Ferant

Ferant is ed-tech start up that provides school communities with a socio-emotional learning hub. As students use it for just for a few minutes in each class, there are additive effects, as students have lessons on personal regulation and relationships reinforced by caring teachers. Why is this important? Psychologists and educators agree that a person’s mindset determines their outcome. This is particularly true of adolescents, who are experiencing a physical and cognitive explosion. Every day, middle and high school teachers have the honor of seeing emerging identities. Young people’s inner selves getting called of their shells. Psychologists tell us that seeing your sense of competency is critical for building a durable and satisfying sense of self. Students build mastery and build competence by completing work and by seeing the successes that come their way. But too often, they are not asked to attend to being strategic about this process. Teachers need to get students to ask themselves key SEL questions, whether they are deadlifting their weight in cast iron or memorizing Spanish vocabulary or explaining the causes of World War II: What does this task have to do with you as a learner? How can you break it down into subordinated sub-tasks? What personal goals do you have for yourself, and how do they compare and interact with assigned tasks? How can you plan and timeline the work so that you complete large, multi-step efforts with passion and success? What do these understandings reveal about your future career or personal path? If we fail to ask these questions and if we fail to engage students in asking these questions of themselves? At Ferant, we want to set the stage for students to be the directors of their lives, to know their purposes by examining values and intellectual assets, to explore interests, and to chart a path forward to do what they previously thought was impossible.