School of Belonging
The School of Belonging Professional Training Program for Educators in Partnership with Lesley University Graduate School has been designed for educational professionals who are passionate about developing a culture of caring and compassion in their schools and classrooms. The School of Belonging process creates the conditions, skills and practices for empathy, inclusion, and self-expression for all members of the school community.
The foundational components of the five course Badge Program are grounded in the research on risk and resilience, and strength-based interventions, in combination with the literature on emotional intelligence and emotional safety. Participants are taught how to create a school and classroom culture that fosters empathic relationships, emotional safety, and real-world learning. The program introduces a set of skills and practices to transform schools into places where students and the adults who work with them can develop healthy relationships and feel a sense of belonging.
Program participants will gain a greater sense of self and others by exploring such topics as emotional imprinting, healing-centered relationships, high-level facilitation skills, and emotional intelligence competencies. Some of the tools included in the program include: community meeting, fishbowl, listening wheel, the three areas of focus (inner-other-outer), and needs-oriented intervention planning.
Over the past 40 years, program creator and teacher, David Levine, has delivered the School of Belonging process to over 500 schools across 6 countries.
Empower and advocate
for young learners
Lesley prepares socially responsible graduates with the knowledge, skills, understanding and ethical judgment to be catalysts shaping a more just, humane, and sustainable world.
We believe in the competence of every individual and that an equal education is a right. To that end, we prepare teachers who will be lifelong advocates for their students, and who will prepare them for success in life.
Take This Course for Graduate Credit or Professional Development Hours
Choose which works best for you. Payment for graduate credit through Lesley University is in two parts, after you have made your initial payment of $65 with TEI, you will be directed to the Lesley portal where you will register and pay the balance & registration fee due for graduate credit. Students who wish to take the course for CEU’s are registered after completing the initial payment. Please check with your district for eligibility requirements.
6 Modules
Credit:
1 Graduate credit OR 2 PD Hours per course
Graduate Tuition:
$250 per credit/module + $20 Registration fee
PD Tuition:
$65 per course
School of Belonging Badge Certification
In order to receive School of Belonging badge certification, students are required to participate in all five School of Belonging courses. Students have the option of taking independent courses as a stand alone without receiving certification. Each of the courses provides one graduate level credit, and are offered to professional educators (teachers, counselors, psychologists, specialists, and school leaders).
Courses
Blueprints for belonging: Creating the conditions for emotional safety
This course focuses on translating the theory on meeting the emotional needs of students, into instructional practice and classroom culture building for all students. Utilizing the “blueprint for emotional safety”, students will explore how to create the conditions for an emotionally safe school and classroom setting which is inclusive, celebratory, and validating of everyone; one which promotes both school and life success, and happiness for all regardless of their variability.
Resilient pathways to healing
This course focuses on how to translate the resilience work of noted researchers, youth development specialists, and classroom teachers, into one’s everyday teaching and classroom community building practices. Together, we will explore how to build a healing-centered learning environment that is inclusive, engaging, and hopeful, one which sees children as the Native Elders see them; as sacred beings deserving of honor, encouragement, recognition, and support.
Empathy, Equity & Inclusion
This course introduces empathy as a bundle of five pro-social skills along with how to effectively teach these skills to one’s students to making empathy a critical relationship practice amongst students. Equity is also explored as a core component of professional reflective practice as it relates to implicit bias, emotional imprinting and empathic teaching approaches in which diversity is embraced and celebrated.
Focus: An entry to connecting with others
In this course, participants are introduced to the 3 areas of “Focus”-inner, other, and outer, and how the framework known as Triple Focus (Senge & Goleman) can be embedded into one’s instructional and relationship building practices. Course participants will explore how to teach mindfulness, mindful decision making and authentic goal setting within each of the focus skill sets through co-regulation practices, empathic intention setting, and perceptual diversity dialogue.
Naming the world of learning: Making the invisible visible
Naming the world of learning codifies the work of educator and social activist Paulo Freire who sought to teach people to appreciate what they already knew, to take control of their own knowledge and to create, with some assistance and encouragement, their own educations. The practices embedded in this course are inspired by Freire’s seminal quote: “That which is unnamed is invisible and a teacher’s job is to name the world.”
Finding Howard
The course will utilize ``Finding Howard: The legacy of a song``, an educational documentary by David Levine which focuses on creating the conditions for empathy, forgiveness, and hope in our schools. Participants will use readings, video inspiration, community of practice dialogue, and inclusion frameworks to create learning communities of belonging.
Group dialogue sessions for course participants
A School of Belonging, when implemented effectively, evolves into a set of cultural practices that become a way of being. It is not to be seen as a separate program or “another thing to do”, but rather a complementary process to supplement and support on-going efforts which seek to create a learning community in which the social and emotional well-being of all staff and students is paramount. Dialogue sessions with course instructor, David Levine, provide a forum in which program participants can collectively explore the strengths and vulnerabilities we all face in our quest to provide learning environments that are inclusive, celebratory, and emotionally safe. Dialogue sessions are optional, will be scheduled on a weekly basis and take approximately 60 minutes. Program participants may prepare questions and concerns in advance to provide the grounding for a focused and supportive conversation.
About David Levine
David Levine, Founding Director of Teaching Empathy Institute (TEI) in the Hudson Valley of New York, is an educator, author, recording artist, and documentary film maker. He has 40 years of experience working in a multitude of educational settings as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, workshop facilitator and systems-change planning specialist. TEI works with schools across the country and around the world seeking to create caring and compassionate school cultures where social and emotional learning and emotional intelligence are foundational belonging and relationship-building practices.
David has published numerous articles on belonging, empathy, and classroom culture building and has written six books, including A Year of Belonging and Field Guide to a School of Belonging, both of which were recipients of the Nautilus Book Award, American Book Fest Best Book Award and Indie Book Award in successive years (2019-2022). Two of David’s original recordings, Dance of a child’s dreams and Can you hear me? were Parents’ Choice Award Winners, and his film Finding Howard: The Legacy of a Song won the award for “Best Film on Youth Welfare” at the Helsinki Education Film Festival International in 2021.
At his core, David is an empathy educator and an artist whose expression is grounded in honor for self and others, communicating with compassion, and practicing honor for all children – seeing them as “Sacred Beings” filled with the potential for not only achievement, but also empathy for themselves and their fellow human beings.