me. To my relief, a lot of them didn’t get it either. Waldinger laughed, too, and patiently explained the meaning of the sutra. I listened carefully, but, to tell the truth, I still didn’t understand it.
I flashed back to many years ago, when the Aspen Institute had a small lunch for the Dalai Lama. I persuaded my husband, Ben Bradlee, to go, reluctantly. The Dalai Lama, who had written for On Faith, the blog I ran for The Post, was an adorable man, dressed in sleeveless saffron robes. He spoke to us through an interpreter about Buddhism. He was a very jolly fellow and giggled much of the time. At the end of the Dalai Lama’s presentation, Ben sat back in his chair and in a loud, growly voice said, “I don’t get it.” Everyone burst out laughing. (The irony about Ben was, he might have been the most practicing Buddhist I knew. He worked in the woods for eight hours a day when we went to the country, chopping wood, clearing and burning brush. He called it mind-emptying, which is basically meditating. He said it was the only way he made it through Watergate.)
At first, I found the sessions weird. Waldinger — who admitted he had found it weird in the beginning, too — would do a quick, pithy reading, and then there would be chanting and bowing and bells and candles for 10 or 15 minutes, then wooden claps, a quick break and a 25-minute sit. I learned early on the importance of breathing. We know that when you get upset or agitated, you should take a deep breath. This is especially true of meditation. If your mind is going crazy, you can chant your mantra and concentrate on your breathing until you calm down. It really works.
I found the ritual soothing. Afterward, Waldinger would often give a dharma talk, followed by a discussion, final vows and a roundtable of what we had gotten out of the session. It was a bit Peter, Paul and Mary for my taste.
But I had an odd sensation of feeling secure in this sangha. My brother Bill is a practicing Buddhist and meditates daily. He is one of the most peaceful, loving people I have ever known. I had been reading a lot about the effects of meditation, and I wanted to experience those effects. So I kept at it, turning down other invitations for Monday nights so as not to miss a session. I liked the dharma talks and the koans (riddles) and the discussions. The sits were not boring but relaxing, though I didn’t find them enlightening in the beginning. Every few weeks, Waldinger would have short breakout sessions with each of us. It was basically a five-minute shrink session that I got more out of than most 50-minute shrink sessions. During these sessions, I achieved what I thought was enlightenment, though Waldinger convinced me that should not be a goal since most of us will never really achieve enlightenment — in this life anyway.
A year ago, disaster struck. I got covid and had a major stroke. When I became lucid, I was hit with more tragedies: deaths of close friends, extreme family medical problems and worries about the state of the country. Hardly able to sit up, I was inspired to return to the sangha two weeks after the stroke. This time, I felt it was working for me. I felt embraced. The bells and chants were reassuring, the dharma talks meaningful, and the meditation itself was an enormous release.
Before I joined, I had been intimidated by the idea that I had to push negative thoughts, or all thoughts, out of my head. I learned that you don’t have to empty your mind, that you can let thoughts come and go, that you can feel anger, sadness, frustration, despair — all the things you feel in your daily life. So I accepted every thought and, as Waldinger advised, tried to “just sit with it.” After a while, some of the chitchat in my brain would disappear. My goal was to empty my mind of clutter, to reach a level in which my mind was still, calm and serene and I could see clearly. My brother taught me to respond to my thoughts rather than to react. But how could I respond to something upsetting in a graceful, calm and serene manner? How could I react without yielding my values, my ethics, my principles? How could I learn to accept rather than deny?
Like everything worth doing, it requires practice. And over time, it gets easier.
One of the things that appealed to me was the Four Noble Truths, the basics of Buddhism: Suffering. The cause of suffering. The cessation of suffering. The path that leads to the cessation of suffering. I wanted to understand how to follow that path.
Waldinger suggests setting intentions rather than goals. One intention is to be “fully alive and fully present for this precious, fleeting existence.” Others are being kinder, caring more about family and friends, trying to relieve the suffering of others, helping them feel good about themselves, paying attention to them. Those are the “north stars” he talks about.
