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Empathy to Impact is a podcast designed for educators dedicated to global citizenship education. We explore themes of sustainability, service learning, student leadership, and community engagement, empowering students to create a more just, equitable, and sustainable future.
While educators grasp the “why” and “what” of global citizenship, this podcast delves into the “how”. Through engaging storytelling and student voices, we provide authentic connections to curriculum, and showcase practical tools and frameworks that you can implement in your classroom.
By viewing learning experiences through the lens of Empathy to Impact, we can inspire students to take meaningful steps toward becoming global citizens and transform the culture of education in our schools.
Join us as we amplify the voices and stories of students who take ownership of their learning and make a difference in their communities.
This podcast is brought to you by Inspire Citizens.
Scott Jamieson: Welcome to the Empathy to Impact podcast. We are doing something a little bit different on this episode. Our podcast, our goal is to feature students, but today, we're gonna make an exception, and we're gonna let an adult join us on the Empathy to Impact podcast.
Kristine Mizzone: I am really excited to have Christine Mazzoni.
Scott Jamieson: Here with me today from ISCA to talk about…
Scott Jamieson: how her work connects to global citizenship education, but also, Christine and I share a vision, you know, our two organizations are really all about
Scott Jamieson: creating and nurturing good human beings in schools. And really excited to get her perspective, share a little bit about the amazing things that ISCA does, that is the International School Counselors Association? Counselors? Counseling.
Scott Jamieson: Councillors?
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: Alright, International School Counselors Association, and find out some of the resources and how they support schools around the world. So, Christine, I'm going to pass things over to you to say hi and introduce yourself to our audience.
Kristine Mizzone: Great! Wow, what an honor to be one of the few adults welcomed into this space. Yeah, so thanks for the warm welcome. My name is Christine, and I am the Learning and Development Coordinator with ISCA, the International School Counselor Association. So that just means that I get to support schools with social-emotional learning, and really helping them take that school-wide approach to SEL.
Kristine Mizzone: So I also… another kind of hat that I wear is I work with school leaders, with all things related to organizational leadership, and I really think it's kind of that intersection of the two where real change can happen in a school, because we're thinking about cultural changes or shifts, mindset shifts, competencies that the adults themselves need to be modeling before we can even expect
Kristine Mizzone: our students to develop them. So, yeah, that's what I'm doing now, and my experience before was really, with the curriculum lens. So, like, Director of Teaching and Learning, and I lived in the world of curriculum, so always thinking in frameworks and standards and design.
Kristine Mizzone: But that was always for subjects like math, you know, science, ELA. When it came to SEL, I feel like for me, personally, it was a blind spot, and I think that can be the case for many school leaders.
Kristine Mizzone: And so that's really why I'm excited to be doing this work, because it's a marriage of things that I love and I think are… are much needed in schools.
Scott Jamieson: I… absolutely agree.
Scott Jamieson: I think this systemic-level work, thinking about working with school leadership to develop these kind of programs that lead to those shifts in school culture, but having those systems, having those frameworks in place, having that common understanding of what our mission statement and what these things mean in our context, in the place we are in the world.
Scott Jamieson: And the people who exist within our community.
Scott Jamieson: is so, so important. Otherwise, it sort of exists a little bit over here and a little bit over there. We lose that consistency. We don't have that vertical alignment, we don't have that scaffolding of skills.
Scott Jamieson: And as amazing people come and go in our organizations as they do in international schools, oftentimes some of those amazing things will leave with them if we don't have that really embedded in terms of systems, and how we generate that evidence, and what kind of evidence we're looking at.
Scott Jamieson: In terms of this kind of learning. So I think just that approach is so, so important with schools, and it's awesome that you're able to do that, and working with school leaders.
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah, no, I think you've… you just really hit the nail on the head right there, where, like, when I first started working with ISCA, I have to admit, I…
Kristine Mizzone: it was like I was just opening the door and just discovering something that I should have long ago been implementing in my work as Director of Teaching and Learning. So, it was really eye-opening, but also, like, a game changer that they had… ISCA had developed this full set of social-emotional learning standards.
Kristine Mizzone: And so something for me really clicked when I saw those. I realized, you know what, these are not just for school counselors to use.
Kristine Mizzone: It's a shared responsibility, and it's just what you said about this is the key to creating a shared language, and really holding high expectations for learning.
Kristine Mizzone: not just when it comes to academics, but for these critical life skills. And I guess, like, one question… I'm gonna flip it on you here, Scott, but one question I have for you
Kristine Mizzone: is I would just be curious to hear what your thoughts are on the connections between, like, SEL and global citizenship, because I think on the surface, they might seem separate, or, like, two different ideas, but they're actually deeply connected.
