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Ubuntu, a South African word, is "recognition that we are all bound together in ways that can be invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us,” said former president Barack Obama.
Ubuntu is a reminder that caring matters, especially caring for those who are different from us.
Read More"Helping people who are lonely or depressed is hard. If we’re going to build the kind of society we want, we’re all going to have to sacrifice,” says Rick Weissbourd in the Chicago Tribune.
Read MoreMaking Caring Common’s Caring Schools Network (CSN) supports K-12 schools in cultivating strong, caring school communities that nurture students’ social, emotional, and academic commitments and skills they need to care for people who are different from them and build caring, just communities.
Join us to learn more about the following:
How we support schools
How schools improve their culture and climate
Ways to become involved
We look forward to seeing you and answering your questions!
Read MoreDid you know that the new U.S. Census Bureau’s report shows that the number of children living in father-absent homes is down to 18.3 million?
Lake Country News cites our fatherhood research in this piece about the new data.
Read MoreWhat can we encourage with the carrot of educational access? And what supports must be in place to make these incentives effective?
Brennan Barnard writes in Forbes about enticing education, innovating incentives & supporting scholarships.
Read MoreStudents’ capacity for empathy can be developed by learning to appreciate other people’s stories. During this webinar, we’ll explore a strategy in which students share their own and other's stories in order to develop insight into the nuances of others' lived experiences, values and perspectives.
Read MoreStorytelling is a powerful tool for eliciting emotion and curiosity. It can be especially valuable in prompting students to reflect on their own identities and values, and to recognize that despite people’s differing stories, we all share commonalities. Stories allow us to bridge difference through understanding and connecting emotionally with others, even when we are physically apart. This session will share a strategy in which students identify and investigate their personal set of values and what/who matters to them. Students will use these values to guide the telling of (and making sense of) their own story.
Read More"The reality is this: Selective colleges, a portal to leadership and power in a wide array of fields, can now educate far more—and far more diverse—students...And they could create these pathways without threatening their revenue," argue the authors of our recent white paper.
Read more in this Inside Higher Ed piece by Scott Jaschik.
Read MoreCheck out this segment on Context Beyond the Headlines that references our Loneliness in America research and highlights the report's findings. MCC's Milena Batanova is featured in this interview about examining the impact of the pandemic on mental health.
Read MoreDue to the pandemic, for the first time since the Great Depression, the majority of young adults currently live with their parents, according to a 2020 study by the Pew Research Center. Antonia Lehnert elaborates on this, noting that “for many, college provided a much-needed structure to their lives. The summer leaves many wading in the emptiness of quarantine.”
Read MoreWhat do college admissions and pharmaceutical companies have in common? If a pharmaceutical company could “produce exponentially more vaccine doses but chose not to, there would be an uprising. And, if that pharmaceutical company disproportionately made the vaccine available to rich, white citizens, people would cry foul. A version of this happens every year in college admission, and unconscionably a culture of exclusivity celebrates this phenomenon rather than questions the inherent absurdity, inequity, and impact on qualified applicants." writes Brennan Barnard in Forbes.
Read MoreWith more people vaccinated and social activities picking up, will we finally feel less lonely?
“After a year of bingeing Netflix shows and battling the coronavirus, spirits are lifting across the country as vaccinations steadily roll out. But ‘the jab’ doesn’t cure all coronavirus ills,” write Erin Hunter and Lily Robinson in the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
Read More1 in 4 teens think it’s okay to breakup by changing your social media status to “single,” according to a Pew Research Center report from 2015. In this Washington Post piece, MCC's Rick Weissbourd "calls breakups a 'very powerful source of ethical education,' a chance for teens to reflect on their responsibilities to other people."
Read More“These levels of loneliness are heartbreaking. We have big holes in our social fabric,” says Rick Weissbourd referencing our loneliness report published in February. Jonathan Black from Duke University writes about how coworkers helped teammates cope with social isolation.
Read MoreHow are integrated schools seen as "educationally inferior, even as, paradoxically, parents recognize their value in the abstract?" writes Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft She Knows. Based on our research, when presented with options, white parents choose schools that are more white and more affluent than other choices available to them Why is this?
Read More"You shouldn’t gain status from how few people you accept. You should gain status from how many people you educate. We’re making the case that selective colleges should educate more people and a more diverse population," says Rick Weissbourd in this HGSE interview about our new white paper, Innovation and Justice: Reinventing Selective Colleges.
Read MoreCreating an equitable, inclusive school culture can be key in preventing a wide array of social and emotional problems and promoting the development of caring, responsible, and respectful children, even when school is remote. Because students primarily take signals from other students about social norms and what is ethically acceptable, and because students have inside knowledge about social dynamics, it is mainly students – especially acting together – who can change norms. One way to empower students to create positive social norms is by creating school climate committees comprised of students who work with peers and staff to develop these norms. This session focuses on the School Climate Committee, a strategy designed to help students – and adults – work collaboratively to shape their school environment. This session focuses on:
how to create a strong, effective committee of youth leaders that represents a diversity of voices among the student body and works with school staff to prevent bullying and other school social problems
how to use data to inform decision making and improve school climate, including creating more caring, inclusive social norms
how to provide students with a sense of agency and empowerment
We look forward to sharing evidence-based best practices. This will be an interactive experience, so we look forward to hearing what's working in your school community too! Please email caringschools@makingcaringcommon.org with any questions.
Read MoreLoneliness has become universal as the global pandemic has caused social isolation like we've never experienced. "Sure, we have social media, Zoom and other 21st century ways of connecting, but these are simply Band-Aids to cover a deeper sense of loneliness," writes Brennan Barnard in Forbes.
Read MoreCollege admissions in 2020 looked very different from previous years, says Lucille Brewster in this piece published by Vassar College’s student newspaper, The Miscellany News.
“We know many students didn’t have access to the same opportunities that they have had in the past, many had to care for others or had their own challenges, and many schools temporarily changed their grading policies,” said Vassar’s Dean of Admissions and Financial Services Sonya Smith.
Smith was one of 370 admissions officials to sign our Care Counts in Crisis: College Admissions Deans Respond to COVID-19 statement.
