Preparing the Whole Educator to Reach and Teach the Whole Learner
Our Mission
At the Center for Reaching & Teaching the Whole Child (CRTWC), we partner with teacher educators and education leaders to reimagine teacher preparation and development—equipping the whole educator to reach and teach the whole child.
Our Vision
We envision a world of reflective, responsive, and resilient educators who create supportive and inclusive learning environments where all learners develop the capacities to thrive, navigate a changing world, and contribute to the greater good.
Our Approach
Teaching is about more than delivering content. It involves creating the social, emotional, and relational conditions that are foundational to student learning and development. Yet, many educators feel underprepared for creating these conditions and for developing, in students, the social and emotional skills needed for learning and in life.
CRTWC bridges this gap by supporting the educators who teach and support teachers—university faculty, mentors, instructional leaders, and others. Guided by our Anchor Competencies Framework (“the Framework”), we provide professional learning, evidence-based resources, and partnership support to strengthen how teachers are prepared and developed. We help teacher educators and education leaders equip teachers with the mindsets, skills, and practices needed to create learning environments where all students can thrive socially, emotionally, and academically.
Over the past 17 years, our work has reached educators, preparation programs, districts, and state systems across the country, creating a multiplier effect that extends from the educators we support to tens of thousands of teachers and, ultimately, millions of students.
Supporting the Whole Educator: What Do We Mean?
Educators are mentors, relationship-builders, and facilitators of learning who help students develop both academically and personally. Preparing them for this work requires more than instructional expertise—it requires a social, emotional, and cultural lens and the capacities essential for effective and transformative teaching. Meeting this need is at the heart of our work, and Anchor Competencies Framework.
Supporting the Whole Learner: What Do We Mean?
Our Anchor Competencies Framework provides a roadmap for the mindsets, skills, and practices educators need to create supportive, inclusive, and engaging learning environments where all students can thrive. Grounded in the science of teaching and learning, culturally responsive practice, and social and emotional learning, our Framework helps educators and education systems put the relational and human-centered dimensions of teaching front and center—so that students feel seen, supported, challenged, and able to reach their fullest potential.
Partnering: What Do We Mean?
We work alongside teacher preparation programs, schools and districts, and state-level agencies to strengthen how educators are prepared and supported. Together, we bring a whole educator and whole child lens to professional learning, resource development, and systems-change—helping create the conditions for teachers to build supportive, inclusive, and engaging learning environments where all students can thrive.
Our Offerings
We strengthen educator preparation and professional learning through an integrated approach to systems change at the state, district, and educator level:
A Foundational Framework
Our Anchor Competencies Framework is a roadmap for teachers to create the conditions that support students’ social, emotional, and academic development. Rather than seeing such competencies as isolated skills to master, the Framework recognizes that effective teaching emerges from the dynamic interaction of relationships, reflection, context, and practice.
Professional Learning
We bring our work to life through professional learning offerings, evidence-based resources, and tailored consultation for teacher educators, education leaders, and teachers – helping educators embed a whole child approach across teacher preparation, teacher development, and education systems.
Individual & Group Learning: The Book
Our work is based on founder Nancy Lourié Markowitz’s book Teaching with a Social, Emotional, and Cultural Lens. Grounded in over a decade of pioneering work, the book supports educators, schools and districts, and teacher preparation programs to prepare and equip the whole educator to reach and teach the whole child.
State Level Policy Work
We partner with state-level agencies and districts to develop and inform teacher preparation and development standards, expectations, evaluation, and licensure and credentialing requirements – emphasizing the social, emotional, cultural, and relational dimensions of teaching.
