Emily Henderson

The Question That Started It All

When I first walked into a Cohort 21 session and was asked to articulate my “How Might We” question, I didn’t hesitate: “How might we maintain a diverse range of texts—both in authorship and themes—to ensure that students feel represented in their education, creating more safe, accepting, and empathic spaces to learn and grow?”

This question didn’t emerge from abstract idealism. It came from seven years of teaching experience, countless conversations with students who didn’t see themselves in the literature we assigned, and a deep conviction that curriculum choices are never neutral. They are statements about who we value, whose stories matter, and who belongs in our classrooms. After spending six confident years at my previous school, I moved to a new school this year—and suddenly felt like a first-year teacher again, uncertain about norms and unsure how to advocate for my values in an unfamiliar community. My HMW question became my anchor.

Where the Rubber Met the Road

The first real test came early. My co-teacher and I needed to finalize our Grade 10 curriculum, and I advocated strongly for keeping The Laramie Project—a play that explores the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard and asks students to grapple with LGBTQ+ representation, community responsibility, and justice. My co-teacher was hesitant. But I stood firm. I believed then—and I believe now—that this text does irreplaceable work in creating empathy and safety for our students.

Then something happened that made this abstract commitment deeply, heartbreakingly real. A student approached me privately and shared something deeply personal: they were navigating their own identity and transition, and they needed to know if this classroom was a safe place for them. They needed to know if I would be an ally.

In that moment, every decision I’d made about representation and curriculum choice crystallized into a single, clear purpose: this matters because students are watching, listening, and deciding whether they belong.

The Lessons I’ll Carry Forward

This year has taught me three things I won’t forget.

First, classrooms have significant long-term effects on students. We often get caught up in whether students master a particular skill or concept by June. But the real work of teaching is subtler and deeper: we shape whether students see themselves as worthy of being heard, whether they develop empathy for people different from themselves, whether they believe their identity is safe to explore. These effects ripple far beyond the academic year.

Second, advocacy matters—and it requires courage. It would have been easier to defer to my co-teacher’s concerns. It would have been easier to keep the curriculum comfortable and conventional. But I’ve learned that being a good educator sometimes means having difficult conversations and standing behind what you believe is best for students. Not stubbornly, but thoughtfully, with evidence and heart.

Third, representation creates belonging in ways that nothing else can. When students see characters who share their identity, their struggles, their joy—they are being told that their stories are worthy of literary attention. They are being included. And for some students, particularly those from marginalized communities, that inclusion is transformative.

Resources That Shaped My Thinking

My learning this year has been supported by powerful resources I’ve explored with my students:

• Small Town Pride (CBC Gem documentary)—which offers nuanced storytelling about LGBTQ+ experiences in rural communities
• YouTube videos exploring identity, belonging, and self-discovery
• Research into Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) and how they create safe spaces in schools

These resources, combined with student conversations, have deepened my understanding of why representation isn’t a luxury—it’s essential.

The Big Takeaway

If I’m honest, this realization terrifies me a little: Teaching is about shaping who students become, not just what they know. We are in the business of human development. The books we choose, the conversations we facilitate, the identities we make visible or invisible—these are not peripheral details. They are the core of what we do.

And there is nothing—nothing—more important than the long-term impact we have on our students.

The Questions That Keep Me Up at Night

Even as I feel clearer about my values and commitments, I’m sitting with new questions:

• What other texts have the transformative power of The Laramie Project? How do I build a curriculum that consistently offers representation across identity categories?
• Will a more conservative school community be open to a Gender-Sexuality Alliance? How do I advocate for this kind of safe space in a climate where I’m still establishing myself?
• How do I honor different viewpoints while holding firm to my conviction that representation and safety are non-negotiable?

These aren’t questions I expect to solve this year. But living in them—rather than dismissing them—feels like the honest work of a teacher committed to growth.

Cohort 21: Meeting Me Where I Was

I need to pause and acknowledge something: this journey would have felt much lonelier without Cohort 21.

