Peter Liljedahl on "Thinking Classrooms"

            In this Kappan interview with Kathleen Vail, Peter Liljedahl (Simon Fraser University, Canada) discusses the details of Building Thinking Classrooms. Some key points:

• The difficulty of getting kids thinking – Twenty years ago, at the beginning of Liljedahl’s research, a middle-school math teacher asked him for help teaching complex problem-solving (she was getting students ready for impending changes in Canada’s curriculum expectations). Working together for a week, says Liljedahl, “it was disaster after disaster after disaster.” Why? Because even though students seemed to be working hard and the teacher was running the class well, the standard I do, we do, you do lesson structure resulted in most students mimicking the teacher, stalling, faking, or spinning their wheels. Very few of them were actually thinking, so it was difficult for them to solve challenging problems.
• Problems with standard math lessons – Observing math classes around the world, Liljedahl noticed that almost everywhere, lessons began with a teacher explanation, then students tried a problem, the teacher clarified, then there was independent work and an assessment. Another universal feature, even in classes trying various innovations: the teacher was standing and writing on a vertical surface, students were sitting down and writing on horizontal surfaces. Everywhere he went, Liljedahl noticed that only about 20 percent of students were thinking (about 20 percent of the time) and there was generally a low level of intellectual engagement.
• Restructuring classroom norms – He realized that to change this dynamic – which has been a feature of math classes for almost two centuries – the usual lesson pattern had to be shaken up. He proposed a radically different structure within the four walls of classrooms and the standard bell schedule:
• Giving students an engaging thinking task they couldn’t solve by mimicking or faking;
• Getting students started with only a brief launching introduction from the teacher;
• Having students work in randomly selected groups of three (two in the primary grades);
• Having groups work standing up, using one marker to write on erasable whiteboards;
• The teacher circulating and giving hints, support, and additional challenges as needed. 

“This is a massive revision to the way a classroom normally functions,” says Liljedahl. “In the institutional, normative structure of school, the teacher says, ‘Let me show you how to do it. Now you do it.’ That sets up mimicking. In a thinking classroom, the teacher says, ‘I’m going to give you a task. You’re going to have to think about it, so I’m not going to do it first.’” 

• Why visibly randomized groups – Trying out various strategies, Liljedahl and his colleagues found that even if students were told the groups were chosen at random, they assumed the teacher had formed each group with a “smart” student who was expected to do the real work. In this case, or when students were allowed to choose their own groupmates, most were unlikely to offer an idea because they thought their role was to follow. But when students saw that groups were truly random (using playing cards or another visibly random process), the researchers found that within three weeks, 100 percent of students were likely or highly likely to offer an idea. Truly random grouping told students that the teacher thought they were capable of making a real contribution and they did.
• Why erasable surfaces – With whiteboards (or glass surfaces), students were more likely to get started with ideas knowing they could erase mistakes. With flip chart paper, on the other hand, students thought, “We don’t know what the answer is yet, so we can’t put anything down.” Without knowing that their work was perfect, many students didn’t write anything, and there was a negative feedback loop on problem-solving and creativity.
• Why vertical surfaces – Liljedahl and his colleagues tried a number of configurations and found that having students work standing up was by far the most effective. When students were sitting down facing each other, even if they were using small erasable whiteboards, the work was oriented toward the student who was writing, making that person the leader. With a vertical surface, everyone in the group was facing the work, creating a more collaborative dynamic. Each group’s work was also visible to students around the classroom, enhancing “knowledge mobility” – students could see common errors and good ideas spread from group to group. And the teacher was more aware of what was going on and could push in with just-in-time interventions, versus waiting till the quiz on Friday to see who understood.
• Students feeling visible – “It turns out that when students are sitting,” says Liljedahl, “they feel anonymous. The further they sit from the teacher, the more anonymous they feel. When students feel anonymous, they are more likely to disengage. And the more anonymous they feel, the more likely they are to disengage. Standing up took away that anonymity, and not in a way that made students feel exposed. I’m not anonymous, and I’m not invisible. If I’m not invisible, I’m less likely to disengage. This was a huge shift.” 
• The teacher’s role – The first order of business is choosing tasks wisely, then launching the lesson in a way that reminds students of key skills but leaves the real work to each group, then cruising around the room intervening strategically. “This group needs a hint,” says Liljedahl. “This group needs to talk to another group. This group needs a little bit of direct instruction on this, and this group needs an extension.” Then in the last one-third of the lesson, the class sits down to consolidate learning, students take notes “for my future forgetful self,” and everyone does a quick formative assessment that tells the teacher the level of mastery. 
• Curriculum coverage and innovation – “We cover tremendous amounts of content,” says Liljedahl. “Because the kids are thinking, so much learning can happen. When they’re not thinking, everything is difficult. It takes a long time and they don’t retain it… Imagine how hard teaching and learning is in a space like that, versus where 93% of students are thinking for 100% of the time. Just think about how much more learning can happen in those spaces.” He also believes that other pedagogical innovations are much more likely to get traction in Thinking Classrooms because the radical changes in classroom structure get students collaborating, engaging with the content, and thinking. 

“Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics: A Conversation with Peter Liljedahl” by Kathleen Vail in Kappan, December 2024/January 2025 (Vol. 106, #4, pp. 32-35); for other articles on Thinking Classrooms, see Memos 976, 992, 1013, and 1052. Liljedahl can be reached at peter@buildingthinkingclassrooms.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1066 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Books About Social Activism for Young Readers

            In this article in Social Studies and the Young Learner, Iowa preschool teacher Taylor Marsho and five colleagues recommend books that several teachers used to explore issues of injustice, affirm students’ identities, and link activism to students’ artwork. In the course of this curriculum unit, teachers asked students:

• How can you help a friend with a problem they are facing?
• “Big ideas need big plans.” What is something you would like to do to make our classroom better?
• What can you do to treat others the way they want to be treated?
• When you try to make big, important changes in the world, sometimes people will think differently of you. How can you keep going to make change? 

Here are the books, which sparked lively discussions and student artwork on the questions:

• All the Way to the Top by Annette Bay Pimentel about Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins’s fight for the Americans with Disabilities Act;
• Mary Wears What She Wants by Keith Negley about women’s rights activist Mary Edwards Walker;
• Kamala and Maya’s Big Day by Meena Harris about how the young Kamala Harris and her sister Maya Harris advocated for transforming an empty apartment courtyard into a playground;
• The Youngest Marcher by Cynthia Levinson about how nine-year-old Audrey Faye Hendricks protested segregation laws in Alabama. 

“Promoting Student Activism Through Children’s Literature and Social Justice Art” by Taylor Marsho, Ashtyn Riley, Deidra Rudd, Morgan Schmidt, Sunah Chung, and Sarah Montgomery in Social Studies for the Young Learner, November/December 2024 (Vol. 37, #2, pp. 5-10); Marsho can be reached at taylor.marsho16@gmail.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1065 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

I Am On My Way!

 Posted on Facebook by S. Bear Bergman

            My feed today on BlueSky included a post from Icelandic writer Hildur Knútsdóttir, who saw the original exchange on a Reykjavik Facebook page - someone posted to say that it appeared a cygnet was frozen to the ice and dying. As people worried online about how or whether it would be possible to help, naturalist Kerstin Langerberger replied to the post, saying: “I am on my way with the necessary equipment.” Langenberger brought a friend, some thermoses of warm water, and a surfboard in case the ice failed - the necessary equipment - and thawed then freed the baby swan, which promptly flew off.

            There are a number of things I appreciate about this story, but it’s Langenberger’s statement that resonates for me. That is what I aspire to, to see injury or difficulty or something gone to trouble and decide: I am on my way with the necessary equipment. But also, to hold on to the understanding that sometimes the necessary equipment is the resolve to try and a friend who will help, and that sometimes I am the necessary equipment - the friend who shows up to make myself useful under the direction of an expert.

            There are a lot of moments these days that I find it very, very hard to do the next thing, or indeed to do anything. The world is so, so difficult. I often feel useless or overwhelmed or exhausted or just really fucking sad. But I am going to try starting the days by saying, with all the starch that I imagine a naturalist willing to chance the ice in darkness to save a baby bird might possess: I am on my way with the necessary equipment.