After the election, Waldinger gave a dharma talk. He described how he went to bed early the night before so he wouldn’t have to find out the results of the election, then meditated for hours until he finally got up his courage. His feelings were rage, fear, disgust. He later wrote: “I find myself unsure of how to keep from falling into paralyzing despair in the face of everything that’s happening in our world. I notice myself wanting to indulge in exactly the feelings that are guaranteed to make things worse, what Buddhists call the three poisons — greed, anger and delusion, the root causes of suffering.” It’s a relief to know that even Buddhist priests have the same feelings as we do.
Meditation is guilt-free for me. Judgment-free. There are no real rules to the practice. You can think any thought as long as you want and feel real feelings without feeling shame. You can totally accept yourself as you try (and maybe fail) to accept others. What surprised me about the sangha is that it’s fun. There’s laughter and interesting conversations, and it’s not at all pious or mournful.
People are drawn to meditation to relieve suffering. Our instinct is to turn away from suffering, but it’s important to go toward what is painful in your life. No one gets a pass on suffering. The most important thing to understand is that the main cause of suffering is attachment, because with attachment goes loss. Impermanence also is a cause of suffering. Nothing stays the same, and change is frightening. “If you’re lucky, life won’t break your heart,” says Waldinger. The purpose of meditation is to “sit down, shut up and pay attention.”
It was only after the election that I had sort of an epiphany. I was calmly sitting there with my eyes closed when all of a sudden I thought, “Oh!” I felt awakened. I tried to explain this to Waldinger, but he said it was impossible to explain. Zen meditation, he says, “is experiential. It’s like sex. You can’t describe it.” My epiphany was a moment of clarity. “How do you capture it?” he asks. “It’s opaque to the mind, radiant to the heart. You don’t have to understand everything.”
I know that Zen meditation is a gradual process. It’s like working a muscle. I’m so happy I stuck with it. I find that I’m not as agitated by things that used to upset me. I feel more compassionate toward others. In the five stages of grief, I felt I had finally achieved acceptance.
And then Trump picked Kimberly Guilfoyle to be ambassador to my beloved Greece, where I spent the happiest years of my childhood.
I had a total relapse. It was back to denial for me.
It’s easy to feel discouraged about the persistent onslaught of difficulties in the world today, whether these be personal circumstances or social issues. Psychologists, some of whom have a close-up view of the suffering these difficulties inflict, may find it especially difficult to stay positive about the future. Yet a growing body of research suggests that if you want to cultivate positive change—in yourself, others, or society—restoring hope is a vital first step.
Start by understanding what hope is—and what it isn’t. Hope is sometimes equated with burying your head in the sand and ignoring reality or sitting idly by waiting for things to get better. In reality, hope is a more nuanced, cognitive process that involves well-known psychological concepts, such as goal-setting, agency, and cognitive restructuring.
“Hope isn’t a denial of what is, but a belief that the current situation is not all that can be,” said Thema Bryant, PhD, APA’s immediate past president. “You can recognize something’s wrong, but also that it’s not the end of the story.”
The science of hope
Beginning in the 1980s, the work of the late psychologist C. Rick Snyder, PhD, set the stage for much of today’s research about hope. Snyder defined hope as “the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways” (Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 13, No. 4, 2002). Snyder also published work on positive psychology, or the study of how people and communities can thrive.
Unlike optimism, which is simply the expectation of a better future, hope is action-oriented and a skill that can be learned. “We often use the word ‘hope’ in place of wishing, like you hope it rains today or you hope someone’s well,” said Chan Hellman, PhD, a professor of psychology and founding director of the Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma. “But wishing is passive toward a goal, and hope is about taking action toward it.”
At the crux of this action is identifying the steps to achieve a goal and working toward them. In one study of a hope-based therapy intervention, researchers had participants write down goals they hoped to meet, followed by several possible pathways toward that goal (Social Indicators Research, Vol. 77, 2006). “You identify where you are currently, and then you generate multiple ways to get there,” said Jennifer Cheavens, PhD, a professor of psychology at The Ohio State University in Columbus who developed this hope-focused intervention. After 8 weeks, participants reported more life meaning and self-esteem and fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.