Switching schools after six confident years was disorienting. Suddenly I was uncertain about what was normal, what was possible, what I could push for. I felt like I’d lost my expertise. But within Cohort 21, I found a community of educators in similar transitions—wrestling with similar questions, taking similar risks, supporting one another. The cohort didn’t tell me what to do. Instead, it met me where I was: uncertain but hopeful, new to this context but clear about my values. It gave me permission to ask, “How might we?” and to believe that the answer matters.

That sense of community, of being understood by people walking similar paths, has been invaluable.

Looking Forward

As I close this chapter of my Cohort 21 journey, I’m carrying a clearer sense of who I am as a teacher. I am someone who believes that curriculum is never neutral, that representation saves lives, and that advocacy for students is part of my job description. I am someone willing to have difficult conversations and to stand behind what I believe, even when I’m new and uncertain.

I don’t know yet if I’ll successfully establish a GSA at my school. I don’t know if my more conservative community will embrace all of the texts I hope to teach. But I know this: I will keep asking “How might we?” I will keep choosing literature that tells the stories of students who have been historically silenced. I will keep showing up for students who are figuring out who they are. And I will keep building the kind of classroom where every student—regardless of their identity, background, or story—knows they belong.

That’s the teacher I’m becoming. And Cohort 21 helped me see it.

HMW Question: How might we transform the grade 10 Global Leadership (Capstone) Program’s reflective journals into a tool for improving written communication skills that make the program feel more cohesive and valuable?

The Challenge

Global Leadership Day reflections are a powerful touchpoint in your Capstone Program, but they’re currently underutilized as a communication skills development tool. While English teachers provide content feedback, grammar quality—particularly verb tense agreement—isn’t being systematically addressed. With multiple audiences (teachers, parents, universities, head of school) reviewing these reflections, polished writing becomes a program asset rather than an afterthought.

Your Design Thinking Solution

Core Strategy: Preventative Grammar Instruction + Self-Correction Mastery

Rather than correcting errors after the fact, you’re embedding targeted grammar lessons before Global Leadership Day, with explicit expectations that students will apply and then practice these skills in their reflections.

The Three-Part Framework

1. Standalone Verb Tense Lessons in English Class (Pre-GLP Day)
   Students receive focused instruction on verb tense agreement with clear messaging: “This skill is essential for your Global Leadership reflection and will be visible to multiple audiences.”
2. Direct Application in Reflections
   Students apply the verb tense lesson immediately in their Global Leadership Day reflection, making the learning purposeful and concrete.
3. Structured Practice & Refinement
   Post-reflection, students engage in targeted practice to deepen their ability to identify and self-correct tense shifts independently.

Success Metrics (By April 2026)

Primary Goal 1: Students can identify and self-correct their own verb tense shifts with increasing independence and accuracy.

Primary Goal 2: Global Leadership reflections are polished—creating a cohesive program narrative.

Actionable Implementation Timeline: December 2025 – April 2026

December 2025: Foundation & Planning

• Week 1-2: Collaborate with English department to design standalone verb tense lesson(s) that explicitly connect to Global Leadership reflections
• Week 2-3: Create a simple self-correction checklist for students (e.g., “Circle all verbs in your reflection. Do they match your intended timeframe?”)
• Week 3-4: Pilot the lesson with one class; gather feedback on clarity and applicability

January 2026: First Application Cycle

• Week 1-2: English teachers deliver verb tense lesson to all Grade 10 students
• Week 2-3: Students write Global Leadership Day reflections with explicit expectation to apply the lesson
• Week 3-4: Teachers review reflections; note patterns in verb tense errors and successes

February 2026: Practice & Refinement

• Week 1-2: Introduce structured practice activities (e.g., editing exercises, peer review focused on tense consistency, self-assessment protocols)
• Week 2-4: Students engage in targeted practice; build metacognitive awareness of their own tense-shifting patterns

March 2026: Scaling & Expansion

• Week 1-2: Reflect on what’s working; identify which students need additional support
• Week 2-3: Consider layering in additional writing skills (clarity, organization, conciseness) for future cycles
• Week 3-4: Prepare reflections for broader audiences (university applications, head of school review)

April 2026: Celebration & Iteration

• Week 1-2: Showcase polished reflections; celebrate student growth in self-correction and writing quality
• Week 2-3: Gather data: Compare verb tense accuracy across cohorts; measure student confidence in self-editing
• Week 3-4: Plan next iteration: What worked? What needs adjustment? How do we expand this framework to other writing skills?

