September 28, 2026
By Eric Hollister Williams, Communications & Marketing Advisor
Listen to the Hooray For Monday podcast.
Adults often talk about helping young people “find their voice.” Speak Truth begins from a different premise: young people already have a voice. The work is to create a brave, respectful space where they can use it while practicing how to listen when others speak.
In this week’s Hooray for Monday, I speak with Brady Maiden, Program and Outreach Manager at Center for Inspired Teaching. Brady leads Speak Truth, a program where Washington, DC, high school students choose subjects they care about, develop questions and activities, and facilitate conversations with each other.
Topics range from relationships and sports to gentrification, gun violence, college admissions, data centers, and climate change. Students aren’t passive participants; they create each session.
Brady reflects on a phrase made popular on TikTok that has become a foundational rule for Speak Truth: “We listen and we don’t judge.”
That doesn’t require agreement. “Someone, even after you have given a case, even after you have shown research, even after you have really developed a well thought out answer, still won’t agree with you,” Brady explained. “And that’s okay.”
The impact is wonderfully clear. For the past four years, Brady has watched hesitant students become facilitators, then encourage others to lead.
“Once a student recognizes their voice,” she said, ““It’s almost like not only a huge light bulb, but it’s a firework, essentially like you’re watching a student glow for the first time.”
One thing to consider this week
Try a version of the activity Take a Stand.
Offer a statement students can reasonably disagree about, such as: The voting age should be lowered from 18 to 16. The objective isn’t agreement. It’s learning to express an idea, listen without immediately preparing a rebuttal, and remain curious about another perspective.
Ask students:
- Why did you choose that position?
- What shaped your thinking?
- What would you like to understand about someone who chose differently?
Resource of the Week
Agree, Disagree, Explain
Disagreement doesn’t have to begin with an argument. In this week’s Take a Stand activity, students stand along a line from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” in response to a series of prompts. Start with something light, then move to questions connected to what your class is exploring. Invite students to notice where their classmates stand and ask a few to share their reasoning. It’s a way to practice the curiosity and respectful listening at the heart of Inspired Teaching. See what new conversations this activity opens up among those in the room.
Hooray For Monday is an award-winning weekly publication of Center for Inspired Teaching, a social change nonprofit organization that champions the power of curiosity and is dedicated to transforming the school experience from compliance-based to engagement-based. Inspired Teaching provides transformative, improvisation-based professional learning for teachers that is 100% engaging – intellectually, emotionally, and physically.