More recently, Cheavens and a former doctoral student, Jane Heiy, PhD, had primary-care patients with elevated symptoms of depression create goals to improve their symptoms. After 10 weeks, patients who defined pathways to improve their mental health were more likely to seek treatment and report less severe depression symptoms than those who participated in an enhanced referral system (doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University, 2014).
Along with improving mental health and increasing self-esteem, studies suggest increasing hope can improve symptoms and daily functioning in those with chronic illness (Steffen, L. E., et al., Supportive Care in Cancer, Vol. 28, 2020). Other work has found hope to be a protective factor against posttraumatic stress disorder (Gallagher, M. W., et al., Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol. 76, No. 3, 2020). Hellman sees hope as a mindset that promotes resilience in the face of difficulty. “If I have the perspective that something better is possible in the future, then I can better endure my struggles today,” he said.
Reaping the benefits of hope involves doing the work of reframing thoughts and forming new habits. But with a shift to your mindset and habits, you can begin to see and work toward the possibility of a better future—and equip others to do the same. Here’s what hope experts recommend:
Break goals into smaller chunks
If you’re taking your first steps toward hope, big goals might overwhelm you—and zap your ability to envision success. On the other hand, smaller goals allow more frequent achievements, which can highlight the possibility of progress and energize you toward a goal.
It’s important to keep pathways small and manageable. For people with depression and anxiety specifically, successfully taking small steps can in turn cultivate more hope and boost motivation to continue taking action. “As you realize it feels good to do something, you’re more likely to do it again,” said Shara Sand, PsyD, a clinical psychologist in New York City. “Engagement increases, and so does your sense of hope about the future.”
Matthew W. Gallagher, PhD, a professor of clinical and quantitative psychology at the University of Houston and editor of the Oxford Handbook of Hope, also recommends making goals specific and concrete. Hope is about embracing possibility, and it’s easier to maintain hope when you feel that your goals are achievable rather than lofty and distant.
Stay in community
Hope can occur in isolation, but it grows when you’re connected to a supportive and inspiring collective. A community of hopeful people can inspire you by encouraging you in your goals, helping you pivot when you encounter obstacles, or by simply reminding you that overcoming difficulty is possible.
“One benefit of being in a community when you’re trying to maintain hope is there are people who are living examples of what hope looks like when it’s achieved,” said Jacqueline Mattis, PhD, dean of faculty and a professor of psychology at Rutgers University–Newark. “When you’re falling, they’ll be there to reimagine with you what it means to stand.”
In her research of low-income youth, Mary Beth Medvide, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at Suffolk University in Boston, found seeing other people succeed can be motivating—especially in the absence of other support, such as an encouraging family. For example, some adolescents reported feeling they could earn a college degree because their high schools hung banners listing where graduates were attending college.
If you feel powerless about systemic issues, such as racism or climate change, joining forces with a group of people who share your desire for change can increase your hope—and increase the likelihood of change. Collective hope, according to Hellman, involves combining energies to cast a shared vision of the future and identifying strategies to achieve goals. “Big societal issues can feel overwhelming because alone, we can’t move the needle,” he said. “But when we find others who share our story or experience, we collectively form a powerful voice and energy that can influence change.”
Prepare to pivot
When a designated pathway does not lead directly to a goal, you may feel discouraged, which can drain your motivation. Being primed to pivot can help maintain hope. “Try to see setbacks as new information about which strategies work and don’t work, and then modify your approach and goal so you maintain momentum toward what you’re trying to accomplish,” said Gallagher.
Reframing the outcome can help promote flexibility. For example, imagine that you applied for a specific research grant but didn’t get it. Instead of abandoning hope, try a new pathway toward the goal or redefine the end point according to the ultimate goal or the value behind it. Perhaps the grant was more of a pathway toward your goal than a goal itself, and there are other pathways that will work.
With that mindset, you could begin to focus on getting any grant that enables you to conduct your research and help more people. “Don’t be so wedded to specificity of outcome that you lose the big picture and can’t pivot,” said Mattis.
Along with the ability to reframe, this process requires creativity—another learnable skill. “Those who are willing to be open to possibilities can maintain their hope,” said Bryant. “Instead of ‘there is no path,’ you think, ‘I haven’t [yet] found the path that’s going to work.’”
