Social & Emotional Learning for Independent Education

Rise Out is excited to offer SELFIE, a year-long health and wellness program designed to support teenagers as they develop the skills necessary to be successful in high school, in college, and as adults. Students will meet virtually three hours a week for an entire academic year, focusing on five key areas:

1) understanding mental health and the mind-body connection;
2) developing an empowered, confident stance towards sexuality and relationships;
3) gaining the media literacy tools necessary to recognize and critique toxic online environments;
4) planning for college and career; and
5) strengthening "executive function" skills relevant to academic success.

This year-long adventure will culminate in a trip to Alaska in the summer of 2025.

Why Social and Emotional Learning?

Social pressures on teenagers are not new, but those challenges have become especially acute in the face of digital distractions, online misinformation, and post-pandemic isolation. Quite reasonably, many students feel unfocused and adrift. Our goal is to help them regulate their emotions, stand up for themselves in their relationships, develop the resiliency to meet academic challenges, and gain a sense of agency over their own lives.

How Does It Work?

SELFIE will be co-taught by Rise Out's core teachers (Laura Fokkena, Alyssa Hartson, and Michael Mayo), along with three teachers who bring unique areas of expertise to this subject: Caitlin Hogan, a fitness and nutrition expert; Adam Schilling, a clinician and coach specializing in positive psychology; and Terri Senft, a digital media researcher and consultant with the World Health Organization on young people's social media use. This six-person team will be joined by a number of guest speakers who will speak on a diverse set of topics, from body image to gender identity to preparing a top-notch college application.

The class will meet on Zoom on Wednesdays 4:00-5:00 EST and Thursdays 11:30-1:30 EST from September through the end of June, with a long December break. It will include the following modules:

"Everything I Know about Bodies, I Learned on the Internet": A year-long sex education program, adapted from the Our Whole Lives (OWL) program. OWL is a secular, progressive, LGBT+ -friendly approach to relationships and sexuality that rejects limited "abstinence-only" programs commonly found in schools in favor of a philosophy that emphasizes consent, ethical behavior, bullying/bystander responsibilities, body image, disability, and the importance of approaching relationships from a place of integrity and autonomy. The core OWL program already addresses social media, but Terri -- a professor who has been researching online culture since the 1990s -- has adapted it even further so that digital media literacy is threaded through the entire program. Each week, participants will be encouraged to think critically about the online messages they've absorbed regarding gender, sexuality, relationships, and body image.
"Being Me": Adam will spend the first trimester encouraging students to build a relationship with their thoughts, their emotions, and the way they respond mentally and physically to anxiety and self-criticism. He will encourage students to develop a growth mindset and flexible thinking, and work with them to expand their distress tolerance while still maintaining healthy boundaries. He will also teach principles of mindfulness and meditation to promote being "a fair witness to the self." Note this module will include frank discussions of depression, anxiety, alcohol/drug use, and self-harm.
"Fueled Up": In this module, Caitlin will help participants recover the childhood joy they had in moving their bodies freely. She will provide factual information about the way nutrition and physical fitness impact mood and emotion, explain how movement can unlock stored trauma, and help each student to develop a personalized relationship to food and exercise that stresses health over aesthetics. Caitlin, who has trained in two sports at the Olympic level, will also work with students to develop resilience and goal-setting habits -- not to meet someone else's definition of who they should be, but to bring them closer to the dreams they have defined for themselves.
"Future Shock!": Many resources on college planning assume students go to school. In this module, Laura will explain how the college application process works for homeschoolers. She will guide students as they think about their future plans (which might not include college!), explain the labyrinth of financial aid, and describe out-of-the-box options they might not have considered, such as gap years and study abroad opportunities. Participants will work with their parents to develop or refine an individualized high school plan of classes and activities that will prepare them to meet their future goals.
"Your Professor Wants This Submitted in Helvetica": Even the smartest students can become defeated in the face of academic requirements that feel nit-picky, cryptic, or simply overwhelming. Beginning in the spring, Michael and Laura will team-teach a class that builds on the resilience skills students have already been working on with Adam, Caitlin, and Terri, and apply them directly to an educational context. They will begin by working on executive function skills, both practical (like how to set up an agenda book) and esoteric (like how to deal with shame avoidance when you've started to fall behind). Students are encouraged to be reflective about how they learn, what sort of support they need, and how to ask for help productively. Michael and Laura both teach at the university level and will help high school students demystify college's "hidden curriculum": the things "they just expect you to know." They will scaffold skills such as how to read a syllabus, how to email a professor (politely!), what "office hours" are and how to take advantage of them, how to work with a university's Disability Office, and how to prioritize assignments when facing down The Dread Monster. This module should be especially helpful to students who are neurodivergent, although we believe ALL students can benefit from having these topics explicitly spelled out so there is no guesswork. Although our focus is on college, all the skills in this module will be applicable to high school students who are struggling to organize their time and to find purpose and meaning in their educational endeavors.
"Just Wash Everything on Cold, and Other 101 Adulting Tips": We will round out the year with some fun discussions about basic "life" stuff once you leave the nest, like how to do your laundry when you live in a dorm, how to fill out a part-time job application, how to read a subway map, and how to avoid spending all your money on take-out.
"Alaska Adventure!": At the end of the year, participants will travel to Alaska, where Alyssa will guide them through a week-long journey designed to strengthen confidence in themselves and in their interpersonal relationships.

These core modules will be interspersed with guest speakers on a variety of topics related to mental health, identity, sexuality, and academic skills.

Additionally, all SELFIE participants will receive:

a welcome gift package of books and stationery supplies designed to support executive function and wellness goals;
access to Alyssa's "Beginning Yoga" class (online, self-paced), which teaches yoga from a trauma-informed perspective;
an invitation to Nerd Herd Books, Rise Out's book club, which will focus on YA novels about neurodivergent teens;
an invitation to Rise Out's Slack platform, where students across all Rise Out classes can socialize outside of class;
a 20% discount on all other Rise Out classes.

Cool! What Now?

The cost for this year-long program, including the Alaska trip, is $3,900 (paid in three installments). Scholarship money will be available by the end of the summer (we are currently fundraising!), but unfortunately we cannot offer full waivers for this program. Note that this fee covers the full year program as well as the cost of the Alaska trip itself, but travel to and from Alaska is not included.

We are seeking a cohort of 10-15 students who will move through this program as a group. Our application process includes both a student portion and a parent/guardian portion. Click “Apply,” below.

Unable to participate in the full program? Check out SELFIE a la carte for options to split the program according to your family’s needs.

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Applications are now open! Click “Apply” below!