Key Success Factors

• Explicit Expectation-Setting: Students must understand that verb tense mastery is a program priority and will be visible to multiple audiences
• Preventative Approach: Teaching before writing, not correcting after
• Self-Correction Focus: Build independence and metacognitive awareness, not dependence on teacher feedback
• Scalability: Design the framework so additional writing skills can be layered in over time
• Audience Awareness: Remind students that polished reflections serve their university applications and program reputation

Potential Obstacles & Solutions

Long-Term Vision (Beyond April 2026)

This verb tense framework is your foundation. Once students master self-correction for tense agreement, you can layer in:

• Clarity and conciseness in academic writing
• Organization and flow in reflective pieces
• Voice and audience awareness for different contexts (university applications vs. internal reflections)
• Peer review protocols that build collaborative writing culture

By building this systematically, your Global Leadership Capstone Program becomes known not just for leadership development, but for communication excellence—a differentiator for university applications and a source of pride for your school.

Next Steps (This Week)

1. Schedule a conversation with your English department lead to align on the verb tense lesson design
2. Draft the self-correction checklist students will use
3. Set a date for the first lesson delivery
4. Share this plan with your head of school—she’ll appreciate the intentionality and the polished reflections it will produce

You’ve got this! Your Design Thinking process has moved from a challenge to a concrete, actionable plan. The key now is implementation and iteration. 🚀

Professional reflection often reveals uncomfortable truths about how we allocate our time and energy. This became evident during my recent engagement with the Eisenhower Matrix exercise, which requires categorizing work tasks by their urgency and importance. The results of this analysis were both revealing and concerning.

Upon careful examination, I discovered that I had been misclassifying numerous daily responsibilities as both urgent and important when they were, in fact, neither. Email correspondence requiring immediate responses, uniform compliance monitoring, and various administrative duties had been consuming disproportionate amounts of my professional attention. While these tasks created a sense of constant activity, they were not advancing my core educational objectives or contributing meaningfully to student outcomes.

When I removed these misclassified urgencies from consideration, two critical areas emerged in the “important but not urgent” category: developing meaningful relationships with students and engaging in thoughtful lesson planning. However, after deeper consideration, one priority stood out as particularly compelling: fostering deeper connections with students that facilitate authentic engagement with academic content.

This focus extends beyond simply maintaining positive classroom relationships. Research consistently demonstrates that when students develop trust in their educators, they are more willing to engage in intellectual risk-taking, pose substantive questions, and invest genuinely in their learning. Trust serves as the foundational element that enables meaningful academic engagement.

My professional commitment for this academic year centers on three specific strategies: demonstrating greater understanding and patience during instruction, implementing regular check-ins with students about their learning progress and interests, and actively inquiring about their personal interests and connections to course material. Additionally, I intend to leverage one of my professional strengths—strong memory retention—to demonstrate authentic listening and care for student contributions.

The impact of remembering and referencing student concerns, interests, or previous contributions cannot be understated. When an educator recalls a student’s anxiety about an upcoming event and follows up weeks later, or references a connection the student made between course content and their personal interests, it communicates genuine care and attention. These moments of recognition build the trust necessary for transformative learning experiences.

My immediate implementation strategy involves learning something meaningful about each student’s interests and ensuring they understand that their contributions are valued and remembered. This represents a pedagogical shift from content delivery to student-centered engagement, moving from “here is what you must learn” to “how can I support your learning journey?”

This approach matters because students who feel genuinely seen and understood naturally increase their investment in learning. When this occurs within a classroom environment, it creates positive ripple effects: peer engagement increases, learning becomes more collaborative, and it may inspire colleagues to reconsider their own approaches to student relationship-building.

While administrative responsibilities will continue to exist, they will no longer dominate my professional focus or creative energy. Instead, that energy will be directed toward its most impactful application: building the relationships that make transformative learning possible.

This year represents my commitment to recognizing that effective time management is fundamentally about attention management. I am choosing to direct my professional attention toward what creates lasting impact: authentic connection with the students I have the privilege to educate.