Wellness Session: Communicating Your Mental Health Needs

Some of the most life-changing and impactful learning moments happen outside of the classroom, in kitchens, over a hot breakfast made by someone else’s mother at 5:30 in the morning. 

That’s where the Sonder project begins. 

Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School (LSRHS) senior PJ Purvis spent a night at his friend Moses Sibley’s home in Mattapan, a neighborhood of Boston, MA. They woke before sunrise, Moses’s mother cooked them breakfast, and they headed out for the bus. When Moses stayed at PJ’s house in Sudbury, they slept until 7:30 and settled for protein bars. Two different communities, households, and realities of life, connected by friendship, and, ultimately, understanding. 

A normal teenage experience became the foundation for Sonder — the student-initiated documentary film project pairing Boston and Lincoln-Sudbury students for 24-hour home exchanges. Named after the quiet realization that every person around us is living a life as rich and real as your own, Sonder asks young people to fully step into someone else's world, and then tell that story together. 

Six pairs of students spent time in each other’s homes, interviewed a family member or role model who has shaped their partner’s life, and created short documentary films that captured what they discovered. Throughout the experience, each student journaled about their evolution from stranger to acquaintance to friend. 

Before the cameras began to roll, students went through a hands-on training with Tom Flint of Filmbuilding, who guided them through the technical and creative foundations of documentary filmmaking, from the shooting to the editing and the nuances of visual storytelling. With that training, students had the tools to advance past simple documentation—they had the language to both shape and share their experiences. Throughout the project, Tom checked in with each pair as they moved from raw footage to a finished film. Together, they translated the deeply personal moments into a cohesive story. The entire process wove together everything the students were observing, feeling, and learning.

On May 18th, EMA and LSRHS invited members of their community to a film premiere and roundtable conversation at the Berkshire Partners Blue Hill Boys & Girls Club in Dorchester, MA. As each film was screened, audiences were immersed in the lives and experiences of each student pair. Kyla Goss, EMA’s Director of Outreach and Engagement, was in attendance and noted how deeply transformative she believed this experience would prove to be for these students as they continue on their life journeys.

“It’s incredible to see these students create experiences for themselves that will shape them for the rest of their lives,” Kyla observed. “To intentionally opt for an experience that puts them in unfamiliar spaces is awe-inspiring — after doing this, there are really no limitations to what they can do.”

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It all began in 2023, when EMA partner BYkids asked for help with a specific kind of capacity support. With a rich archive of student-directed short films, BYkids was seeking new ways to bring those stories into classrooms and thoughtfully integrate them into school curriculum. Based on their years of experience as classroom educators, EMA Executive Director Bill Meyer and EMA Director of Education David Grace knew the best strategy was to go directly to the source: teachers and students. They assembled a small group of educators, students, and EMA team members to form the first Community of Learners (CoL) cohort to begin exploring curriculum integration ideas and pathways. “For a lot of students, education is done to them, not for them,” David noted. “Every day, they go to ‘play school,’ but they don’t have agency over what education looks like or why it matters.”

As a full-time history teacher at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School (LSRHS), David took the lead in putting this idea into practice and immediately began integrating BYkids films into his curriculum and sharing them with his students. This single decision sparked a dynamic partnership between EMA and LSRHS, ultimately leading to students telling their own stories through film, the expansion of classroom curriculum built on David’s course using BYkids films, the development of open-source BYkids integration guides, and a professional development program for teachers focused on purpose education.

How do we put purpose education into practice in schools today? According to David, teachers are the key protagonists. Reflecting on his twenty years in the classroom, he noted, “We’re always encouraging students to collaborate, but we don’t collaborate enough ourselves. Most teachers are isolated in their classrooms, with very little time to meet with one another because there’s always an infinity of needs to address.”

At a time when student attendance and engagement are declining nationwide, and teachers are overwhelmed by growing demands, EMA steadily built and designed the CoL as a space for educators to collaborate regularly, connect with like-minded peers, and exchange lessons and lived experiences. EMA handles the logistics and technical support so teachers can simply show up, engage deeply, and feel part of a genuine community.

In 2024, following the initial phase of EMA’s partnership with LSRHS, EMA welcomed a new partner, Filmbuilding, and the opportunities for purpose-driven learning through visual storytelling continued to grow.

Around that time, David’s colleague at LSRHS, Lori Hodin, had been working closely with students in Boston’s METCO program, a voluntary busing program that enables students to attend local schools outside Boston city boundaries. Many of the students involved, primarily students of color, shared with Lori that they struggled to feel a sense of belonging or acceptance at LSRHS. Lori brought this issue to David, who recognized the perfect opportunity to invite Filmbuilding to collaborate with these students to co-create short films, initiating what became the Belonging project.

