I believe this is a pivotal moment—one that underscores the importance of our Center’s work. It calls on those of us engaged in educator preparation and development to double down on what matters most: equipping educators with the skills and capacities to create safe, brave, and supportive learning environments where students can develop the deeply human skills needed for navigating life in this complex world. In a world where AI is rapidly advancing, we need educators who are prepared to model, teach, and cultivate in students these important life skills. We need teachers who construct learning experiences where students learn how best to collaborate with others, hold a growth mindset, persevere in the face of life’s struggles and challenges, respond constructively across differences, and the list goes on. We need teachers who are equipped with a social, emotional, and cultural lens – a lens that will help them to observe and understand patterns in student behavior and, for instance, help students navigate, in real-time, the conflicts that inevitably emerge with peers. Research reinforces this. Studies show that skills such as growth mindset, grit, self-regulation, and collaboration are powerful predictors of long-term outcomes, including health, income, and social functioning—and, in some cases, can be stronger predictors of academic success than IQ (Duckworth, 2007; Duckworth & Seligman, 2005). These are the skills and capacities that we need to be focusing on within our education system and preparing teachers to develop. | 