Scott Jamieson: Absolutely, I think they are deeply connected, and…
Scott Jamieson: If we do all of these different things separately, like thinking about social-emotional learning, thinking about global citizenship, thinking about our work with diversity, inclusion, and belonging, if we put those all in different places, we do that over here, we do this over here, we do this over here, we have our academic learning over here.
Scott Jamieson: We are very quickly going to run out of time.
Scott Jamieson: And we can't make more of that. So how do these things fit together? And understanding those interconnections can be so helpful with schools who already feel really busy. And to recognize that this work isn't
Scott Jamieson: another layer on top is not one more thing. It's something that connects all these other things. And I think when we think about social-emotional learning.
Scott Jamieson: We want to connect. Our framework, Empathy to Impact, starts with caring, and this idea of the head, the heart, and the hands, and to me, this is the heart.
Scott Jamieson: You know, connecting with, you know, being passionate about some of these big issues, but then thinking about how do we
Scott Jamieson: take a systems approach to that. And…
Scott Jamieson: as I look through, I'm a big fan of the work ISCA does, and I follow along quite closely with some of the resources, and I think ISCA's done such a great job thinking about the new academic domains. This is something that was published in 2024, and talking about these different domains of…
Scott Jamieson: Social-emotional learning, academic, career, and the one that really resonated with me was global perspective and identity development.
Scott Jamieson: And this idea of recognizing that we're part of something bigger.
Kristine Mizzone: And to be a global citizen, you have to understand the world.
Scott Jamieson: Socially, you have to understand the world politically, economically, environmentally.
Scott Jamieson: And all these different ways that we are connected and sharing the space together.
Scott Jamieson: And I think social-emotional learning and global citizenship connect so well that way. And I think ISCA's done such a great job of articulating what that is for schools. And I want to flip that back to you, and maybe you can explain a little bit about how that came about.
Scott Jamieson: And how that… you've really kind of given that sort of concrete.
Scott Jamieson: And also banded, so we understand what this looks like with our youngest learners, with our students in upper elementary and middle school and high school, recognizing it's going to look a little bit different. And we have that kind of high-altitude vertical approach, as you talked about from your curriculum designer lens, and I think it's so cool what you guys have been able to do.
Kristine Mizzone: Thank you so much! Yeah, we're really excited about it, too, because I think it does make something that can, I'm gonna say, feel abstract for many people. It makes it more concrete. And I'll say, yeah, one thing that's unique about the ISCA Student Standards, I think what distinguishes these standards from, let's say, a framework like CASEL,
Kristine Mizzone: Is that we actually do have a whole domain that's devoted to that global perspectives and also identity development. And so this means that when we're talking about social-emotional learning, we're not just focusing on, you know, feelings and emotions. Yes, that's part of it, of course.
Kristine Mizzone: But we're really expanding
Kristine Mizzone: SEL to include life skills like understanding different cultures, like navigating diverse perspectives, and thinking critically and acting on global issues. So, in other words, our standards, I think, combine SEL, kind of the traditional way we would think about SEL, but with competencies for flourishing and for the future. And we're really hoping to broaden people's
Kristine Mizzone: perspectives on what… how we define SEL. I think if you were to ask, and I do this often when I work with schools, one of the first things I'll ask is, like.
Kristine Mizzone: okay, there's a hundred of us in this room right now, turn to the person next to you. What's your definition for social-emotional learning? Everyone in the room has a different idea of what that is. And so I think it's really, again, it's the shared language, it's the shared framework, and it's actual learning outcomes.
Kristine Mizzone: And I really would love to talk more about what that looks like, you know, that progression idea, because
Kristine Mizzone: This starts early!
Kristine Mizzone: It starts early. So we can look at things like advocacy, we can look at, things like, you know, adaptability and cultural competence. That all starts in pre-K.
Kristine Mizzone: So, we need to be designing for it, and in the absence of having a learning progression standards curriculum design tools, then it's left to people's great intentions, but it's not always coherent.
Kristine Mizzone: And that's what we see happen.
Scott Jamieson: And it's not always consistent. And teachers don't necessarily have the supports they need.
Scott Jamieson: across divisions, like, gone are the days, I feel like, in 2025, where you can just be a math teacher, or just be a social studies teacher. You talked about this early on, that this is not just the counselor's job.
Scott Jamieson: This is everybody's job. And I think if we can structure that and create
Scott Jamieson: first of all, that shared understanding of what it is, which I think is going to be maybe a little bit different in different schools. And that's okay, but as long as we have that shared understanding, but also have that shared understanding of
Scott Jamieson: what success looks like, and sounds like, and feels like with this work. Because if we don't understand, if we don't have an agreed-upon understanding of what success is with a program like this, we're going to have vastly different outcomes.
