Keynote 2026: On Belonging

Belonging is felt in moments. It happens when a student walks into a classroom and quietly decides whether it is safe to take a risk, ask a question, struggle openly, or let themselves be known. It lives in the routines, the feedback, the corrections — the small everyday moments that shape how students experience the classroom and themselves.

Belonging is a daily experience built inside classrooms, and it shows up in three questions students carry with them: Can I learn here? Do I matter here? Am I safe enough to struggle here?

When students can answer yes, learning opens up. When they can’t, they retreat — and we don’t always see it happening. Through personal storytelling, practical reflection, and school-based examples, this keynote explores how expectations, feedback, relationships, and purposeful challenge shape students’ sense of belonging every day — and what educators can do to strengthen it.

Afternoon Deep Dive: Build Your Journey Map

In this deep dive, teachers will create a Belonging Journey Map by walking through the student experience from the moment students enter the classroom to the moment they leave. Participants will remember moments where belonging is already being created, discover places where students may feel unseen, uncertain, disconnected, or afraid to struggle, and reimagine small teacher moves that could strengthen belonging. Using the three student questions — Can I learn here? Do I matter here? Am I safe enough to struggle here? — teachers will examine everyday moments such as welcoming students, beginning class, engaging students in lessons, responding to questions, giving feedback, correcting behavior, supporting peer interactions, managing transitions, and repairing moments of disconnection. Throughout the session, teachers will share practical ideas with one another, surface strategies that are already working in their classrooms, and collaboratively generate new approaches they can adapt to their own spaces.