What is the potential power of social-emotional learning (SEL) in our nation's secondary schools? To date, most of the documentation around the positive impacts of SEL focuses on elementary grades.This new WCKCD website includes: five case studies of a diverse collection of secondary schools (three Gr. 9-12, two Gr. 6-12) that weave SEL into their daily fabric; an executive summary that pulls together effective practices and policy implications from the five studie; "close ups" of a distinguishing element at each of the five schools Student voices (multimedia we created from our interviews/photos/video taping); and resources for educators who want to take action.

At a time of fierce debate about how to make and keep our nation’s schools strong, we’ve been building a portfolio we call “how youth learn.” Amid the unprecedented push for common core standards, teacher quality, accountability, and school choice, we don’t hear enough — we believe — about what motivates students to learn and do their best. We offer this portfolio as a stake in the ground: what the relevant research says (our own synthesis for non-researchers); what students tell us (we've talked with thousands over the years); what our documentation of exemplary practice shows (we’re in schools a lot); and educator resources (including a new "enhanced e-book").

This website provides practical advice and lessons learned by high school seniors and college students who have made it to college. Some of these student “experts” are the first in their family to attend college. Others have college in their family background—but it’s still a stretch, filled with hopes and hurdles. In either case. they have lots to pass on about going to college and succeeding once there. Here we share their personal stories and tips, videos they have co-produced, grade-by-grade planning checklist, and online resources. For college advisors, there’s a special section with downloadable PDFs, along with materials for parents in English and Spanish.

In Tanzania, close to the towering Mt. Kilimanjaro, the vast plains of the Serengeti, and the Great Rift Valley, lies a village called Kambi ya Simba. It is a rural village, with one road in and one road out. Its 5,000 residents, spread over 40 square kilometers, are farmers. They are poor, by every measure. From 2005-2007, WKCD worked with students at Awet Secondary School in Kambi ya Simba to document daily life in their village--with digital cameras and tape recorders. Their photo essay book inspired students and teachers on four continents to produce their own photo essay books about life in their "village." This website includes a virtual library of more than 30 of these titles.

Fires in the Mind came about from a nationwide collaboration among youth and adults to investigate the question “What does it take to get really good at something?” Called the Practice Project, it is an initiative of the nonprofit What Kids Can Do (WKCD), supported by MetLife Foundation and directed by WKCD writer and researcher Kathleen Cushman. Starting with the things they already knew and could do well, over 200 young contributors to Fires in the Mind analyzed the process that all learners go through when they take up new things and work toward mastery.

The Center for Youth Voice in Policy and Practice—a virtual center—provides a fresh new platform for young people as knowledge creators and policy advocates. Using well-honed research and documentation strategies, the work we feature here digs into issues that matter to youth: good schools, college access and success, technology, discrimination, equality, negative youth stereotyping, programs and mentors that help youth spread their wings, and more.

Everywhere you look today, China is in the news. But how much do we know about the daily life there? Several years agoWKCD, with support from the Asia Society, spent two weeks with students at Beijing No. 12 High School creating a series of photo essays about life—and school—in New China. Younger students added a postscript: an audio Chinese-English dictionary in their own voices. Here WKCD shares their remarkable images and words in a series of multimedia presentations. (Note: We have had difficulty maintaining the integrity of this site. Two of links embedded in the site no longer work: Dictionary and Teaching Resources. Please access them through the links below.)

Dictionary
Teaching Resources