Scott Jamieson: And we're not going to know how successful we are. We're not going to be able to have those quality reflections to think about how we grow that program. And I love how you're talking about getting the youngest learners involved. We design service learning projects where students as young as 3 years old, obviously at an age-appropriate level.
Scott Jamieson: And they're not going to be doing the same thing as our high school students, and that's okay, but it's really this idea, like, you're talking about mindsets.
Scott Jamieson: And really understanding that our actions matter, and being able to take action, and being able to start from a place of empathy. I think empathy is something the world needs so much more of right now. And if we can start to build that with our little ones.
Scott Jamieson: through a structured approach, with some research-backed tools and frameworks that teachers can use to be successful. So, tell me a little bit about, like, what are some of the practical tools that teachers might be able to use to work towards a shared definition of success?
Kristine Mizzone: Great, yeah. So, I would say, I mean, everyone should be working from a set of learning outcomes or standards, right? So we've got the ISCA Student Standards, as you mentioned, that covers
Kristine Mizzone: Competencies and… and indicators, learning outcomes, under those four domains.
Kristine Mizzone: So it's what we think the traditional SEL social-emotional domain, but then we've got this global perspective and identity development domain. We have an academic domain, so those are things like, really, agency, which I know is such a big part of what Inspire Citizens does. And so we've got learning outcomes for that, and as well as self-directed learning and, like, those, I would say, executive functioning skills, but what does that actually look like as a learning outcome?
Kristine Mizzone: And then we have the fourth domain, which is all around career readiness, career development, self-exploration, you know, finding out what it is that you're interested in doing, and having those experiences early on in life.
Kristine Mizzone: So, you know, I think that those are the four domains, and anyone can be and should be using those. Like, have them on your desk when you're planning, so that you can be integrating those into what you already do. Chances are, you are already doing that great work, but it's just with having a little bit more intention, I would say. And just like we would take a standards-based approach to anything else, I think we should be taking a standards-based approach to social-emotional learning as well.
Kristine Mizzone: So you would start with the standard, you would design backward, you know, you would embed the UDL principles to make sure that it's accessible for all, and that's… that's one…
Kristine Mizzone: kind of starting place, but then I think if you want to go further, and this is… I loved hearing about that, doing projects with even 3-year-olds, because I have a 3-year-old, and I can see how much agency he does have.
Kristine Mizzone: And I would love to see that happening in more schools,
Kristine Mizzone: starting early, but when we think about the learning progression, we offer that as well, and so you're taking all of those indicators that we have for those four domains, and you're saying, these start at pre-K, and they develop over time.
Kristine Mizzone: And so, if I can think of, like, an example, you know, we have one in the global perspective and identity development domain, which is all about students needing to really understand how bias and prejudice show up in the world.
Kristine Mizzone: And so you might think, okay, well, how am I going to do that with a 3-year-old, right? And what does that look like? So with young children, it's really about noticing unfair treatment.
Kristine Mizzone: And can they see when someone is being left out or treated differently in their classroom or in their friend group? And then as they progress, it's starting to look at examples in media and stories, and asking, how are people being treated, and why does this matter?
Kristine Mizzone: And why should I care?
Kristine Mizzone: And then, you know, as you progress, you're starting to do a deeper examination of your own biases and thinking about how to challenge them.
Kristine Mizzone: and how to challenge other people in the community. So, really, the goal is the same for everybody. It's around helping students build cultural awareness, empathy, and the skills to be able to act responsibly when they see bias.
Kristine Mizzone: And without that tool of seeing, like, how it progresses, I think sometimes we risk avoiding the topic, because we're afraid, like, we can't do that with 3-year-olds, that feels too extreme. Or we can maybe introduce them to things that aren't… they're not ready for just yet.
Scott Jamieson: One thing I love about the progression is also recognizing we have a very diverse group of learners in every classroom I have ever been in, so it kind of shows where we can find students where they are with that.
Scott Jamieson: And maybe they're in different spots, maybe they're working at a level above where they might be, or a level below where they might be, and that's okay. But just understanding where we are, and what kind of strategy we might be able to use, and where we aspire to be with that. I think that's so helpful. And I also like just…
Scott Jamieson: I think I was talking to some teachers as we were designing this, and recognizing, you talked about how a lot of times, good teachers are already doing this.
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: And one teacher came out of a workshop at the end, this is really just good teaching. I was like, yes it is. And that's so true! And I think…
Scott Jamieson: It's not a recreation of the work we're already doing, it's really taking a look.
