GiveThx

Michael Fauteux is the Executive Director and cofounder of the nonprofit GiveThx, a digital tool and curriculum that strengthens wellbeing and social-emotional skills using gratitude science. He is an 19-year educator committed to increasing equity in education. He is the current Innovator in Residence at Leadership Public Schools, where he formerly worked as the Director of Innovation, managing personalized learning innovations and professional development. His past innovation work includes co-creating ExitTicket, a real-time student response system, and co-creating Gooru’s Learning Navigator, a personalized learning companion. A former academic dean and master mathematics teacher, Mike holds a B.A. in History from Brown University and a Ed.M. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

Youth are experiencing increased rates of depression and a severe lack of belonging in schools. 70% of U.S. teens report anxiety, stress, and depression as serious problems. COVID-19 and the difficulties faced in distance learning have exacerbated these challenges. Schools must provide concrete ways to improve student wellbeing and create a safe and positive learning environment, in person and from home.

GiveThx is a digital program that strengthens student wellbeing and social-emotional skills using gratitude science. Students and staff send digital thank you notes to recognize positive behaviors that nurture relationships and build self-esteem. Belonging is linked to better academic, psychological, and health outcomes. GiveThx improves wellbeing and belonging via both in-person and remote learning models.

One of the best ways to elevate humanity is through education. Our vision is to do so by building thriving, healthy, and inclusive learning communities where all students feel they belong.

Youth are experiencing increased rates of depression and a severe lack of belonging in schools. According to a 2019 Pew Research Center study, 70% of U.S. teens report anxiety, stress, and depression as serious problems; 55% report bullying is a serious issue; and 30% feel tense or nervous and wish they had more good friends almost daily. 95% of U.S. teens use a smartphone and 45% report being online “constantly,” an increase of over 20% since 2015. The U.S. has approximately 130,000 schools and 56 million students. While the Pew data span all students at all schools, students from high-trauma, low-income communities have even more severe needs. 

This data shows a picture of the acute struggles young people face today, and the need for new approaches to address these issues. Significant increases in depression and high rates of stress, bullying, and a lack of belonging require schools take explicit, active measures to improve student mental health and wellbeing. This is particularly necessary as schools grapple with facilitating distance learning during the COVID-19-driven closures. The ubiquity of social media and digital communication mandates these measures directly address the role of technology in teenage life.

GiveThx is a research-based curriculum and web app that strengthens student wellbeing and social-emotional skills using gratitude science. Using an engaging web-based tool, students and staff send digital Thx notes to recognize positive behaviors that nurture relationships and build self-esteem. Teachers use the online GiveThx gratitude curriculum to strengthen social-emotional learning and coach students based on their Thx notes, intervening as necessary. GiveThx also provides school leaders with data to monitor and support social-emotional learning and build belonging, both via in-person and distance learning. GiveThx is a powerful social-emotional learning system that leverages technology to create safe and inclusive communities

Our original technology works in parallel with the curricula to increase equitable access, coherence, and measurement. We designed our program with students and teachers to specifically make the process identity safe. Shy students, language learners, and young men who feel public expressions of gratitude are not masculine do not feel safe participating in traditional public gratitude expressions or activities. The 1-to-1 thank you notes create a safe space for these students to participate by removing the difficult influence of practicing in public. Staff participation increases educator wellbeing and critical connection to students as well.

Our project serves K-12 students in the U.S., and in the future, around the world. We are particularly focused on serving high-need communities like Oakland, California, where we built GiveThx. We designed our program with the students and teachers we designed it for: people with historically marginalized experiences and high needs. Building the program in schools with those who need safe, healthy access to social-emotional learning the most ensured we deeply understood and respected their needs. Our on-going relationship with our initial codesigning schools grounds and guides us, keeping equity at the center of our work.

