I arrived at school one morning, ready to head into my usual third- and fourth-grade classrooms to facilitate our My Team Magic lessons. But before I could get started, the principal asked me to join her in her office.
“I need you to somehow fit a sixth-grade class into your schedule today,” she said urgently.
She explained what had happened the night before. Shelly, one of the girls in the class, had celebrated her birthday and invited every girl in the class except Talya. As Shelly handed out the invitations, she whispered to the others, “Just don’t tell Talya.”
Talya hadn’t overheard the whisper, but she sensed the buzz in the room. Something was going on, and she knew she wasn’t part of it.
When she got home, she told her mother that she suspected something fun was being planned, but she didn’t think she was invited. Her mother tried calling Shelly’s mother, but there was no answer. Wanting to reassure her daughter, she said, “I’m sure a nice family like Shelly’s wouldn’t do something so hurtful.”
But the next morning, Talya’s worst fears were confirmed. The girls were chatting excitedly about the party, sharing their favorite moments and laughing about the fun they had. Talya was devastated.
The pain of being excluded is often made worse by having to watch everyone else enjoy what you were denied.
I squeezed the sixth-grade class into my schedule and stopped by the supply room to gather some materials But I faced a challenge: How could I help the girls reflect on what had happened without revealing that I knew about the party? If they realized I had been brought in to address their behavior, they might become defensive, shut down, or resist the lesson altogether.
So I entered the classroom with a different explanation. I told the students I was preparing an activity to share with teachers at an upcoming workshop, which was actually so, and would love their help. They were more than happy to participate!
I launched into dramatically telling a story about a group of sixth graders who excluded a new girl who joined their class. Then I divided them into small groups and gave them a task: create a large poster illustrating the story from each character’s point of view.
What did the girl who was excluded feel? What might the girls who left her out have been thinking? What about the girls who knew what was happening but stayed silent? And what could someone have done differently?
As the groups worked, something powerful began to happen. The girls were no longer simply listening to a lecture about kindness. They were stepping into the characters’ shoes, exploring feelings, intentions, choices, and consequences. They discovered that the same situation could look very different depending on where you stood.
The following day, I received a call from the teacher that made the experience even more meaningful. She told me that the lesson had broken the ice. The girls were suddenly so much nicer to Talya, and the atmosphere in the classroom had changed. The tension that had hung over the group began to lift, and the class became more cohesive. Talya was no longer outside the circle.
It was a powerful reminder that sometimes, a carefully guided conversation can accomplish what a reprimand or a lecture cannot. The girls had been given an opportunity to recognize the emotional impact of exclusion without feeling publicly accused or shamed. That opened the door to a change in behavior—and to a more connected classroom.
And that is where the real learning begins.
We can tell children to be kind, to include others, and to think before they act. But empathy grows when children are given the opportunity to see a situation through someone else’s eyes. It grows when they pause to consider not only what they intended, but how their actions might have affected another person.
Exclusion doesn’t always look like an argument or an outright act of heartlessness. Sometimes it looks like a whispered secret, a party invitation, a shared joke, or a room full of people who know something that you don’t. Sometimes the deepest hurt comes not from what was said, but from the unmistakable feeling that everyone belongs except you.
And inclusion is more than making sure everyone receives an invitation. It’s about cultivating a classroom culture where children notice one another, recognize the impact of their choices, and have the courage to do something when someone is being left out.
The question isn’t only, “Who did we invite?” It’s also, “Who might be hurting because we didn’t?”
That is the kind of awareness we want to nurture in our children—not through shame or blame, but through reflection, empathy, and the everyday choices that make a group a team.
Because in a team built on magic, no one should have to wonder whether they belong.