Scott Jamieson: And starting from those standards, like you say, and think about what our learning goals are, and then looking at our unit to say, where are those authentic connections to this work in my scope and sequence? And it's an enhancement tool. Similar to our empathy to Impact, we're not starting from scratch with this.
Scott Jamieson: We're looking at the good teaching and learning that's already happening in classrooms and saying.
Scott Jamieson: how might I enhance this through the lens of global citizenship? How might I enhance this through the lens of SEL? And just taking a good unit and making it great. And I think that's really just a great tool for that.
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah, exactly. And sometimes, you know, one of the things I like to do is, yes, they're banded, that the learning progression is banded, just to help you with design, to say, like, okay, this is probably something that I would design for grades 3 through 5, but as you mentioned, it's a progression, so you could have a 12th grade student who, isn't there yet, right? And so we can… I like to remove the band off the top.
Kristine Mizzone: And just say, like, where are we here? And use it as a self-reflection tool. And sometimes I'll do that with the adults in my trainings, too, right? And just say, like, let's take the top off, and just point to which band you're in, and how you might, you know, what support might look like to move into that next…
Kristine Mizzone: into that next band, because it is, it's a progression, and these are lifelong skills that we're all developing all the time. But absolutely, I would invite and encourage listeners who are thinking, like, how can I embed these skills into what I already do? Just…
Kristine Mizzone: you know, work together on it as well, because it is a shared responsibility, and you probably are already doing a lot of these, but it's about maybe crosswalking what you're currently doing. We have a tool for that as well with ISCA, where we just kind of sit down and collaboratively say who's doing what, who's teaching what, which projects that we're doing, are… are allowing our students opportunities to practice and develop these skills.
Kristine Mizzone: And it's just those conversations are so important to have in schools.
Scott Jamieson: For sure, and I think that idea of collaborating and working together is so important on our teams, so that our students can get that consistent approach to this, and work through that progression. I think, what a cool reflection opportunity.
Scott Jamieson: to take those bands and have students be able to speak to that, like, through a learning experience. Maybe something we check in at the beginning, ongoing throughout, and at the end.
Scott Jamieson: And see… be able to talk to their growth.
Scott Jamieson: in a specific capacity. Maybe how have you… again, we're not going to be looking at and approaching medium mastering when we're talking about something like empathy, but we can definitely be speaking to that growth, and helping students to understand how they're developing some of these
Scott Jamieson: competencies, how they're developing some of these dispositions, like resilience or perseverance that we're embedding and helping them to grow through these learning experiences. I think that's so cool.
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah. You know, one thing I'm wondering about, because I know you work so closely with students, too, is do you come into… do you… have you had the situation where, like, students are carrying the weight of the world because of these projects, or… you know, because I just think sometimes, like.
Kristine Mizzone: when you care deeply about the world, about justice, the planet, people, that's beautiful, and it also can come with a weight, and so if you're not… if you don't have those social and emotional skills to, notice that, and then have some strategies to manage it, sometimes I feel like the more you see, the more responsible you feel.
Kristine Mizzone: Which is great, because it's getting our kids to act.
Kristine Mizzone: But sometimes the more awake you are to global issues, the more responsible you feel to respond, and I just wonder if you find that in your work with students. Are they feeling that weight, and is it…
Kristine Mizzone: Is it affecting them mentally and socially?
Scott Jamieson: Absolutely. It absolutely does. These are topics that, as we become more and more aware, they're… come with some strong emotions attached to those. We run a module on climate anxiety.
Kristine Mizzone: Okay.
Scott Jamieson: And our response to the climate crisis, and wherever you are in the world, we're seeing evidence of this. And it can be really overwhelming, to the point of paralysis. And I think there's… it's so important to create a safe space where students can talk about that, and recognizing that they're not the only ones having these feelings.
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: And that they're not alone in this. And it does seem like a lot, but…
Scott Jamieson: I forget who the author was, but talking about, it might have been Ellen Kelsey, talking about how action can be an anecdote to that anxiety, and how our work as global citizens… I mean, we're not going to solve the climate crisis in a Grade 4 classroom.
Scott Jamieson: But we might be able to do something, we might be able to take an action that moves that needle in a positive direction.
Scott Jamieson: And this idea that we're not going to have this one silver bullet solution to some of these big global issues. It's going to be millions and millions of small actions that make a difference, and…
Scott Jamieson: inspire others to be part of that solution, to create that sense of unity and belonging, so we're working together. And that's what's going to move the needle on this. And helping students to understand that my actions matter. Another good friend of mine, Darcy Lund, talks about
Scott Jamieson: teaspoons of change. And these little changes can really add up and matter. And if we can plant those seeds with our youngest learners, imagine what those students are going to be capable of when they get into middle school and high school. I think it's so cool.
