Build emotional safety and enthusiasm in your classroom.

Why disengaged?

When were you distracted or disengaged?

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Youth often feel like what they say doesn't matter because they don't have enough experiences being listened to.  Like you and I they want to feel expressed. They want to feel like they have power and influence over their lives.

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Along with stresses beyond the classroom, social life is complex. How to express what's behind the mask when no one taught them how?

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The following trailer for "The Mask You Live," featuring Ashanti Branch and his youth, gives glimpse into the emotional roots of disengagement.

“What we have learned with Everforward is that when we give kids a space to be heard, to be respected, to be uplifted, to say that all of you is welcome here, they come alive.”

Why art? Why SEL? Why now?

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"Art centers self expression and student voice, making it a highly effective modality for learning and building community. It's calming, and engages multiple brain processes. What we've seen is that bringing people together to be creative naturally builds empathy and strengthens relationships.  

• Research shows that arts engagement improves student success in all subjects. 

• English as a second language students receive the most improvement  from arts integrated learning approaches.

• Making art lowers cortisol (stress hormone) and increases serotonin and oxytocin making students more available to learn.

• Research  shows that "SEL  is critical to student long term success inside and outside of school."

• Visual art builds empathy and broadens perspective,  helping students to acknowledge different points of view and develop critical thinking skills.

The Mask Mosaic

How it works: Choose your own adventure

Unfolding with the imagination of you and your class, the Mask Mosaic is designed with flexibility to be delivered in one hour or over an entire semester. With supporting resources we provide 4 lesson plans so you and your students can create an enriching community building experience together. 

What you get

• A Mask Mosaic kick-off video that gets students excited to be part of a global celebration.

• The 100k Mask Challenge activity cards.

• 4 lesson plans with supporting materials.

• Foundational and background resources to build your skillset, knowledge, and articulation related to SEL and arts based learning pedagogy.

About your SEL partners

We became friends in 2014 as members of a group designed to help purpose driven entrepreneurs be emotionally healthy and thriving in all areas of life. With 30 years combined experience we have taught in both conventional and unconventional classroom settings.

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This collaboration between Ever Forward Club and Socially Creative represents our shared passion for creating opportunities and experiences that help everyone feel like they belong. 

" I didn't know my father until I was 22. Upon returning from a year long immersion in Ecuador my dad picked me up from LAX airport. The engine hummed as I sat passenger on the bench seat of his pick-up truck.

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The moment that followed changed everything. His phone rang. "Bueno," he answered. It was his sister from Mexico city.

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Prior to that trip to Ecuador I didn't know Spanish (my dad's first language). In near shock with tears filling my eyes I observed. I now saw layers of expression I had never seen before.

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That moment taught me that no matter how close people may be there is so much more to know and that may never be fully understood simply because the different ways we relate, or speak, to the world.

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I am passionate about bringing more art to the world because it's a bridge, and means to convey something that might be impossible to share with words."

Jeremy Capdevielle | Founder at Socially Creative

Ashanti Branch | Founder at Ever Forward Club

" I was born and raised by a single mother on welfare in Oakland, California. I took a rode less traveled, got out of the ghetto, and graduated from a premier university with a degree in civil engineering.

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After tutoring struggling students I realized my true passion was teaching. I changed careers and became a teacher. With fire re-ignited, I started the Ever Forward Club in 2004 during my first year teaching with the intetnion to support young black and latino men who weren't achieving their true potential.

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I spent over 19 years mentoring youth (10 of those as a math teacher educating inner city youth.) and received multiple awards including: a Fullbright Exchange Fellowship to India, a rotary Club Cultural Ambassador Fellowship to Mexico, and a 2010 teacher of the year award from the Alameda-Contra Costa County Math Educators.

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I'm on a mission to change the way students interact with their education and they way schools interact with students."

Teacher Testimonials

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