Research shows that gratitude improves educational outcomes. Using Thx notes, students and staff recognize and appreciate each other, which nurtures healthy behaviors, relationships, and self-esteem. Gratitude builds resilience by focusing on what is going well, values others by recognizing them, and reinforces prosocial behaviors. Organization-wide usage improves mental health and belonging, increasing school attendance and lowering disciplinary issues. Research on GiveThx (Journal of Positive Psychology - in press) showed students had significant increases in emotional wellbeing, life satisfaction, and peer relationships and significant decreases in stress, anxiety, and depression - core components of school success and career readiness. 

Gratitude nurtures health relationships and belonging. It improves wellbeing and self-awareness by seeing all the reasons people are thankful to you. Practicing it in schools elevates understanding of and between people by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

I saw the power of gratitude science as it helped my math students become more vulnerable and effective collaborators. This was essential because my students were on average 4-5 years behind in their math skills as 9th graders. Express thanks to others knit them closer together and made them feel able to help and be helped by one another.

One barrier to the practice, however, was the limitation of public practice. Not everyone felt safe expressing themselves out loud in front of others. Young men for whom such an expression might not seem masculine, special education students, and language learners are a few student identities that did not have equitable access to the practice. We built GiveThx as a was to create identity safe access to gratitude practice. An immediate result was seeing significantly increased participation by across all identities and strengthened wellbeing. The program was such a success, I scaled it across my school and then to the outside world as GiveThx.

Our vision is to create thriving learning communities where all students feel they belong and graduate with the socio-emotional skills to be successful in college, career, and community. We want schools, districts, and community-based organizations to look to GiveThx as the best technology-driven program to build these inclusive communities and support youth success as scholars, colleagues, and citizens. We are passionate about and committed to creating equity and wellbeing in education and believe GiveThx is a powerful way to do so. 

Increasing equitable access for students of all identities and backgrounds is a critical way to elevate humanity. As a 19-year educator working with some of the most underserved communities, I deeply connect to and care about strengthening community, wellbeing, and opportunities for my students.

GiveThx has three founding members: Javier Perez, Amara Humphry, and Mike Fauteux. Mike, our CEO,  started his career 18 years ago in the classroom. His previous edtech innovations have produced nationally recognized results. Amara is our Chief Product Officer. She brings passion and experience with edtech product teams and businesses. She previously founded edtech non-profit Gooru, which reached over 1 million students.  In 2016, Amara was recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur. Javier is our Chief Technology Officer and a founding partner at Edify, a software company with extensive edtech experience. 

Our advisors Dr. Louise Waters, former superintendent of LPS, and Dr. Giacomo Bono, assistant professor of psychology at CSU Dominguez Hills, bring school systems and gratitude research expertise, respectively. Together, our robust understanding of our disciplines, clear grasp on the problem we are trying to solve, and past success working together make us an ideal team to build a scalable, sustainable, and successful solution.

I joined Leadership Public Schools to help accelerate students in math so that they could graduate from high school. Our incoming 9th graders enter on average 4-5 years behind grade level and passing math is the gatekeeper course for them. Over 85% came from high poverty experiences and would be the first in their family to go to college. I needed to figure out a way to have my students learn 8 years in 4 and meet their acute needs. This meant doing something different than current best practices at the time (doing twice as much math a day or stretching a course over two years). 

I pitched my superintendent saying that we should approach the challenge by teaching social emotional skills in parallel with math. To do so I created a course called Navigate Math that rebuilt 2nd-7th grade math skills and developed critical SEL skills that supported acceleration. I invented a prototype platform to allow students to move at their own pace while their teacher differentiated to individual needs. The reputation, time, and school-resource risks I took paid off when my students grew on average 2.5 years in a single year compared to the national average.

Eight years ago my school community was struggling to grow with its practice. Everyone was siloed into their own classrooms and people worried about what showing their practice to others would bring. After working on my own professional development around making practice public, I worked with my school principal to lead an initiative to improve how we functioned as a professional community.

I video taped my own practice, showed it to my colleagues, and lead them through a process of analysis and reflection. I then worked with department leads to scale the process up across our whole school over multiple years, resulting in significant improvements to practice and professional culture. It was a challenging and humbling experience and a formative moment of my growth as a leader.