Kristine Mizzone: It is. That's a really hopeful way to look at it, and I think, you know, there is a fine line between feeling responsible for the world and feeling responsible to the world.
Kristine Mizzone: And the first can be, I think, really debilitating. As you mentioned, it can cause, like, people just to pause and say, well, what can I do? Nothing. And the second one feels more relational, I think, because you're acknowledging what you said, too. Like, you're not in this alone, and we're part of something bigger. We're not carrying this
Kristine Mizzone: alone. So, yeah, I think it is about teaching students to build, you know, build their own self-awareness, and for us, too, as adults.
Kristine Mizzone: What does compassion fatigue feel like? Let's name those signs, let's talk about balance, and having some boundaries as well. Like, I'm… I can care about this without carrying it, I think is really important for educators as well. Because otherwise, yeah, I do worry a little bit about how…
Kristine Mizzone: The impact that it's having on our,
Kristine Mizzone: Just, yeah, our emotional state in schools.
Scott Jamieson: our well-being, for sure. And I think that we feel that as educators.
Scott Jamieson: And we have some different tools as adults to help us process that, but our students who are in our care don't always have it. We have to teach them. We have to be explicit and help them to manage those big emotions and channel those in a positive way, thinking about how we might use that, not as, you know.
Scott Jamieson: a way to feel… to be overwhelmed, but to think about how we might be able to take action. And I think that can be really cool. Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: Sorry, I'm actually… I'm just, I'm not checking my Instagram, I'm checking my notes over here. Me too.
Kristine Mizzone: I am too, you'll see me scrolling.
Scott Jamieson: Sorry, I lost my spot here.
Scott Jamieson: We've talked about how we might embed some of this work into existing units, and at Inspire Citizens, we're big fans of
Scott Jamieson: integrating and enhancing units, rather than trying to create space for something new, because we just don't have it. And…
Scott Jamieson: Thinking about this from a whole school level, letting you put on your program designer hat here.
Scott Jamieson: How do we measure this progress? How do we sustain this over time? And thinking about how we want to move towards those words in our mission statement, to be a globally-minded school, to help our students to have that positive impact in the world, we see these words in our guiding statements.
Kristine Mizzone: Right?
Scott Jamieson: how do we know we're successful with that? How do we measure that, and how do we keep that momentum going with some of this work that does feel a bit heavy sometimes?
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah, and this work really should be a vehicle, right, for these mission statements that we are meant to be living every day. Yeah, I mean, you know, we need to define what students are going to learn through, let's say, global citizenship. We need to really define that, and that's how something like a learning outcomes or student standards, that's where that comes in, because it takes the guesswork out.
Kristine Mizzone: We don't have to invent that. We don't have to go searching for it. It's more that we are looking to see what, yes, what we're already doing, or what opportunities we have to enhance what we're doing, and we can pull in the standards and design from those. And then, like, what you're doing with Inspire Citizens, you're really helping schools move from abstract goals, which can be, you know, very visionary and,
Kristine Mizzone: mission-oriented, but we need to get schools to the place where it's tangible and it's leading to student outcomes, or, for example, skills, mindsets, those behaviors. And we know that those can be and need to be taught, practiced, assessed, so we're really talking about curriculum work here.
Kristine Mizzone: It's not gonna happen because of people that, you know, just care about it. That's not enough. We need to have skilled curriculum designers that know how to take something like the standards and turn that into a project that kids are going to care about, or integrate it into what we're already doing. So I think one question is, like, always have this
Kristine Mizzone: Kind of in your mind as you're designing, which would be, how are we going to articulate what global citizenship actually looks like in student learning?
Kristine Mizzone: And that's where I would turn to, to answer that question. I would turn to something like a learning progression for that. I would think to myself, okay, what grade level am I designing for? What are some of those foundational things that we need to teach first?
Kristine Mizzone: here's the look for. It gives you the look for in some of those different pieces. And then, when you look at the standards, it can be very overwhelming. There are a lot of them. So, there always has to be a conversation within your team about which skills and competencies matter most.
Kristine Mizzone: to our students, right? So we gotta talk to kids, we have to find out. They're gonna help us prioritize. We're gonna use student data.
Kristine Mizzone: to tell us what skills need to be further developed with this group. So they really help us to… to choose from when we look at, like, okay, there's so many skills here that we could be developing in this project, let's say, or in this unit. How are we going to narrow it down? So, those are some of the questions that you want to ask, and then I think using, you know, the empathy to impact design.
