Upstream Healthcare: Why Investing in Teachers Is a Digital Health Strategy

Interview with Michael Fenchel and Dr. Ilana Nankin of Breathe for Change

It’s 10:17 a.m. in a fourth-grade classroom. One student hasn’t eaten breakfast. Another is caring for a younger sibling at home while their parent works two jobs. A third is silently managing anxiety that makes it hard to sit still. Two more are far ahead academically and bored. The rest sit somewhere in between: distracted, overwhelmed, curious, resilient.

The teacher stands at the front of the room. Before a single math problem is solved, she is already a counselor, mediator, social worker, nurse, and community anchor. She is reading body language. Diffusing conflict. Regulating her own stress so she can co-regulate thirty young nervous systems.

And in an era where AI can write lesson plans, summarize texts, and generate assessments in seconds, none of that replaces what she is actually doing—because the hardest part of education isn’t content delivery, it’s human complexity.

Today’s educators are navigating rising mental health needs, chronic absenteeism, and staffing shortages—often without formal training in emotional regulation, trauma responsiveness, or community-building. At the same time, burnout among teachers has reached historic highs.

This is the gap that HealthX’s latest portfolio investment, Breathe For Change, exists to fill. Founded by Dr. Ilana Nankin and Michael Fenchel, Breathe For Change is building something different: an accredited Master of Science in Education in partnership with William Jewell College focused on what they call Human Intelligence—the emotional, social, somatic, cognitive, and purpose-driven capacities that AI cannot automate.

In this conversation, we explore why “human intelligence” is a future-proof skill set in education, how simple, research-backed practices are reducing absenteeism and improving classroom outcomes, why building an accredited Master’s degree was a strategic inflection point, and what it means to partner with HealthX as education and healthcare finally begin to converge. 

We’re in a moment where AI is automating tasks and accelerating work across nearly every industry. But there’s still a category of work it can’t touch. From your perspective, what is that work, and why do educators sit at the center of it?

Ilana: That is such a great question. First and foremost, AI simply cannot replace a great teacher. I deeply believe AI cannot replace our innate human capacities.

At Breathe For Change, we’ve developed a Human Intelligence framework built around five layers—these are the uniquely human capacities we believe AI cannot replicate. They’re also the skills we believe educators, students, and really all human beings need to strengthen as AI takes over more technical and task-based functions.

The first layer is somatic intelligence: our awareness of what’s happening inside our bodies. It’s our ability to regulate ourselves physically, to manage stress, and to experience vitality and aliveness. AI cannot replace a human being’s lived, embodied experience.

The second layer is emotional intelligence: our ability to feel, to make meaning of our experiences, to regulate our emotions, and to cultivate a healthy relationship with all parts of ourselves. AI can simulate emotion, but it cannot actually experience it.

Then there’s cognitive intelligence: this is likely where AI will have the greatest impact. AI has access to knowledge and can process information incredibly fast. But uniquely human capacities like focus, critical thinking, creativity, and innovation still originate within us. We can collaborate with AI to enhance our effectiveness, but the ideas, imagination, and creative leaps still come from within.

The fourth layer is social intelligence: our ability to be in authentic relationships with others. AI cannot replace our capacity for connection, belonging, intimacy, empathy, or love.

And finally, there’s universal intelligence: our connection to something greater than ourselves. Our sense of purpose, passion, and meaning. No technology can take away a human being’s calling or deeper sense of why they’re here.

So in many ways, what we’ve built as an organization is a direct response to this moment. We’re focused on cultivating the capacities that AI cannot replace, and that will only become more important in the years ahead.

Michael: I’d add that at a fundamental level, there’s our intentionality: our will, our desire, our ability to choose. AI operates within parameters we program into it. But human beings make values-based decisions. We decide what matters. We decide what kind of world we want to create. That kind of choice and moral agency is deeply human.

Purpose is another piece. AI will have whatever purpose we assign it, but we’re the ones assigning that purpose.

And creativity. AI is powerful at logical deduction and pattern recognition, but it’s still unclear whether it can truly make imaginative leaps in the way humans can. There’s something generative about human creativity that comes from lived experience.

To your second question about educators: so much of what makes education successful goes beyond knowledge transfer. It’s about inspiring students, motivating them, helping them feel safe enough to learn.

Students learn best when they feel emotionally and physically safe. That requires empathy. It requires co-regulation, one nervous system calming another. It requires presence. Teachers are not just delivering content. They’re mentors, guides, community-builders. They hold space. And that relational core of education is deeply human work.

Building on Human Intelligence, what are educators being asked to do today that traditional training simply doesn’t prepare them for?