Reflect on the past
Hope, by nature, is future focused. But reflecting on the past can also encourage hope down the road, especially if you feel your hopefulness wavering. “I’ll ask people to be their own ‘hope models’ by reflecting back on a time they achieved something really difficult in their lives, when they chose to take action and it made all the difference,” said Hellman.
This type of reflection can be especially helpful for those with depression, who may have a skewed perspective about their own growth. Kathryn Gordon, PhD, a clinical psychologist and author of The Suicidal Thoughts Workbook: CBT Skills to Reduce Emotional Pain, Increase Hope, and Prevent Suicide, developed a framework to restore hope in patients with suicidal ideation. Perspective is an essential ingredient. “I have them gather evidence that they’ve been able to get through difficult things in the past, which helps them identify tools they can use in their current situation,” she said.
If your past feels like a barrier, as is the case for many who have experienced trauma, reflection can help you maintain hope. Benjamin Hardy, PhD, an organizational psychologist and author of several books related to goal-setting and personal growth, recommends identifying ways you’ve changed over time—even from week to week—to promote a growth mindset. “How you frame your past can dictate what you expect for your future,” he said.
Celebrate wins
Counting successes along your journey toward a goal can help energize you to move forward. “When we achieve something, we often take it for granted because our minds go to the next thing we don’t have or haven’t done,” said Bryant. Take time to acknowledge—and celebrate—what you’ve accomplished in the present to support your hopeful mindset for the future.
Even honoring your tiny steps forward through a mindful gratitude practice makes a difference. Imagine your goal is to work at a particular university. You may not have that position today, but you may be doing similar work as you would in that job, whether mentoring students or conducting research. “Your wins may not be in the same context you’re hoping for, but it’s important to recognize that you’re already achieving some aspect of the goal that’s important to you,” said Mattis.
Tracking emotional intensity and noticing how feelings fluctuate can also promote hope, said Gordon, whether personally or for struggling patients or mentees. Even if a difficult emotion, such as sadness or anxiety, does not completely dissipate, tracking it is a reminder that it will not last forever, which can increase hope.
Recognize that you’re already practicing hope
Whether you recognize it or not, hope is inherent to a psychologist’s work because it is rooted in the belief that you can be part of positive change, whether your work focuses on therapy, research, teaching, or myriad other applications. For others, even simply showing up to therapy or a psychology course—whether as a psychologist, patient, or student—is a hopeful act, hinging on the belief that growth and change are possible. “Psychology is not only the study of what is, but the study and enactment of transformation and healing in both individuals and communities,” said Bryant.
GALLUP Student Poll National Cohort Fall 2012 USA Overall Data The Gallup Student Poll is a brief measure of hope, engagement, and wellbeing. The poll taps into the hearts and minds of American students to determine what drives wellbeing and achievement. Distribution and discussion of the Gallup Student Poll data will help create a more hopeful story about American youth and education, and will engage parents, teachers, and community leaders in social entrepreneurship.
Gallup research has shown about half of students are hopeful; these students possess numerous ideas and abundant energy for the future. The other half of students are stuck or discouraged, lacking the ideas and energy they need to navigate problems and reach goals. About six in 10 students are engaged; they are highly involved with and enthusiastic about school. The other four in 10 are either going through the motions at school or actively undermining the teaching and learning process. About two-thirds of students are thriving; they think about their present and future lives in positive terms, and they tend to be in good health and have strong social support. About one third of students are struggling or suffering.
Hope — the ideas and energy we have for the future. Hope drives attendance, credits earned, and GPA of high school students. Hope predicts GPA and retention in college, and hope scores are more robust predictors of college success than are high school GPA and SAT and ACT scores.
Engagement — the involvement in and enthusiasm for school. Engagement distinguishes between high-performing and low-performing schools.
Wellbeing — how we think about and experience our lives. Wellbeing tells us how our students are doing today and predicts their success in the future. High school freshmen with high wellbeing earn more credits with a higher GPA than peers with low wellbeing. On average, a student with high wellbeing earns 10% more credits and has a 2.9 GPA (out of 4.0), whereas a student with low wellbeing completes fewer credits and earns a 2.4 GPA.