Kristine Mizzone: framework that you have really helps make that real in classrooms, and we're doing our best, I think, from our organizations to be able to provide
Kristine Mizzone: systems and ways of working for people to get there. What would you add in terms of, like, the… what you're doing with Inspire Citizens and your framework to answer that same question, I guess?
Scott Jamieson: I think… I wanted to zoom in. You talk about student voice and agency, and I think that's so important. We do a lot of work with student leaders, because oftentimes we put students into and give them leadership opportunities, but just like we're talking about here, we don't often give them the skills to be successful, and
Scott Jamieson: We need to design that together with them. So as we're starting to work with a new group of student leaders, we want to think about, well, what are those top skills and dispositions that we need as a leader? Let's come up with that together, and then we'll design workshops together that.
Kristine Mizzone: to build those skills.
Scott Jamieson: And then, as we continue that work, they become the co-facilitators, and then the full facilitators of that student leadership training, and…
Scott Jamieson: it becomes something they own. So we have that institutional knowledge being passed along, and if we can do that in our classrooms as well, like, what might be different if our students sat down in our strategic planning meetings with senior leadership? What might be different if our students sat down in our
Scott Jamieson: collaborative planning meetings.
Kristine Mizzone: Right.
Scott Jamieson: you know, it's… we have to be a little bit brave, I think, to open the door to students, but I think so many good things can happen. We… this group of students in Senegal, they've long since graduated since I last talked to them, but their slogan was, nothing about us without us is for us. And I thought it was so cool, it's stuck with me ever since.
Scott Jamieson: And I think just having an approach, having an agreed-upon framework, like something like Empathy to Impact.
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: Where we think about, you know, what are those knowledge… what is the knowledge and skills that we need? How does that connect to a bigger issue in the world? How do we not jump straight to action like we want to do, because we're trained in school to be problem solvers, but slow down, be listeners, connect with the communities that are involved in this?
Scott Jamieson: Use systems thinking. Become…
Scott Jamieson: Ethical thinkers and strategic thinkers as we unpack this issue, and then co-design a learning… sorry, co-design a…
Scott Jamieson: action project with our community partner. So it's not just about us, but really about the work, and about the impact we're going to have in our community, and having opportunities to be reflective, and having opportunities so that you talk about the look-fors, but we also think about the look…
Scott Jamieson: We're those artifacts of learning that showcase us being successful in this work. So when you come to your WASC, or your NEASC, or your CIS, or your IB visit.
Scott Jamieson: You know, we're gonna be able to say, this is how our Grade 2s are living our mission. This is how our Grade 4s are showcasing. This is how our Grade 7s, our grade 10s, our seniors. And we'll be able to have this evidence across, as we're building those portfolios and looking at that evidence of learning.
Scott Jamieson: And be able to say, yes, this is what we say we do, and this is how we show we do it. And being able to walk the talk with that. And I think that's really important for schools, to be thinking about what kind of evidence that we're generating that shows that we're successful with this work.
Kristine Mizzone: So I'm writing down right now, look… look fors versus look at.
Kristine Mizzone: Right? Is that what…
Scott Jamieson: That's it, yeah. And that is our…
Kristine Mizzone: I feel like maybe what ISCA's providing are those look-fors, and what Inspire Citizens is doing is the outcome of that. Like, you're… we're not always in the place where we get to see the beautiful outcome, and I feel like you get to be part of that design work, so it's, for me, a really nice…
Kristine Mizzone: complementary work that we're doing. I would love to actually sit down and say, like, this is what we designed, these were the look-fors, and then this is what it actually looks like. I think that's a super cool way of thinking about it. And yeah, I mean, I guess one of the questions I have, too, is
Kristine Mizzone: when we involve students, I think sometimes they… if you were to ask them… when you ask them that question about what skills, do we need for… to be able to do this.
Kristine Mizzone: I wonder how much direction they need with that, and what does that look like from your side? What are you putting in front of them? Because sometimes, even as adults, we don't know what we don't know, right? And so it's…
Kristine Mizzone: it's… there's got to be some skilling up, I think, as well as saying, like, these are all the possible skills, which of these do you think are most relevant here?
Scott Jamieson: Exactly, and we do. We explore some different resources, different web searches that might pop up, and a lot of… there's a lot of commonalities, thinking about leadership skills, for example. We looked at the future of work, and what different companies like McKinsey
Scott Jamieson: Who talk about the different skills that students need for the future of work.
Scott Jamieson: and pull from some of these big lists to say, what do we think as student leaders is most impactful? What do we think as leaders of change in our organization that we need? And then thinking about ways we can build those.
