Great schools
have real conversations.
In a screen-bound world, face-to-face conversation is hard.
But it’s important—and teachable.
We’re here to help you teach it.
Conversation is mission-critical for schools.
It is at the heart of learning, belonging, well-being, and leadership. It’s how work gets done and relationships get built, in and beyond the classroom.
Yet, for kids growing up in our tech-centric world, face-to-face conversation has become hard and scary. Today’s students struggle with the basics: expressing themselves, engaging different viewpoints, listening deeply, reading non-verbal cues. These are skills for learning — and life.
This is not “just a covid thing” … the decline in in-person social skills is a trend researchers have documented for a decade: a predictable opportunity cost of more time spent on screens. It’s not about to get better.
For teachers facing a tech-centric world, in-class learning – which relies on conversation – is becoming even more important. In an AI era, teachers need new tools for explicitly teaching – and equitably assessing – the human skills that robots can’t replace. At the top of the list? The oral and social skills students learn through live discussion.
The good news? These skills are age-old (thanks @Socrates), future-proof (hey @AI) — and absolutely teachable. But they must be intentionally taught!
At R.E.A.L.® we partner with future-focused school leaders to build mission-aligned programs for teaching and celebrating conversation skills on campus. We call it cultivating “Conversation Culture.”
Together, we can:
Conversation Culture Strategy Today
Our School Partners
Our Story
It all started during second period. Yet another discussion fell flat – the same kids spoke up, sat back, eye-rolled, panicked – and Humanities teacher Liza Garonzik realized that the Gen-Z students in her class lacked the in-person communication skills they needed to talk and trust each other.
Liza knew that discussion skills are critical for learning and life – and wanted her students to thrive even as they grew up in a screen-bound, cancel-culture world. So she spent a decade working with experts, teachers, and Gen-Z students to develop R.E.A.L.®: the first research-backed method for explicitly teaching and equitably assessing in-person discussion skills.
Today, R.E.A.L.® has several programs for teaching discussion skills and ultimately building Conversation Culture, used by thousands of students, hundreds of teachers, and dozens of teams across diverse schools. The results speak for themselves.
Our Story
It all started during second period. Yet another discussion fell flat – the same kids spoke up, sat back, eye-rolled, panicked – and Humanities teacher Liza Garonzik realized that the Gen-Z students in her class lacked the in-person communication skills they needed to talk and trust each other.
Liza knew that discussion skills are critical for learning and life – and wanted her students to thrive even as they grew up in a screen-bound, cancel-culture world. So she spent a decade working with experts, teachers, and Gen-Z students to develop R.E.A.L.®: the first research-backed method for explicitly teaching and equitably assessing in-person discussion skills.
Today, R.E.A.L.® has several programs for teaching discussion skills and ultimately building Conversation Culture, used by thousands of students, hundreds of teachers, and dozens of teams across diverse schools. The results speak for themselves.
The R.E.A.L.® approach has been featured by:
PROGRAM PREVIEW
R.E.A.L.® Discussion For Humanities Classes
R.E.A.L.® Discussion is a method for explicitly teaching and equitably assessing in-person discussion skills within the context of a Humanities class.
It has been used by hundreds of teachers across independent schools.
The results speak for themselves.
98%
of teachers would recommend R.E.A.L.® to a colleague
96%
of students see R.E.A.L. skills as useful beyond the classroom
98%
of students report more confidence in speaking up in discussion
96%
of students listen more actively to their peers
94%
of students show a growth mindset towards discussion
5
The top five words teachers use to describe R.E.A.L. PD :
Practical, Innovative, Fun/Funny, Motivating, Helpful