Ilana: First of all, educators are playing a million different roles. They’re not just responsible for delivering academic content. They’re also acting as social workers, therapists, nurses, and family liaisons. They’re holding so many pieces of their students’ lives and experiences, and yet they’re still expected to focus primarily on the cognitive layer: ensuring students meet academic benchmarks and perform on standardized measures.

I’ve been a teacher myself. I’ve gone through traditional teacher education programs, and I’ve also taught in them, both alternative and traditional pathways. And it’s clear that we are not meaningfully emphasizing the other key layers of Human Intelligence: somatic, emotional, social, and even universal intelligence. The overwhelming focus remains cognitive. 

We see the consequences of that imbalance every day. Behavior challenges in the classroom. Rising mental health crises among students. Stress, anxiety, depression. Students are being asked to sit down and learn without first addressing the very real human experiences they’re carrying into the classroom.

If we’re not supporting students’ emotional and physical well-being, we’re not going to see the academic outcomes we want. That’s why we believe it’s critical to intentionally cultivate these other human skills and practices. When students feel mentally well, emotionally supported, and physically regulated, then they can fully engage cognitively in learning.

Right now, we’re seeing widespread academic struggles across the nation, and globally in many cases. We believe it’s not because students are incapable. It’s because there’s cognitive overload and a lack of balance. We’ve over-indexed on academic performance while underinvesting in the foundational human capacities that make learning possible in the first place. Our work is about bringing that balance back.

For someone outside the education system, can you paint a picture of the complexity teachers are navigating every day? Students, parents, administrators, school boards, communities—what does that reality actually look like? Can you share an example of how Breathe For Change has helped an educator make a tangible difference?

Michael: Imagine a teacher with 25 to 30 students in their classroom. In many schools, a significant portion of those students are dealing with trauma outside of school. In some settings, it’s not just a few, it can be half the class or even more.

Some students may struggle with emotional regulation. If the classroom is too quiet, they panic. If something feels overwhelming, they might yell, shut down, or act out physically. These behaviors aren’t because they’re “bad kids.” They’re coping mechanisms for very real challenges happening outside of school.

In order to even begin teaching, the educator has to respond to those needs. They’re providing deeply thoughtful, specialized care, often without formal training in trauma-informed practice or mental health support. That’s work traditionally done by therapists or social workers. But many schools are understaffed. There often isn’t anyone else available. The teacher is the only adult in the room.

At the same time, they’re expected to ensure students meet standardized benchmarks. If test scores aren’t high enough, they’re evaluated and sometimes penalized, regardless of the context they’re navigating.

And then there are parents. Some families are highly engaged and advocating strongly for their child. Others may be absent due to their own challenges. Teachers are trying to meet vastly different family dynamics and levels of privilege, all within the same classroom. That’s just a snapshot of how overwhelming a teacher’s day-to-day reality can be.

Ilana: And that’s just during instructional hours. After the school day ends, teachers are grading, planning lessons, responding to emails, meeting with parents, attending professional development sessions. The emotional experience doesn’t turn off when they leave the building. They’re holding dozens of students’ stories every day—stories of stress, instability, trauma, and struggle—without always having the time, training, or resources to meet everyone’s needs.

It’s deeply emotional work. It’s stressful. It can feel heartbreaking. And many educators walk away feeling like they’re not doing enough, even though they’re doing so much.

We recently saw a Gallup poll showing that teaching is now the most burned-out profession in the country, above healthcare and mental health professions. Over 50% of educators leave within their first five years.

That level of turnover is devastating for students. It disrupts continuity, innovation, and long-term skill development. But given the current system, it’s not surprising. Educators are simply not supported enough. That’s why we exist: to provide that support, community, and training.

Photo credit: breatheforchange.com

You made a deliberate choice to build an accredited Master’s degree. Why was that important? And how does that decision change educators’ careers and earning power over the long term?

Michael: It’s actually a fun story how this came about. For years, while we were running our original trainings, dozens of educators told us that what we were offering was more rigorous and more meaningful than the Master’s degrees they had earned.

We heard things like, “This was more impactful than my degree at Harvard,” or “This was more meaningful than my PhD at Stanford.” And these weren’t casual comments—they were coming from award-winning educators, even national leaders in education. So that planted a seed.

At the same time, there was a problem we’d always wanted to solve: teaching is one of the most stressful professions, and one of the lowest paid relative to the level of responsibility. That’s a brutal combination.

We discovered that 82% of school districts automatically give teachers a salary increase once they earn a Master’s in Education. That’s often an additional $3,000 to $8,000 per year—on average about $5,000, depending on the district.