Hope | GrandMean: 4.40 (out of 5) n=458638 YOUR NATION** Hopeful – 54% Stuck – 32% Discouraged – 14%
84% of students who strongly agree their school is committed to building strengths are engaged. Your school must have an n-size of at least 30 to receive Engagement Index data. Engagement by Grade values not shown when n < 10
Wellbeing | GrandMean: 8.56 (out of 10) n=479439* YOUR NATION** Thriving – 67% Struggling – 32% Suffering – 1%
65% of thriving students are engaged. Wellbeing by Grade values not shown when n < 10 – No data available * The wellbeing n size represents the total respondent population. Hope, engagement and wellbeing n sizes differ if students chose not to answer one or more hope or engagement items.
We have an increasingly divided country, polity, and society. While this strains our family dinners and creates anxiety on the left and right, one of the most notable results is the stark decline in the well-being and mental health of our youth. They are facing deep uncertainties about the future of jobs and labor markets, being able to afford college and the consequences of not having a degree, worsening climate change, declining communities, and toxic civic discourse.1 The youth mental health crisis in large part reflects a decline in hope that has resulted from these trends.
The deterioration in youth mental health first became evident in 2011.2 Today, our young adults ages 18 to 25 are the least happy demographic group, departing from a long-established U-shaped relationship between life satisfaction and age in many countries worldwide.3 The longstanding U-curve reflects the unhappiness and stress that most people experience in the midlife years as they juggle financial and family constraints (such as caring for both their children and their aging parents), while both the young and the old exhibit higher life satisfaction and lower stress, anxiety, and depression.4 But now, youth in the United States are faring worse than their stressed-out parents.
Our young are also unhappy compared to the young in many other countries, including those that are far less wealthy than the United States. These include Bulgaria, Ecuador, and Honduras.5 In 2024, US youth ranked 62nd in the world happiness rankings. Even more concerning, they also are experiencing an increase in anxiety, depression, and suicide.6
There is no magic solution for this crisis. Most suggested policies focus on better regulation of social media and increased access to mental health care. While both of these things are important, they will not address the deeper economic, climate, and civil discourse challenges that precipitated the well-being crisis. Social media and misinformation surely exacerbate the trends, but the root causes are deeper and broader.
The costs of not solving this crisis are high, not only for the youth who are suffering during what should be a very happy time in life, but also in terms of future earnings and productivity and our society’s health and life expectancy. In 2021, life expectancy for college-educated adults in the United States (who make up just one-third of our population) was eight and a half years longer than for adults without a bachelor’s degree—more than triple the gap in 1992.7 And today, many of the jobs available to those without a bachelor’s do not offer health insurance.
In addition, we have a more general crisis of “deaths of despair,”8 primarily driven by premature deaths due to suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol and other poisonings. Initially, these deaths were concentrated among middle-aged, blue-collar white people in communities suffering from declines in manufacturing, mining, and related industries; these industries typically anchored their communities, often serving as the main source of employment and supporting related civic organizations and local resources such as grocery stores, restaurants, and newspapers. Now, these deaths are spreading to a wider range of races and age groups, including Black people—who have long displayed resilience in the face of injustice and hardship— and teenagers. This crisis is of such magnitude that it has steadily driven down our national average life expectancy since 2015, with overdose deaths alone surpassing 100,000 per year in 2021 and 2022.9 The increasing participation of the young in these patterns suggests that our crisis of despair is becoming an intergenerational one.
