Ensights Magazine

Project TALK

The Expansion of Project TALK

Paul Downey, Assistant Director of Marketing & Communications
As reported in the last issue of Ensights on the topic of civil discourse, Project TALK (Thinking, Action, Learning, Kindness) made a vigorous comeback in the fall of 2020 at the High School after the social and political upheaval of the year. 
“With the climate in the country and on campus, we said, ‘We’re gonna have to have a conversation about this,’” recalls Dr. Crystal Miller, Student Activities Coordinator. “And the vehicle was already there. We went right back to Project TALK.”
 
David Whitfield, Director of Community Engagement and Inclusion, has been involved with Project TALK from the beginning and feels that the reboot is appropriate for his office’s mission. “We’re still understanding that democracy affords people to be on opposite ends of the spectrum where there’s still a place for you no matter where you stand ideologically,” he observes.
 
For each Project TALK meeting, all students at the High School gather in small groups around a Harkness table to discuss difficult or controversial topics. Although students are not expected to agree on the topic, the discussion fosters mutual respect and introduces new perspectives. Since adults are not allowed in the rooms during the sessions, students can speak more freely and directly about the issues that concern them as teenagers. Topics may involve such issues as social media, race, or substance abuse.
 
The initiative was founded in 2009 by Ensworth’s High School students and Dr. Rich Milner, an Ensworth friend and the current Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt Peabody College. The program continues to mature and expand throughout Ensworth’s two campuses with adult leadership, but being student-led was a key part of Project TALK from the beginning. 
 
Dr. Milner explains, “I really had to push in some ways that it be student-led and student-driven, but also that adults wouldn’t be in the room as students were grappling with these difficult issues.” His trust that the students could handle this type of endeavor also carries over into the topics. “The issues emerge based on what’s happening in the world,” he points out.
 
With the High School’s reboot, particular emphasis was placed on forming student facilitators to help focus the discussions around each Project TALK Harkness table. Although the facilitators may feel strongly about particular topics, their formation urges them to see all sides of an issue and be attentive to when the discussion gets heated or anyone begins to feel alienated. Many times, they may be the only one bringing the unpopular view to the table for discussion, even if they don’t agree with that view.
 
Ensworth’s Harkness method, with its emphasis on the collaborative and inclusive discourse around oval tables, created the perfect environment for a program like this to thrive. The Harkness method encourages the participation of the whole class so there is no visible leader and everyone’s opinions are heard and valued. Although Project TALK is campus-wide at the High School, the discussions still happen in these intimate settings where students already feel comfortable expressing their opinions.
 
Even though facilitators must fill out an application and express a genuine desire to discuss difficult topics, Dr. Miller and Dr. Milner still manage to accept about 75 students every year from the senior and junior classes. Dr. Miller explains, “There’s usually some sort of passion for wanting to discuss the topics that we kind of push aside because they’re too hard to talk about. I’ll have some students that say, ‘This is really important. It doesn’t ever get said, and when we’re around the adults, we have to say it the right way.’ They definitely need to have a conversation, and they feel like it makes the school a better place.”
 
When the Project TALK team came to the Middle School to show the students how a typical meeting goes, the younger students displayed the same passion for engaging in civil discourse with their peers.
 
Maurice Hopkins, history teacher and the Community Engagement and Inclusion Office’s Middle School representative, noticed the Middle School students’ growing curiosity after the events of summer 2020. “Students came back more aware of the world that they lived in,” he remembers. “And they became more inquisitive in their humanities classes about differences of people, whether it be socioeconomic, racial, or religious.”
 
When Mr. Hopkins reached out to Mr. Whitfield about seeing his students’ increased thirst for tackling complex social issues, they both agreed that a pared-down version of Project TALK was the best fit for the Middle School. The two teamed up with Dr. Milner, Dr. Miller and Dr. Ellen Reynolds, Director of Counseling and Learning Services at the Red Gables Campus, to bring Project TALK to the Middle School for a special assembly. Although they let the High School demonstrate Project TALK to the younger students, the adults played it safe with adult presence in the room. Maurice says that this was merely to “monitor the mood and emotional temperament” of the first assembly.
 
For his part, Mr. Hopkins has long been teaching about difficult issues through the lens of history and geography through units on the genocide in Rwanda, Apartheid in South Africa, and the Lost Boys of Sudan. But he has also been fascinated by how his colleagues in other subjects show students how to see things from different perspectives. Mr. Anthony Stewart, who teaches English to Grades 7 and 8, leads discussions about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Mr. Hopkins explains that Mr. Stewart’s students are “learning how Frankenstein was treated, based upon who people perceived him to be, and how Frankenstein behaved, based upon how society kind of encouraged him to be.”
 
The Life program, of which Dr. Reynolds is Chair, gradually lets students in K–8 work up to more difficult topics of discussion. In one recent Grade 8 Life class, students participated in a stand up-sit down activity where students stood up or sat down based upon questions they were asked. In this session, students were asked seemingly innocuous questions like, “Do you tie your left shoe first?” The discussion helped the eighth graders understand that we can be accepting of differences.
 
For the spring semester at the Middle School, the High School students will visit and conduct Project TALK much like they do at the Frist Campus. More than 30 High School students will visit each advisory in the Middle School. “A lofty goal is that, for the second one,” Mr. Hopkins explains, “we will have trained a handful of eighth-graders to potentially lead a Project TALK with sixth and seventh graders.”
 
Although Project TALK may fill some students with trepidation, Ensworth’s curriculum and dedicated students and faculty work tirelessly to ensure that the program unifies and greatly benefits the school and its diverse community.
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Red Gables Campus (K–8)

Nashville, TN 37205
(615) 383-0661

Frist Campus (9–12)

Nashville, TN 37221
(615) 301-5400
Ensworth is a coeducational, kindergarten through twelfth grade, independent day school.