Using Word Games and Puzzles in Elementary Classrooms

            In this article in The Reading Teacher, Mark Lauterbach (Brooklyn College) and Marcy Zipke (Providence College) say that playing online word games and puzzles helps elementary students recognize and manipulate phonemes, words, and phrases – a.k.a. metalinguistic awareness. This is an important component of skilled reading; research shows that paying attention to the details of language – phonology, orthography, morphology, semantics, and syntax – improves students’ decoding, spelling, and comprehension. 

            “Developing students’ interest and motivation for uncovering language conventions is an important part of a teacher’s job,” say Lauterbach and Zipke. “Word games and puzzles are uniquely suited for this, in that they can be solved individually, or in groups of any size. They can be tailored to specific student needs, or in support of the curriculum. Additionally, some students find them particularly engaging.” Playing with word puzzles and games also makes students’ thinking about language less rigid and more fun. 

            Lauterbach and Zipke experimented with the use of three New York Times games – Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Connections – with elementary students. Brief descriptions:

• Wordle – The goal is to find a 5-letter mystery word in six or fewer tries. With each guess, the correct letters turn green (right letter, right position) or yellow (right letter, wrong position).
• Spelling Bee – This is a puzzle with seven spaces for letters, six of them encircling one target letter. The goal is to make as many words using the central letter and as many of the other letters as possible. Letters can be used more than once, with extra points for words that use all the letters.
• Connections – The reader is presented with 16 seemingly disparate words and asked to group them into four categories – for example: break, holiday, leave, and recess (time off); holy, wholly, holey, and holi (sound the same, different spellings and meanings); ink, range, lack, and old (colors with their initial letters missing). Four mistakes are allowed. 

With elementary students, the authors found it was helpful to start by modeling playing the game and thinking out loud about different strategies – in Wordle, for example, what letter to start with, how to proceed with a green or yellow letter, strategy with double letters, and so on. Then the class plays the game together, with “gentle feedback” as they proceed, scaffolding, and gradual release of responsibility.

            Where might word games fit into the school day? Some possibilities: in the 15 minutes before lunch; during a brain break; during indoor recess or free time; sending them home as homework; or creating a puzzle center for choice time. For resources, students might use dictionaries, word walls, and brainstorming friends, with Google and Siri off limits. An additional activity might be taking advantage of websites that allow users to create their own versions of Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Connections. And there are plenty of technology-free options, including putting letters on the board and challenging students to make as many words as they can from the letters. 

            “These puzzles and games are an opportunity to create engagement around activities that promote metalinguistic awareness,” conclude Lauterbach and Zipke. “However, as engaging and useful as these puzzles and games are, they are in no way systematic or comprehensive enough to replace the scope and sequence of a research-based reading curriculum.” 

“Wordling with Elementary Students: Developing Discrete Literacy Skills Through Puzzles and Word Games” by Mark Lauterbach and Marcy Zipke in The Reading Teacher, November/December 2024 (Vol. 78, #3, pp. 195-201); the authors can be reached at mlauterbach@brooklyn.edu and mzipke@providence.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1064 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

David Brooks on Rethinking the Meritocracy

            In this article in The Atlantic, David Brooks says the American “social ideal” from the late 1800s to the 1950s was a well-bred graduate of Harvard, Princeton, or Yale – “good-looking, athletic, graceful, casually elegant, Episcopalian, and white.” These men had a smooth pathway to high-paying jobs, power, and even the White House. “People living according to this social ideal,” says Brooks, “valued not academic accomplishment but refined manners, prudent judgment, and the habit of command. This was the age of social privilege.” 

            Then a small group of college presidents, led by James Conant at Harvard, decided that if the U.S. was to prosper and lead in the 20th century, it could no longer be ruled by this narrow, inbred aristocracy. Instead, admission to elite universities should be based on intelligence, with the aim of creating a brainy elite drawn from across the nation. “At least half of higher education, I believe,” said Conant, “is a matter of selecting, sorting, and classifying students.” He and other educators trusted IQ tests to identify this cognitive elite. 

            When a few selective universities adopted this mindset, says Brooks, the effect was “transformative, as though someone had turned on a powerful magnet and filaments across wide swaths of the culture suddenly snapped to attention in the same direction. Status markers changed” – and so did family life. Many parents tried to raise children who could get into selective colleges, “ferrying their kids from one supervised skill-building, résumé-enhancing activity to another. It turns out that if you put parents in a highly competitive status race, they will go completely bonkers trying to hone their kids into little avatars of success.” Most working-class parents, on the other hand, let their kids be kids, free to wander and explore.

