Michelle Bowman: “I thank Representative Carter so much for his powerful words and leadership and for being here this evening. When we…”

“I thank Representative Carter so much for his powerful words and leadership and for being here this evening. When we consider the toll of a nationwide youth mental health crisis, our mission must be to show love to our youth and to help our young people learn to love themselves, their communities, and our planet. In the face of so many real-world challenges, like the climate crisis, the pandemic, and extreme inequality and discrimination, it is essential that children's learning prioritizes creativity, innovation, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration as these approaches all support the mental health and the overall development of our children. These are the 21st century learning skills that will empower and teach our students how to think, not what to think. When the purpose of education is about fostering the value and ethic of lifelong learning as a fundamental pillar of democracy, it is abundantly clear that promoting positive mental health is fundamental to that work. But when we try to apply a business model to our schools and treat our students as commodities, making the necessary investments in mental health support and social and emotional learning gets sidelined in favor of a more simplistic bottom line that improperly fixates on the results of an annual assessment. We have subjected our public schools to this model for 20 years, and it hasn't addressed inequity in our schools. It has not closed any gaps.…”