The prospect of intergenerational transmission is disturbing, and there are signs of it throughout research my colleagues and I have conducted in low-income communities. For example, a survey of white youth in Missouri found that they have finished or want to finish high school and, at most, perhaps an additional year of technical education—but their parents do not support them in achieving higher levels of education. This reflects, among other things, a decline in the American narrative of individual effort being the key to success for the white working class.10 There is no longer a stable work-life narrative for those who do not acquire higher education or technical skills. This is especially concerning because the factors that underpin despair can make people more susceptible to extremist ideologies and create entire geographies that are prone to radicalization and violence. Poverty, unemployment, income inequality, and low education levels are all relevant factors in radicalization, extremism, and mass shootings.11
Restoring Hope
An important and underreported solution to the crisis lies in restoring hope. While hope resembles optimism—as individuals believe things will get better—an equally important part of hope (and not optimism) is that individuals can do things that improve their lives and thereby demonstrate agency over their futures. Helping the young form a vision of what their futures can look like will help them have hope and aspirations. This is crucial because, as my research has found, there are strong linkages between hope and long-term outcomes in education, health, and mental well-being, with hope more important to the outcomes of youth with limited access to education and mentorship.12
Psychiatrists often cite restoring hope as the first step to recovering from mental illness but offer very few prescriptions for doing so.13 A classic definition of hope—which entails aspirations, agency, and pathways to achieve goals—provides a good frame for thinking about how to restore hope, but lacks examples relevant to today’s youth.14 Yet today an increasing number of new programs aim to provide students with the agency and pathways to acquire the education they need to lead healthy and productive futures. One potential policy innovation that most people can agree on and that will help restore hope among the young is the development of new models of education that focus on the mix of technological and social-emotional skills students need to succeed in tomorrow’s labor force.
Education Innovations
Educational innovations are taking root across the country that focus on middle and high school students and on helping students who want a college education to achieve it. Community colleges and career and technical education (CTE) programs stand out, as they often bridge the gaps between the skills kids learn in high school and those that are needed to succeed in college and the workplace. CTE in particular provides a productive longer-term track for those who do not want or cannot afford to pursue a college education.
Starting as early as middle school, some programs focus on the social-emotional skills that students will need to succeed in rapidly changing labor markets, such as creativity, adaptability, and self-esteem, in addition to traditional technical skills. The #BeeWell program in Greater Manchester, a large county in the deindustrialized northeast of England, introduces these skills as an integral part of its student engagement process in over 160 schools.15 It includes strategies to combat loneliness, which is increasing among the young in both the United States and the United Kingdom and is often a precursor to depression.16 The program relies on the cooperation of families and communities and uses inputs from large-scale surveys of students. Surveys over three years showed modest improvements in student well-being, and demand for the program is increasing in and beyond Greater Manchester.17
Youthful Savings is a high school program founded in the United States that targets low-income students. The curriculum addresses basic economic principles, financial literacy, ethical entrepreneurship practices, and protecting mental well-being. Students who participate in the program tend to go on to a vocational school or four-year college. A key feature of the program, according to the four program leaders and participants I interviewed in June of 2024, is the active mentorship that the program leadership provides—that mentorship was a critical factor in the students’ decisions to go on to some form of post–high school education.18
Across the country, CTE programs are playing an increasingly important role in helping youth develop pathways to good jobs—and therefore restoring hope. In Massachusetts, for example, supporting CTE is a statewide initiative based on creating pathways to successful careers by fostering STEM skills for students of all income levels and backgrounds. Some of the programs are based in high schools and require that students spend part of their training time in local organizations, such as local engineering and building firms, among others. The state has also implemented higher reimbursement rates for high school building projects incorporating CTE programs. These efforts are aimed at modernizing and enhancing vocational and technical education opportunities for students throughout the state.19 And an innovative CTE program in Cleveland has high school students taking classes and engaged in workplace learning in a hospital as they explore healthcare careers—they can even graduate high school with state-tested nurse aide credentials.20 Similar high school–hospital partnerships are now expanding thanks to Bloomberg Philanthropies.21
Community colleges are also playing a critical role in helping low-income youth find fulfilling education and work opportunities. Macomb Community College (MCC), outside Detroit, has pioneered a model that allows students to take courses from participating state universities and complete four-year degrees while remaining on the community college campus. This avoids the expenses and time constraints introduced by moving and/or long commutes and is particularly important for older students who often must balance work and family obligations. Each student who comes to MCC is partnered with a mentor who advises them on their academic progress and steers them to mental health resources when needed. Approximately 65 percent of students who attend MCC complete four-year degrees, either on the campus or at state schools.22
Another aspect of the MCC model is the James Jacobs Legacy Series, which sponsors civic engagement activities and periodic lectures for the students and the community. Macomb County is diverse, with retired auto workers, a longstanding but traditionally discriminated against African American community, and new immigrants. The Legacy Series aims to increase civic engagement across the three populations and to expose students to new connections and networks that enhance their chances of living and working in Macomb post-graduation.