Scott Jamieson: And, yeah, I think it is really cool that we get to work at the design end, but also work as capacity builders, working directly with teachers and students, and then being involved the whole way through as we connect with community partners and see the outcome of this work. That's really been our goal as an organization, to not just be
Scott Jamieson: the stage on the stage for those one-off PD workshops, but really involved with long-term partnerships with our school partners to really help this work to grow and flourish in schools.
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I love how Inspire Citizen really, you know, you talk about moving from awareness to agency, because that's the part that keeps us also
Kristine Mizzone: keeps us, when you think about the work we're doing, it keeps us from burning out, right? Like, this is… it can be heavy work for us, too, as school leaders, as consultants, as, educators. It's just, we care deeply about these topics, we care deeply about the students and the learning experiences they're having, and I think it's when you move to that agency piece, and you know, when you were mentioning having students at the table, really.
Kristine Mizzone: And then I'm seeing, in the work I'm doing around SEL, getting to a place where now our advisory programs are student-led. You know, so things like that.
Scott Jamieson: So cool.
Kristine Mizzone: co-designed, of course, right? And then we are kind of passing the baton, and they're learning those leadership skills of how to run an opening circle, or how to teach a little mini lesson on something that… that has come up as a priority for that advisory group.
Kristine Mizzone: And the other thing I wanted to mention, too, is you mentioned before something about
Kristine Mizzone: thinking, and spending time in that thinking phase before we jump to action. And I was just… because we're having a… an SEL leadership institute here in Bangkok, in just one week, and we'll be running these around the world in… over the next few years, because we just think it's so important to support school leaders with this.
Kristine Mizzone: and how you have these conversations. So I've been doing some reading, and one of the things I came across was Nancy Klein's book, and she talks about quality thinking precedes quality action.
Kristine Mizzone: So we really need to create environments, I know you're doing that with students, where you're really getting them to think and care before they act. And so what are we doing with school leaders in the same way? When we want to just jump to the action plan, we just want to see these lessons happening, we want standards
Kristine Mizzone: Already embedded and just taking off, but we haven't designed for quality thinking first.
Kristine Mizzone: And so that's really what, at ISCA, we've designed a whole kind of tool
Kristine Mizzone: Tool set, toolkit for school leaders to be able to
Kristine Mizzone: Bring those conversations to their school before they even make those bigger decisions.
Scott Jamieson: We often say to schools, sometimes you have to go slow to go fast.
Scott Jamieson: And by taking the time to slow down and be thoughtful about this work, and roll it out in phases, rather than jumping in K-12 right at the beginning, but thinking about who are our champions of this who are going to roll out first, and storytelling.
Scott Jamieson: Like, the stories is what bring people on board to a new initiative. The stories is what help connect and understand the power of this kind of learning. And with that in mind, do you have a favorite story? A school you've worked in, or a school you've consulted with.
Scott Jamieson: who are really doing some cool work with this… with social-emotional learning, and what does that look like? What does it sound like? What does it feel like when this is working well?
Kristine Mizzone: Oh my gosh, so many examples. It's hard… it's really honestly hard to pick one, because what I'll say is that the entry point… so a school might contact me, or might contact us at ISCA with a particular, very specific need, right?
Kristine Mizzone: And they might say something like, we need help with our elementary counseling program. And that's so specific. And we know that when we hear that, yes, we will… that's our entry point. We will meet you where you're at, and we know it's not going to stop there.
Kristine Mizzone: Right? Because what we're really talking about is school-wide approach to social-emotional learning and well-being, and so that's gonna touch everything.
Kristine Mizzone: So, another school might say something more broad, like, we want some support school-wide with how we approach behavior.
Kristine Mizzone: And what we're thinking is great, and we know that's going to impact that elementary counseling department as well. So the entry points are all different. I think one of my favorite, kind of, examples of something I see going really well, and I think is really cool… I'm actually going to be talking about this at the Data in Schools conference, at ACS Abu Dhabi coming up in February?
Kristine Mizzone: And here's… here's this sort of, like, this is the future of education, I think, which is…
Kristine Mizzone: shifting the conversations from behaviors and saying, you know, we're gonna have what we used to call the student of concern meetings, right? But shifting those so that we're really talking about the behavior and not the student, and we're really saying that behavior is a manifestation of potentially an unmet need.
Kristine Mizzone: Social-emotional need.
Kristine Mizzone: And or an underdeveloped skill.
Kristine Mizzone: And so our interventions must match that. So at ACS, what we're doing is we're exploring
Kristine Mizzone: how we can use data to inform those interventions that are going to come next. And so we're using things like the ISCA student standards to be able to say, if this behavior is presenting, it's potentially pointing to this underdeveloped skill around time management, and it points specifically to an ISCA indicator, in which case we can then go to the learning progression and say, where is that student on
Kristine Mizzone: this progression so that we can meet them where they're at and keep moving them along.