            K-12 schools changed as well, cutting down on recess, art, shop, and home economics and spending more time on testing and Advanced Placement classes. “The good test-takers,” says Brooks, “get funneled into the meritocratic pressure cooker; the bad test-takers learn, by about age 9 or 10, that society does not value them the same way.” The upper end of the job market followed suit; a 2024 study showed that 54 percent of high-achieving lawyers, artists, scientists, business and political leaders had attended the same 34 elite colleges. Recruiters across the board were obsessed with college prestige. In short, Conant’s dream of an aristocracy of intelligence became a reality.

            But do we have a better elite? The earlier WASP aristocracy “helped produce the Progressive Era, the New Deal, victory in World War II, the Marshall Plan, NATO, and the postwar Pax Americana,” says Brooks. “After the meritocrats took over in the 1960s, we got the quagmire of Vietnam and Afghanistan, needless carnage in Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, the toxic rise of social media, and our current age of political dysfunction. Today, 59 percent of Americans believe that our country is in decline, 69 percent believe that the ‘political and economic elite don’t care about hard-working people,’ 63 percent think experts don’t understand their lives, and 66 percent believe that America ‘needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful.’”

            That’s the zeitgeist, and it’s difficult for parents to pull out of the rat race; their kids might get passed by the tiger mom’s kids next door. Teachers must teach to the tests, striving students focus on their GPAs instead of something they’re passionate about, and college admissions officers are prisoners of the U.S. News and World Report rankings. “In other words,” says Brooks, “we’re all trapped in a system that was built on a series of ideological assumptions that were accepted 70 or 80 years ago but that now look shaky or just plain wrong.”

            Here are what he considers the six deadly sins of the U.S. meritocratic ethos, each accompanied by a Brooks quote:

• It overrates intelligence. “If you rely on intelligence as the central proxy for ability, you will miss 70 percent of what you want to know about a person.”
• Success in school is not the same thing as success in life. “We train and segregate people by ability in one setting, and then launch them into very different settings.”
• The game is rigged. “As the meritocracy has matured, affluent parents have invested massively in their children so they can win in the college-admissions arms race.”
• The meritocracy has created an American caste system. “As in all caste societies, the inequalities involve inequalities not just of wealth but of status and respect.” There are troubling disparities in divorce, health, longevity, opioid addiction, and loneliness.
• The meritocracy has damaged the psyches of the American elite. “The system has become so instrumentalized – How can this help me succeed? – that deeper questions about meaning or purpose are off the table, questions like: How do I become a generous human being? How do I lead a life of meaning? How do I build good character?”
• All this has provoked a populist backlash that is tearing our society apart. “Many people who have lost the meritocratic race have developed contempt for the entire system, and for the people it elevates. This has reshaped national politics” – not just in the U.S. but in France, Turkey, Hungary, and Venezuela.

In short, says Brooks, “James Conant and his colleagues dreamed of building a world with a lot of class mixing and relative social comity; we ended up with a world of rigid caste lines and pervasive cultural and political war.”

            So what is to be done? Moving away from meritocracy is not going to happen, says Brooks; throughout human history, every society has been hierarchical. “What determines a society’s health,” he believes, “is not the existence of an elite, but the effectiveness of the elite, and whether the relationship between the elites and everybody else is mutually respectful… The challenge is not to end the meritocracy; it’s to humanize and improve it… The crucial first step is to change how we define merit… Having a fast mental processor upstairs is great, but other traits may do more to determine how much you are going to contribute to society.” Brooks would like us to focus more on four human qualities:

• Curiosity – Kids between 14 months and five years old make about 107 inquiries an hour, but schools tend to stamp out kids’ natural curiosity. Why? Brooks believes it’s because of standardized tests, which push teachers to march through a test-aligned curriculum. This narrow focus produces a lifelong disadvantage, he believes. We need to allow more play and ability for children to keep being curious and pursue their passions. 
• A sense of drive and mission – An important quality that needs to be uncovered and nurtured in the young is purpose beyond themselves. Perhaps that will be indignation at injustice, compassion for the disadvantaged, the pursuit of new knowledge, creating something beautiful. 
• Social intelligence – “In an effective meritocracy,” says Brooks “we’d want to find people who are fantastic team builders, who have excellent communication and bonding skills… players who have that ineffable ability to make a team greater than the sum of its parts.” These non-cognitive skills – listening, empathy, communication – are just as important as technical brilliance. 
• Agility – This is the ability to size up the different aspects of a situation, see the flow of events, and make good decisions about what to do next. High-IQ experts are seldom good at this, says Brooks, but agile thinkers “can switch among mindsets and riff through alternative perspectives until they find the one that best applies to a given situation.”

            In short, says Brooks, “If we can orient our meritocracy around a definition of human ability that takes more account of traits like motivation, generosity, sensitivity, and passion, then our schools, families, and workplaces will readjust in fundamental ways.” He admires schools like High Tech High where students are immersed in project-based learning, skilled teachers act more as coaches of learning than purveyors of knowledge, and achievement is measured by portfolios of students’ best work – papers, speeches, projects – defended in face-to-face presentations to a committee of adults and peers.               Brooks also wants us to redefine the nation’s “opportunity structure – the intersecting lattice of paths and hurdles that propel people toward one profession or way of life and away from others.” Right now, he says, our opportunity structure is too narrow, channeling kids through one bottleneck after another to achieve elite status: high grades, good test scores, college and graduate degrees. Better to have “opportunity pluralism,” where young people have a broader range of pathways and we have not a single pyramid but a mountain range with many possible peaks of achievement. Brooks suggests four ways to achieve this:

• Prioritize career and technical education – “Schools should prepare people to build things, not just to think things,” he says.
• Make national service a rite of passage after high school, which will build friendships across class lines as young people make real contributions to society.
• Invest more in local civic groups and community organizations where young people can serve others, lead meetings, rally neighbors for a cause.
• Support economic policies like the CHIPS and Science Act to boost the U.S. industrial sector and provide jobs for those who don’t want professional and office jobs.

            Brooks’s conclusion: “We want a society run by people who are smart, yes, but who are also wise, perceptive, curious, caring, resilient, and committed to the common good. If we can figure out how to select for people’s motivation to grow and learn across their whole lifespan, then we are sorting people by a quality that is more democratically distributed, a quality that people can control and develop, and we will end up with a fairer and more mobile society… We want a meritocracy that will help each person identify, nurture, and pursue the ruling passion of their soul.” 

“How the Ivy League Broke America” by David Brooks in The Atlantic, December 2024 (Vol. 334, #5, pp. 26-40); Brooks can be reached at dabrooks@nytimes.com.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1063 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

10 Suggestions for Living in a Complicated World

            In the epilogue of his book, Humankind: A Hopeful History, Rutger Bregman gives advice on how to apply his thesis – that humans are basically good – in a world that embraces the opposite view. “For ages,” he says, “we’ve assumed that people are selfish, that we’re beasts, or worse. For ages, we’ve believed civilization is a flimsy veneer that will crack at the merest provocation.” He argues that this is simply not true – including in a chapter on the true story that contradicts Lord of the Flies: when 14 teenage boys were stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific, they cooperated, solved problems, and were healthy and happy when they were rescued 16 months later (see Memo 1034 for a summary of this chapter). Bregman’s advice for pushing back against the negative narrative: 