A related initiative inspired in part by the MCC model is underway at Lorain County Community College in Ohio. The college collaborates with employers and other regional partners to provide targeted curricula and paid internships, with the objective of setting up every student for success. Some programs at Lorain, such as one in microelectromechanical systems, have a 100 percent success rate in placing graduates in full-time jobs. This is because internships in local firms are a mandatory part of its curriculum, and that curriculum is frequently updated with employer input. The internships provide students with both hands-on experience and focused mentorship.23
On the demand side of the story, efforts to renovate regional economies and communities in the parts of the country that have suffered the most from the decline of manufacturing industries and employment largely hinge on having local colleges and universities. Higher education institutions provide not only relevant training for the labor force, but also the threshold of knowledge and civic engagement that is necessary for communities and small cities to attract and retain new industries and their workforces.24
Mentors and Mental Health
As noted above, a critical part of the success of efforts to restore hope and give youth new opportunities is the provision of mentorship. Mentors not only guide young adults in their goals of skill acquisition but also provide advice on how to deal with mental health and other issues that often arise during the transition from youth to adulthood. While stress and anxiety are not new for high school– and college-age youth, as the rising number of serious incidents shows, they have been severely exacerbated by the above-noted uncertainties about the future of job openings, education, climate change, political divisions, community declines, and even the nature of information itself. While these trends affect many of us, they are particularly challenging for young people trying to make decisions about how to aspire to and invest in better futures.
Insufficient access to mental health care is also a central issue, especially in the roughly 80 percent of rural counties that do not have a single psychiatrist.25 The role of peers and mentors is invaluable to encourage those who need it to seek necessary treatment. Peers can also help available—and new—providers identify vulnerable people and populations, as does the Visible Hands Collaborative in the environs of Pittsburgh and beyond.26 This is particularly important for young men; while they often are more reluctant than young women to seek out mental health care because of the continued stigma attached to it, they are showing increasing signs of distress, such as low college completion rates and high levels of labor force dropout.27
Given that most mental health conditions emerge during school years, efforts to expand detection and early intervention in schools are promising. Efforts in Massachusetts and Texas that focused on urgent access have shown potential for rapid scaling.28 And several organizations are collaborating to establish a new “theory of change” in this area by involving trusted community members—ranging from hairdressers to school teachers—to assess the risk of mental health disorders in communities.29 It is worth a note of caution, though, that projects that seek scale and widespread coverage at low cost are more effective at treating the average case than dealing with complex or more serious mental health issues. That said, given that mental health is increasingly considered a societal challenge on a much larger scale than in the past (and certainly than before the COVID-19 pandemic), it is worth exploring strategies that can reach more people—particularly those who previously have not had access—in new ways. This could help catch the problem in its early stages rather than wait until more extensive and medically intense treatment is necessary.
Providing youth with the skills and support they need to navigate the uncertainties in the economic, social, and other facets of their lives is an important step forward in addressing the crisis of youth mental health. By helping young people facing decisive junctures in their lives gain agency, skills, and connections through education, the initiatives described above show that restoring hope and taking on mental health issues during these very uncertain times is indeed possible.
Even though these programs—and others nationwide—are gaining momentum, we must generate a broad base of public support for them so that they do not operate in silos or only in “supportive” states and counties. This will require broad consensus and the cooperation of both public and private sectors. Without it, we are unlikely to make progress on solving the crisis that threatens the future of our country’s young and their ability to even conceive of pursuing the American dream. Especially now, in the early days of understanding how our political, economic, and social divisions are impacting our youth, we must have hope. Our shared concerns for our children and our country give us common ground—that alone gives me hope that we can resolve our differences enough to reimagine the opportunities we offer our youth.