Kristine Mizzone: So I think that's really innovative. I think that if we could figure out those systems, the technology behind it to automate some of that, you know, if you input some of that data, will it make those connections for you to point to the unmet need and or the underdeveloped skill, so that you know how to follow up?
Kristine Mizzone: And it might turn out that you find out that behavior had nothing to do with either of those, but at least you've done the investigation, and you've tried an intervention. So I… that's one example of so many of what schools are trying when it comes to social-emotional learning, and it just points to that fact that every school's in a different place in this journey.
Kristine Mizzone: And that there are different entry points for schools.
Scott Jamieson: And I think it's a great example of how having the right tools and approaches can help us to improve student outcomes in school. By using some of this knowledge that comes from the development of these tools, I think we can be really effective in
Scott Jamieson: that's really our goal in school, to make sure that all of our students have positive outcomes, and I think this is a great way to achieve that.
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah, absolutely.
Scott Jamieson: Christina, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners that I haven't asked the right question to allow you to share?
Kristine Mizzone: Hmm…
Kristine Mizzone: I think… no, I think we covered a lot here, and I just… I just really hope that people are walking away, I guess, seeing that deep connection between global citizenship and social-emotional learning, and seeing that there are tools out there so that we're not reinventing the wheel. And more importantly, especially in international schools, I think the thing I really want people to understand is that as we move from school to school, as educators.
Kristine Mizzone: indicators.
Kristine Mizzone: but also as students, that the experience can be similar if we're drawing from the same standards and frameworks. So imagine if every school was drawing from the ISCA student standards to design what social-emotional learning looks like, then that progression for a student, no matter which school they're at.
Kristine Mizzone: Would be the same.
Kristine Mizzone: the same high expectations for learning when it comes to SEL, no matter what school you're at. And so that's really what I hope people understand and will take back and try to explore a little bit the use of these tools and frameworks in their own school.
Scott Jamieson: We do that with our academic subjects. Yeah! And when you step back and say, well, why don't we do that with SEL?
Scott Jamieson: why don't we? It absolutely makes sense. And we want to be having that continuity, because of course, when we're working in international schools, we have transition with staff, we also have transition with students.
Kristine Mizzone: How do we make that as smooth as possible?
Scott Jamieson: Christine, how do people find you, if they want to connect?
Kristine Mizzone: Perfect, yeah, so if you want to learn more or stay connected, you can find ISCA on social media at our website. Our website is ISCAINFO.com.
Kristine Mizzone: And also, I guess it's important to mention that through ISCA, there are so many ways to get involved and grow professionally, and of course for school counselors, but there's also other opportunities. You can become a member, even if you're not a counselor. And then when you do, you have access to webinars and things on topics like we've been talking about today.
Kristine Mizzone: We also have ISCA Academy courses that you can check out. Those are online, mostly online courses.
Kristine Mizzone: You can join us for our annual in-person conference that's going to be in Prague this year, and then we have an annual virtual conference each fall. We have a certificate program to become an ISCA-certified counselor. And if you're curious about the standards, you know, they're free, so you can go to our website, ISCAINFO.com, you can get the standards, you know, use them in your planning, and then you can also find
Kristine Mizzone: on our publication site, all the other tools and resources we have, like the learning progression or that leadership toolkit that I mentioned as well.
Scott Jamieson: Also, if you've enjoyed this conversation and think a more personalized approach might be for you.
Scott Jamieson: You can reach out to either of our organizations, Cisco or Inspire Citizens, and we run workshops together with one facilitator from each organization.
Scott Jamieson: To really help find that intersection between global citizenship and social-emotional learning, and how we might design a system for this at your school, personalized to where you are in the world and where you aspire to be with this work.
Scott Jamieson: So please don't hesitate to reach out. We would love to come and work with your school.
Kristine Mizzone: Yeah.
Scott Jamieson: sets.
Kristine Mizzone: Yes, yes, yes. Such good work.
Scott Jamieson: Christine, thanks so much. This has been a pleasure. We could keep talking all day, I think. I love the chance to catch up and share some of the amazing work that you're doing. We are big fans, and I really appreciate your time to just have a good conversation about what we aspire for in terms of the future of education, really, is what this comes down to.
Kristine Mizzone: It really is, yeah, it is. Very cool. Thank you so much for the opportunity, and sorry that I'm not a usual, guest under the age of 17, but, I hope that it was still enjoyable for our listeners.
Scott Jamieson: Thanks so much.
Kristine Mizzone: Take care.