The same thing happens every semester. After the first class of the year at NYU, students stand in the back, wait until the room is empty, and then quietly share. fear with your professor: maybe the admission was wrong. Maybe they don’t really belong here. These are not students who are lagging behind. They worked hard and earned their place, and they have grades to prove it. And yet, underneath it all sits the fear that they don’t really matter.
That professor is Dr. Sarah Bennison, a faculty member at New York University, co-founder of the Mattering Movement, and a leading voice in the matter center. education. And it’s not just her. Educators at all levels report the same thing: a generation of young people who are outwardly accomplished but inwardly jaded.
The difference between being present and feeling safe
When Bennison surveys his students at the beginning of each semester, stress and anxiety come up again and again as their biggest struggle. Loneliness is close But what worries him most is not how many students are suffering. That’s how few of them actually reach out to someone at their school when they are. Most people say that they have a confidant in their life. Most also say they would not go to a professor or staff member in a crisis.
This is a gap that is rarely talked about. Students are physically present in educational spaces for most of their young lives, but presence does not equate to safety. When students don’t feel safe, they don’t bring up their real questions, fears, and confusion. They have a good performance.
False selective schools continue
Education has long treated academic rigor and emotional well-being as a bargain, as if paying attention to how students’ feelings take away from what they are learning. But anxiety doesn’t just stay outside the classroom door. When students are overwhelmed, their ability to focus, retain information, and engage decreases. This is not a matter of animal husbandry. It is a matter of learning.
As my doctoral research confirms, matter is not a peripheral social-emotional outcome. This is a basic condition of self-study.
Classroom moments that students carry with them for years are rarely about content transfer. Bennison describes them as moments of true connection, when the student feels that the person teaching them really sees them. Those moments do not happen by chance. They occur when students feel safe to be present in more than just their bodies.
Challenge does not equate to belonging
Schools have gotten better at talking about belonging. Orientation weeks, inclusive classrooms, diversity initiatives—these things are important. But belonging and importance are not interchangeable. A student can feel at home in the school community and still feel that their specific presence, their voice, or lack thereof is completely ignored.
This gap is where many students now live.
When students feel that the person teaching them matters, something changes. They take more risks, ask questions they would otherwise swallow, and engage when the going gets tough. The curriculum doesn’t change, but they feel like their presence in the room carries weight.
And it cuts both ways. Teachers who feel their work goes unrecognized and their contributions go unseen. Schools that spend a lot of money on student welfare while quietly firing their teachers aren’t solving the problem. It will be moved to another place.
What young people are really saying
In a study my colleagues and I published in the Journal of Prevention and Community Intervention, we analyzed hundreds of responses from young people about moments they felt were important. Their answers were not complicated. One student wrote that they felt like they mattered simply because a friend listened to their problems and didn’t make them feel stupid for having them. Another described how the teacher noticed their efforts. A third talked about being missed when they were away.
Essential Educational Readings
What surprised us the most in this study was where young people said they felt less important. Not at home, not with friends, but at school. Of all the places in a young person’s life, school is the place most associated with feeling invisible, invisible, or like an outsider. This discovery stayed with me. Because school is also where young people spend most of their time, and where the adults in the room have constant opportunities to change it.
Where to start
Bennison developed what he calls a critical matrix, a practical starting point for educators who want to change it without waiting for a new program or policy change. It comes down to three questions about each student:
- Does this student know I’m watching them? (Warning.)
- Does this student know that I appreciate them? (Importance.)
- Does this student know I need them here? (Reclining.)
These are not rhetorical. They point to specific things: learning how a name is actually pronounced, tracking when someone is absent, telling a specific student what they bring to the room instead of a general compliment, and giving students real responsibility so they feel their presence has weight.
None of this is complicated. But it requires something from teachers that the system rarely provides: the time and intention to treat students as people whose presence really makes a difference. For many students who are wondering if they should, this can make all the difference.