Carol Graham is a senior fellow in the Economic Studies program at Brookings, a College Park Professor at the University of Maryland, and a senior scientist at Gallup. She received Pioneer Awards from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2017 and 2021 and a Lifetime Distinguished Scholar award from the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies in 2018. The author of numerous articles and books, her most recent book is The Power of Hope: How the Science of Well-Being Can Save Us from Despair.
2. D. Blanchflower, A. Bryson, and X. Xu, “The Declining Mental Health of the Young and the Global Disappearance of the Hump Shape in Age in Unhappiness,” NBER Working Paper No. 32337, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2024, nber.org/papers/w32337.
4. D. Blanchflower and C. Graham, “The Mid-Life Dip in Well-Being: A Critique,” Social Indicators Research 161 (October 2022): 287–344.
5. J. Helliwell et al., World Happiness Report 2024 (Oxford, UK: Wellbeing Research Centre, University of Oxford, 2024), worldhappiness.report/ed/2024.
6. D. Stone, K. Mack, and J. Qualters, “Notes from the Field: Recent Changes in Suicide Rates, by Race and Ethnicity and Age Group—United States, 2021,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 72, no. 6 (February 10, 2023): 160–62); and A. Xiang et al., “Depression and Anxiety Among US Children and Young Adults,” JAMA Network Open 7, no. 10 (2024): e2436906.
10. C. Graham, The Power of Hope: How the Science of Well-Being Can Save Us from Despair (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2023).
11. J. Piazza, “The Determinants of Domestic Right-Wing Terrorism in the USA: Economic Grievance, Societal Change and Political Resentment,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 34, no. 1 (2017): 52–80; and R. Medina et al., “Geographies of Organized Hate in America: A Regional Analysis,” Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108, no. 4 (2018).
12. Graham, The Power of Hope; and C. Graham, “Hope and Despair: Implications for Life Outcomes and Policy,” Behavioral Science and Policy 9, no. 2 (January 10, 2024): 47–52.
13. B. Schrank et al., “Hope in Psychiatry,” Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 17, no. 3 (2011): 227–35.
14. C. Snyder, ed., The Handbook of Hope: Theory, Measures, and Applications (North Holland: Elsevier Science and Technology, 2000).
18. Youthful Savings, “Making Change Through Socioeconomic Empowerment,” youthfulsavings.com.
19. M. Sousa, “The Shaping of CTE in Massachusetts and Beyond,” American Educator 48, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 31–36.
20. P. Hummer, “Creating a Healthy Community: How a High School in a Hospital Launches Careers and Enhances Well-Being,” American Educator 48, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 26–30.
21. R. Weingarten, “Where We Stand: Transforming Education,” American Educator 48, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 1; and V. Myers, “Public-Private Partnership Fuels New Career Academy,” AFT, June 11, 2024, aft.org/news/public-private-partnership-fuels-new-career-academy.
24. R. Maxim and M. Muro, “Supporting Distressed Communities by Strengthening Regional Public Universities: A Federal Policy Proposal,” Brookings,July 29, 2021; and R. Florida, Cities and the Creative Class (New York: Routledge, 2005).
27. C. Graham and S. Pinto, “The Geography of Desperation in America: Labor Force Participation, Mobility, Place, and Well-Being,” Social Science and Medicine 270 (2021): 113612.
28. R. Kessler et al., “Lifetime Prevalence and Age-of-Onset Distributions of DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication,” Archives of General Psychiatry 62, no. 6 (2005): 593–602; Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, Mental and Behavioral Health Roadmap and Toolkit for Schools (Dallas: November 1, 2018), mmhpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/RoadmapAndToolkitForSchools.pdf; D. Mauch and E. Ressa, Report on Pediatric Behavioral Health Urgent Care (Boston: Children’s Mental Health Campaign, January 2019), childrensmentalhealthcampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/Pediatric-Behavioral-Health-Urgent-Care-2nd-Ed._0.pdf; and Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium, “Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine (TCHATT),” University of Texas System, tcmhcc.utsystem.edu/tchatt.
29. To learn more, see Well Being Trust, “Native American Mental Health Resources,” wellbeingtrust.org.
[Illustrations by Taylor Callery]American Educator, Winter 2024-2025
Posts by Paul Costello1
