Why You Need a “Why Wall”
Encouraging students to think about their purpose — and the skills they will gain from your class to help them achieve it — can increase engagement and resilience.
“U.S. schools failing in fight against youth mental health crisis, new report card finds.”
If you’re even tangentially connected to an American junior high, high school, or college, then you’ll know that this headline is far from exaggerated. The social-emotional turbulence wrought by the pandemic has left educators scrambling to support students facing mental health challenges — a systemic crisis with potentially fatal consequences. From 2019–2020, emergency department visits for mental health conditions spiked 31% among adolescents between 12–17, and in 2020, suicide was the third leading cause of death among adolescents between the ages of 15–19.
What’s more, this crisis has been exacerbated by an appalling lack of trained mental health professionals in schools. According to the American School Counselor Association, the United States has a 415:1 student-counselor ratio. For the students in my state, this disparity is even more pronounced: Arizona has a 716:1 student-counselor ratio, the worst in the nation.
Although the pandemic fueled the mental health crisis fire, the flames have been rising for years. In The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness, Emily Esfahani Smith (2017) explores the potential causes behind the 60% increase in global suicide rates since World War Two (p. 22). She describes a 2014 study in which almost 140,000 participants across 132 countries answered the following questions: 1) Are you satisfied with your life? and 2) Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?
When [the researchers] crunched the numbers, they discovered a striking trend: happiness and unhappiness did not predict suicide. The variable that did, they found, was meaning — or, more precisely, the lack of it (p. 23).
That’s right: our students don’t need us to throw pizza parties, add more spirit days to the school calendar, or make other desperate attempts to help them feel “happy.” Our students need us to help them find a purpose so that they can lead more fulfilling lives — and they need that help now.
While I can’t singlehandedly change our country’s chronically underfunded educational infrastructure to provide students with more comprehensive and effective mental health assistance, I did implement one seemingly small strategy that helped my students to stay engaged and build resilience: the “Why Wall.” This is how to make and use one in your own classroom.
1. Create your “why.”
Four in ten Americans have not discovered a satisfying life purpose. And nearly a quarter of Americans — about one hundred million people — do not have a strong sense of what makes their lives meaningful (Esfahani Smith, 2017, p. 24).
The first step toward helping students to develop their “why” is to create your own. A “why” can be related to specific jobs or careers, but it can also encompass lifestyles or dispositions — what matters is that it’s authentic to you. Maybe you can already rattle off your “why” — or, if you’re like me and 100 million other Americans, you need time and space to articulate your purpose. It took me a few days and several rounds of feedback from family and friends, but I eventually landed on the following:
My “why” is to show students how to better love themselves, their peers, and their communities.
When we’re focused on pursuing our purpose rather than chasing after happiness, we’ll be more likely to persist through the inevitable challenges that arise when dealing with the complex — and sometimes chaotic — nature of our work.
2. Share your “why” with students.
Because our purpose is deeply personal, it can be terrifying to actually talk about it — especially with students. But if we expect our students to take a risk in creating their “why,” we need to model that same level of vulnerability. After all, how can we develop an inclusive learning space if we exclude ourselves from it?
3. Ask students to develop their “why.”
After sharing your “why,” ask students to develop their own. Because it’s likely that many students have never been asked to identify (much less discuss) their purpose in a school setting, I recommend using the following strategy, a twist on the classic “think-pair-share,” to help them to feel more comfortable engaging in this process — particularly with their peers.
- Think It. Students individually contemplate their “why” — in other words, their purpose in life. Some students might need 10 seconds; others might need 10 minutes. If you’re not sure how much time is appropriate for your students, ask them (and then honor their recommendation!).
- Pair It. Students choose a partner with whom to share their “why.” The operative word here is “choose,” as students will be more comfortable sharing their purpose with someone they trust.
- Share It. Students share their “why” with their peers.
- Expand It. Within the same partnerships, students discuss the following questions: 1) What skills do you want to gain from this class to help you get closer to your “why”? 2) What types of texts, activities, and/or projects do you think might help you gain these skills?
- Refine It. Based on their conversations, students refine their “why” to include the skills they’d like to gain and the ways in which they might be able to gain them through your class.
- Post It. Students write down the refined version of their “why” on a Post-It note before sticking it to the “Why Wall” (which you’ll learn more about in the next section).
4. Display your “whys” in a prominent place in the classroom.
My students and I have compiled our “whys” on what we call the “Why Wall,” which is one of the first things we see when we walk through the door. The “Why Wall” not only serves as a daily reminder of our purpose, but invites visitors (whether students, teachers, administrators, or parents and community members) to think about their own roles in creating meaningful lives for themselves and empowering others in their communities to do the same.
5. Throughout the year, ask students to reflect on their “why.”
While the “Why Wall” could be a meaningful one-time activity, it would be even more meaningful — and effective — to ask students to reflect on it throughout the year. Here are some questions I’ve used to help students connect their experiences in our class to their purposes in life.
- How can/did this activity/project align to your “why”? Explain.
- How can/did you use this experience to help you to reach your “why”? Explain.
- What skills could/did you gain from this activity/project that moved/will move you closer to your “why”? Explain.
Just like their teachers, students are more likely to demonstrate resilience when they’re reminded that “happiness” and “purpose” aren’t always synonymous; in fact, they’ll discover that it’s normal to face setbacks and grapple with difficult emotions when working to achieve their goals. But the benefits of the reflection process aren’t limited to students. If teachers listen to students about the skills they’re gaining and the skills they still want to acquire, they can better tailor instruction to students’ needs, interests, and goals, which in turn serves to increase engagement and strengthen student-teacher relationships.
By enabling students to identify, share, and continually reflect on their purpose, educators can help to create “positive cultures of meaning” in their classrooms (Esfahani Smith, 2017, p. 193). Developing these types of psychologically safe learning environments, which hold space for teachers and students alike to explore and make meaning, are especially important for adolescents navigating the emotional challenges of high school — not to mention the pandemic. Our students’ lives may depend on it.