During this weeks-long project, students from the METCO program and students attending LSRHS were divided into four groups, and each produced a film exploring what “belonging” meant to them. EMA sponsored a public screening of the completed films in Boston, followed by a Q&A with the student filmmakers and featuring a behind-the-scenes documentary called Belong-In directed by LSRHS student Moses Sibley, capturing both the process and the student experience of the project. 

The powerful impact of the project led to further collaborations with Filmbuilding the following semester, designed to cultivate collaboration and build community far beyond the school’s walls. In two virtual filmmaking workshops, LSRHS students collaborated with students in both Ghana and South Africa to co-create a series of short films on the theme of Unity in Diversity. 

After the successful completion of these purpose storytelling projects at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, EMA’s partnership with LSRHS was formalized in October of 2025. Now, as an EMA Founding School Partner, LSRHS faculty and students have priority, fee-free access to EMA educational offerings—ranging from professional development workshops for teachers to support with coordinating student programming and showcases. 

Today, EMA’s partnership with LSRHS stands as a powerful example of what’s possible when storytelling, purpose, and collaboration are placed at the center of education, with LSRHS as the primary launch pad for building out EMA’s purpose-driven programming for both students and teachers.

Right now, education systems are under pressure. Teachers are asked to keep up with evolving technology, find innovative ways to communicate information, and compete for classroom attention, all while conducting standardized mandates and considering the individual realities of their students. This environment can leave educators feeling isolated, overwhelmed, and unable to operate with the agency that originally drew them to teaching. 

At the same time, many teachers come to the profession motivated by purpose, chasing their own ambitions, insights, and intellectual curiosities, while also wanting to inspire students, foster deep thinking, and help the next generation make sense of the world. Such a sense of purpose and need often becomes sidelined by day-to-day administrative pressures and a general lack of support. 

There are real consequences for this disconnect. According to a 2025 report from the Center for American Progress, nearly 70% of early career teachers have either left the profession or seriously considered doing so, with the majority attributing driving factors to poor working conditions, lack of support, and low pay. Beyond individuals, a 2026 report from the Learning Policy Institute found that about 1 in 7 public school teachers moves schools or leaves the classroom. This is a turnover rate 27% higher than it was in the early 1990s. But, the data also points us to solutions. Teachers who reported higher levels of workplace satisfaction were less likely to leave, with a turnover probability of 8% compared to 22% of teachers with low satisfaction. Going farther than retention, there are also issues with experience and mentorship. One in three early career teachers reported not participating in any formal induction training, leaving many feeling isolated, under-resourced, and without the tools needed to succeed. 

EMA understands this divide and is committed to making school meaningful again, starting with programs and resources to help teachers thrive. That is why we established the Community of Learners (CoL), a cohort of educators sharing classroom curriculum and building community in the education space, all while developing new resources and mechanisms to promote student agency and purpose. Through monthly meetings, educators become collaborators, taking on the shared mission of making education purposeful and innovative.

And it works. On February 27, the CoL hosted a professional development (PD) workshop bringing together teachers from six different school districts in the greater Boston area to explore how purpose storytelling can be used in the classroom. With tools from EMA partners BYKids and Filmbuilding, teachers stepped into the role of learners, experimenting with narrative and visual storytelling, and reflecting on how these approaches could be tailored to their own classrooms. Teachers spoke about using BYkids films in their classrooms, spanning disciplines from science and math to history and even ceramics. Outside of the resources’ classroom applicability, teachers felt accounted for, noting that the experience was made by them, for them. It was an engaging session with active sharing, bringing educators into community with one another. 

Following the workshop we welcomed the participating teachers into the CoL fold. Early feedback from those teachers points to the potential that exists when they are given this kind of space and support. When describing the collaborative support of the CoL, one teacher noted, “Just being there for support and as a sounding board is awesome.” Another said, “It's great to bounce project ideas off of other teachers and get feedback.”   

Leaning on the storytelling aspects of the PD, participating teachers reflected on how to infuse these ideas into their classrooms, including “helping our students use the films for finding empathy and helping to tell their own stories.” In the Community of Learners, disciplines are not a barrier, as exemplified by one teacher who said, “Currently I am using it for Empathy lessons. I really would love to integrate storytelling in my Rock Climbing and Adventure Rec Classes.” 

The ultimate goal is to carve out a future where teachers feel empowered to lead with sustained purpose, and where students are given the tools to explore their identity, think critically, and meaningfully interact with the world around them. With the CoL, we are making this future tangible. We aim to support educators in the how and why they teach by centering reflection, creativity, and connection as the core components of learning. Together, we are working to bring meaning back to education and create classrooms where both students and teachers can show up as their full selves.