Preschool and school is a social laboratory where young people practice the art of living together. Helping them build empathy, communication, cooperation, and altruism—through modeled behavior, collaborative tasks, conflict repair, and daily rituals that make kindness visible—means helping them develop skills that remain long after grades fade away.

Young people learn emotional intelligence by watching us: the calm we model, the empathy we express, the apologies we make. Our job isn’t to shield them from emotion, but to walk beside them and show that feelings are messages to understand, not problems to hide.