•  When in doubt, assume the best. Communication is tricky, he says. “You say something that gets taken the wrong way, or someone looks at you funny, or nasty comments get passed through the grapevine.” Negativity bias kicks in, and you assume the worst. Far better, says Bregman, and far more realistic, is to give people the benefit of the doubt. Most of the time, this pays off. 
• Think in win-win scenarios. Many companies, schools, and other institutions are organized around the idea that it’s in our nature to be locked in win-lose competition. “In truth,” says Bregman, “this works precisely the other way around. The best deals are those where everybody wins.” Doing good is not only good, but it feels good because of the way we’re built. 
• Ask more questions. The Golden Rule comes in two flavors, says Bregman: the positive injunction (Treat others as you wish to be treated) and the negative (Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you). But both versions fall short, he believes, because we’re not that skilled at empathy – sensing what other people want – and making assumptions robs others of their voice. It’s better to ask them, listen carefully, and be guided by what they say. 
• Temper your empathy, train your compassion. What Bregman calls the Platinum Rule calls for compassion versus empathy. What’s the difference? Empathy is feeling with people who are suffering – I feel your pain – putting yourself in their shoes. The problem is that it’s exhausting and unproductive. Compassion is feeling for others, recognizing their distress, and then deciding how to help. “Unlike empathy, compassion doesn’t sap our energy,” says Bregman. “That’s because compassion is simultaneously more controlled, remote, and constructive. It’s not about sharing another person’s distress, but it does help you to recognize it and then act.” 
• Try to understand the other, even if you don’t get where they’re coming from. “When we use our intellect to try to understand someone,” says Bregman, “this activates the prefrontal cortex, an area located just behind the forehead that’s exceptionally large in humans.” Yes, people have foibles and rational analysis doesn’t always work, especially when we don’t see eye to eye with someone. But using our intellect mostly works better than relying on our gut. “Understanding the other at a rational level is a skill,” he says. “It’s a muscle we can train.” 
• Love your own as others love their own. “Humans are limited creatures,” says Bregman. “We care more about those who are like us, who share the same language or appearance or background… Distance lets us rant at strangers on the Internet. Distance helps soldiers bypass their aversion to violence… As humans, we differentiate. We play favorites and care more about our own. That’s nothing to be ashamed of – it makes us human. But we must also understand that those others, those distant strangers, also have families they love. That they are every bit as human as we are.” • Avoid TV news and social media. They are the biggest sources of distance among people, says Bregman, skewing our view of the world by generalizing people into groups and zooming in on the bad apples with the media’s negativity bias and manipulative algorithms. His rule of thumb: steer clear of television news and push notifications and read a more-nuanced Sunday newspaper and in-depth feature writing. “Disengage from your screen and meet real people in the flesh,” he says. “Think as carefully about what information you feed your mind as you do about the food you feed your body.” 
• Don’t punch people you disagree with. It may feel good to lash out at bigotry, says Bregman, or lapse into cynicism: “What’s the point of recycling, paying taxes, and donating to charities when others shirk their duty? If you’re tempted by such thoughts, remember that cynicism is just another word for laziness. It’s an excuse not to take responsibility.” 
• Come out of the closet: don’t be ashamed to do good. “To extend that hand you need one thing above all,” says Bregman. “Courage. Because you may well be branded a bleeding heart or a show-off.” It feels safer to keep a low profile and make excuses or fabricate selfish motives: Just keeping busy. I didn’t need the money anyway. It will look good on my résumé. But this approach isn’t helpful, he believes: “When you disguise yourself as an egotist, you reinforce other people’s cynical assumptions about human nature. Worse, by cloaking your good deeds, you place them in quarantine, where they can’t serve as an example for others. 
• Be realistic. Bregman hopes his book has changed the meaning of that word. He believes a realistic view of humankind is that “people are deeply inclined to be good to one another.” His closing exhortation: “Be realistic. Be courageous. Be true to your nature and offer your trust. Do good in broad daylight, and don’t be ashamed of your generosity. You may be dismissed as gullible and naive at first. But remember, what’s naïve today may be common sense tomorrow. It’s time for a new realism. It’s time for a new view of humankind.” 

 “Ten Rules to Live By” in Humankind by Rutger Bregman (Little Brown, 2019)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1062 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

a poem for times such as these

It’s when the earth shakes

And foundations crumble

That our light is called

To rise up.

It’s when everything falls away

And shakes us to the core

And awakens all

Of our hidden ghosts

That we dig deeper to find

Once inaccessible strength.

It’s in times when division is fierce

That we must reach for each other

And hold each other much

Much tighter.

Do not fall away now.

This is the time to rise.

Your light is being summoned.

Your integrity is being tested

That it may stand more tall.

When everything collapses

We must find within us

That which is indomitable.

Rise, and find the strength in your heart.

Rise, and find the strength in each other

Burn through your devastation,

Make it your fuel.

Bring forth your light.

Now is not the time

To be afraid of the dark.

Poem by Chelan Harkin