MOSAIC, the once-a-month district-wide program that delivers lessons on diverse and important topics, should be great.
In theory, lessons about upstanders, sources of strength and interests all sound intriguing — they are, after all, tailored to help students understand and better handle issues in the real world (ones like self-harm, sexual harassment, cyber bullying, drug and alcohol abuse and many more).
The program recently even won a 2025 Glenn W. Hoffmann Award from the Santa Clara County School Boards Association for enhancing student success and well-being.
Sadly, many of these important lessons don’t have the intended effect on students, a testament to the ever-present stigma against mental health and social welfare education and the fact that many students actively resist participating in the classes with anything more than a token effort.
MOSAIC has the potential to help hundreds of students understand and thrive in the school environment and beyond, spreading timely and relevant messages to the wider student body. In order for it to reach that level of effectiveness, though, it needs to be constantly evaluated and improved each year.
What has worked so far
Several versions of MOSAIC have been tried and tested since its inception in 2021. Parts and pieces of the different programs have had varying levels of effectiveness.
One part of MOSAIC I particularly miss this year is the mixing of different grade levels with the same teacher. Some students still have this situation, but others like me do not. As a freshman last year, conversations I had with juniors and seniors in my MOSAIC class, French, gave me more personal advice on classes I should consider and strategies to balance the weight of different classes in future years.
Even besides the classes themselves, simply actively conversing with upperclassmen pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me experience some part of the real world, mixing with other grades instead of staying isolated with peers I already know.
Another aspect of MOSAIC, tackling drug and alcohol misuse, discrimination and other mainstream topics was more interesting, especially when the lessons and discussions were backed up with surprising facts and anecdotes.
Having designated speakers, with experience in such fields, would add to the credibility of these MOSAIC lessons and give students more focused and easily trusted advice.
The MOSAIC lesson about bystanders this year was particularly interesting, since one would normally assume maintaining distance from issues would make oneself less likely to seem complicit in any confrontation.
Another MOSAIC lesson — strengths and values — which involved playing small games with the class, also had the potential to become more interesting. Expanding these mini-games to become the full focus of MOSAIC, with an emphasis on student bonding and connection within the community could also help build a stronger student base. This section could even be more unserious and unstructured.
Essentially, anything which broke past the stigma against productive discussion and surprised me as a student, reeled in my attention during MOSAICs.
Re-evaluating structure
Each MOSAIC lesson is typically structured with a hook, lesson, discussion and mindful moment. Typically, those students who remain uninterested in MOSAICs zone out during the hook, participate somewhat in the lesson and only passively do the mindful moment (if at all).
Out of each part, I think the concept of the mindful moment is most effective. It offers a quick 3-minute break from school life to center oneself. While it may start off with giggles and loud movements of backpacks being unzipped, it ends with a full exhale and a brief period of refreshing focus.
In my view, the lessons would likely be more effective if the same mindful moment were placed at both the start and the end of class. The moment at the beginning would be intended to get everyone’s attention, and the moment at the end would help everyone relax and move on in the day while feeling resolution.
In terms of the lesson itself, a more Socratic-like structure would be more effective for parts of the period. Students can use MOSAIC as an opportunity to learn more about others’ experiences, with real perspectives instead of mandated participation. Often, MOSAIC lessons have teachers talking a bit too much about their own experiences, which, at times, can be interesting, but often offer no true connection to students’ lives.
The anecdotes, however, are more interesting than some of the lessons themselves — teachers, please don’t stop, but maybe aim for more brevity.
MOSAIC is branded as “by students, for students” but as a student who has no idea who makes the lessons, having an anonymous message board might be a more effective way of doing so.
A message board would allow students who don’t frequently participate to share their thoughts and perspectives without revealing their identities. It could either become a platform for students to mess around, or more ideally, a platform where more students get included, outside of extroverts in the classroom.
Visibility on a student-led commission would also help students connect with the lessons — while one may exist in the status quo, a greater understanding of how exactly that board functions and impacts lessons would make it easier for students to understand the thinking behind the lessons.
Additionally, more people would be able to connect with MOSAIC if there were some sort of perspective into how each lesson is created. If students knew exactly how the panel comes up with lessons and how they aim to present them, they would more than likely interact with the lesson better.
Ultimately, MOSAIC has the potential to be even more effective and educate students about a wide range of issues that are affecting them or might someday. With a few tweaks, MOSAIC can more effectively reach all students, even those who seem to actively resist it.
