"R.E.A.L.® makes everyone feel the same comforting awkwardness."
-9th grader
Relate
Excerpt
Ask
Listen
R.E.A.L.® is made for Gen-Z.
We all know that good discussion is challenging. For kids today, it’s especially hard — and scary.
- They care deeply what others think but their brains haven’t been taught to listen actively.
- They want to be heard but would rather not talk (just txt pls!).
- They don’t intuitively trust each other. Gen-Z reports anxiety, depression, and loneliness at shocking rates (despite being hyper-connected to peers online).
- They know the world is polarized but rarely encounter different viewpoints (thanks partly to algorithms that have run their newsfeeds since they got their first phones).
So: when it comes to class discussion, Gen-Z is just plain under-equipped.
Yet, as the best teachers intuit, research keeps proving, and recent world events make clear: discussion is a critical tool for learning, life, and democracy.
R.E.A.L.® helps Gen-Z discover that they can have great discussions where every voice matters.
R.E.A.L.® is Built For Teachers, By Teachers.
The teacher, Liza Cowan Garonzik, was frustrated at the range of engagement and the ambiguity of the grading that lay ahead. And she was worried: discussion – a skill for learning and life – seemed not at all intuitive to the kids in her classroom. Liza also recognized that the students who were successful were mostly extroverted, white, and coasting on patterns of discourse they practiced elsewhere. As much as it hurt to admit, she saw that discussion in her classroom was not an equal playing field.
Liza Garonzik comes at this work with experience as a teacher, administrator, and trustee in independent schools.
She’s a Harvard grad with a Master’s from Penn and a relentless fascination with the art, science, and impact of great conversation.
Liza built R.E.A.L.® Discussion to offer faculty a research-based method to help all students discover the discipline, joy, and power of challenging discussion — and to give schools a way to share the impact of that work.
An unabashed research nerd, Liza’s design of R.E.A.L.® brings together ideas from across and beyond the education space, including Learning Science (e.g. Jahl Mehta, Glenn Whitman), DEI (e.g. Joe Feldman, Zaretta Hammond, Rosetta Lee), Gen-Z Development (e.g. Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, John Palfrey) and Edu-Adjacent Work (e.g. Atul Gawande, Sandy Pentland, Sherry Turkle + Workforce of Future reports by McKinsey, Pearson, Accenture, WEF). The R.E.A.L.® method has been practiced and refined in hundreds of classrooms across dozens of independent schools and R.E.A.L.® remains committed to action research today!
R.E.A.L.® is ready for your school.
There are three paths to "getting R.E.A.L.®."
1
R.E.A.L.® Certification
We take a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure approach to PD, trusting faculty leaders to choose what will work best at their school. Contact us today to start that conversation!
All paths to R.E.A.L.® Certification
include a five-hour async online course, 3+ hours of synchronous work, and a one-hour personal consult.
Once a teacher is R.E.A.L. certified, s/he is qualified to use R.E.A.L.® Curriculum. R.E.A.L.® curriculum is required in any classroom using R.E.A.L.® (it’s how we guarantee our impact!).
2
R.E.A.L.® Curriculum
R.E.A.L.® Coursepacks are built for Gr. 7-10 Humanities classrooms, with differentiated versions for middle and high school. Each R.E.A.L.® Coursepack includes a Portfolio (paper) + Portal (online) for student use.
These materials are designed for impact and can be customized for your school. Many schools choose to sell R.E.A.L. Coursepacks through their bookstores.
3
R.E.A.L.® Community
The R.E.A.L.® Community is our best kept secret. It’s where the “Discussion about Discussion” happens — among hundreds of independent school Humanities teachers. We’ve learned firsthand that it’s easier and more fun to grow as professionals when connected to people who share your values but not your faculty lounge!
Party favors include: monthly “Study Sesh” events, newsletters, private social media groups, and open Office Hours (instructional coaching on-demand).
R.E.A.L.® is high impact.
The R.E.A.L.® approach to Discussion as a Discipline has proven stunningly effective across grades, subjects, and school cultures. It has been used with students in grades 6-11, subjects including History, English, Religion, and Humanities, and in independent, international, and charter schools.
Teachers report that R.E.A.L.® makes discussion “more equitable,” “more rigorous,” and “easier to assess.”
The student results speak for themselves → → →
Teachers + Students Agree: R.E.A.L.® just works.
Why R.E.A.L.®?
Learn R.E.A.L.®
Building R.E.A.L.® Community
Making R.E.A.L.® Work For You
R.E.A.L.® shows students why discussion matters.
R
is for RELATE
E
is for EXCERPT
“I think REAL discussions serve as a draft for analytical writing, especially in how we use quotes, and they are a great place to speak your ideas and see how your peers react to it; similar to a band testing out songs at a concert before they release the studio version.”
– 9th grader
A
is for ASK
“REAL has made me conscious that I have started to ask more questions to move the discussion along, rather than just relating to my classmates. I think that this is a vital discussion (and honestly life) skill and I’m still working on it, but I have definitely improved.”
– 10th grader