So we realized: if we could offer a Master’s degree rooted in Human Intelligence, we could both elevate the work and directly increase educators’ earning power.

On top of that, accreditation unlocks federal student loans. Before this, teachers were paying out of pocket for professional development. Now they can finance their degree in the same way other graduate students do.

And beyond compensation, the credential creates legitimacy. Many of our graduates go on to become principals, SEL coordinators, instructional coaches, or they remain in the classroom but with increased pay and influence. The degree gives them credibility with principals, districts, and administrators. It allows them to advocate for this work with authority. It helps them advance financially, professionally, and institutionally while doing work they already believe in.

Ilana: I’ll add one more layer. For the first eight years, tens of thousands of educators went through our certifications. We heard powerful stories of transformation from teachers and from students. But much of it was anecdotal.

We knew the impact was real, but we didn’t yet have the kind of rigorous, evidence-based data that makes systems take notice.

Through the Master’s program, every educator conducts action research in their own classroom or community. Each graduate completes a capstone measuring the impact of what they implement. From just our first graduating cohorts, we now have over 500 research studies documenting outcomes across grade levels, subjects, and settings.

We can now point to concrete data: improvements in literacy, math outcomes, absenteeism, behavioral incidents.

There’s a perception in some circles that this work is “soft” or “woo-woo.” It’s not. The research shows the impact clearly. The Master’s program didn’t just elevate our educators’ careers—it strengthened our ability as an organization and movement to demonstrate, with evidence, that cultivating Human Intelligence improves real academic and behavioral outcomes.

It allows educators to say, “I’m not just sharing a story. I’m a researcher. I can show you the data.” That’s powerful.

There’s the Master’s degree itself—and there’s also the accreditation milestone, which is huge. Why was that such a turning point for educators enrolling?

Michael: The Master’s program is offered in partnership with an accredited U.S. institution, and that program recently received full U.S. accreditation. That’s an important distinction—it’s a university-accredited Master of Science in Education delivered through our partnership. That accreditation is essentially the official stamp of legitimacy within the U.S. higher education system.

It unlocks two major things. First, it makes the program eligible for federal financial aid. Educators can now access FAFSA and federal student loans, which dramatically lowers the barrier to entry.

Second, it enhances recognition by school districts for salary scale advancement. Districts are very clear about which degrees qualify for pay increases. Accreditation means that this degree counts for the vast majority of districts in the U.S.

Our program previously had European accreditation, which was meaningful, but U.S. accreditation is what unlocks federal funding and district recognition. That’s why this milestone was such a turning point.

Ilana: For many educators, affordability is the deciding factor. A lot of teachers won’t even consider pursuing a Master’s degree if they have to pay entirely out of pocket. When a program becomes FAFSA-eligible, it completely changes the equation.

Now educators can say, “I can finance this degree, and because my district provides a salary increase for a Master’s, this will pay for itself over time.”

In many districts, that salary bump covers the cost of the degree within just a few years. So accreditation didn’t just increase legitimacy, it made access possible for a much broader population of educators. That’s why it was such a pivotal moment.

As you enter this next phase of growth, what excited you about partnering with HealthX, and what kind of partner did you want alongside you as the company scales?

Michael: For me, there are a few things. First, we’ve known Mark Bakken for over ten years. He’s been a mentor to us individually long before this investment. There’s a deep level of trust there.

We’ve watched him build HealthX into a firm that supports strong founders and high-impact companies, and does it in a way that balances financial success with mission alignment. That matters to us. So partnering with HealthX felt like a natural extension of a relationship that’s already been foundational to our growth.

Second, while we are education-first, the work we’re doing is fundamentally about health and wellness. Education is one of the most powerful leverage points for long-term systemic health outcomes.

HealthX brings credibility, network, and perspective in the broader healthcare ecosystem. As we scale, that connection helps ensure that our impact on human well-being is recognized and amplified beyond just the education sector. That alignment was really compelling.

Ilana: I feel the same. Mark has been one of our greatest mentors from the beginning. He knows us deeply: our strengths, our blind spots, our mission. So becoming part of the HealthX portfolio felt very aligned and very intentional.

We actually wanted HealthX to have the first opportunity to partner with us because of that trust.

But beyond the relationship, there’s also a bigger vision here. Education and healthcare operate in silos, and they shouldn’t. So many of the health and mental health crises we’re facing as a country could be mitigated if we intentionally cultivated human competencies earlier in life: emotional regulation, stress management, self-awareness, purpose.

If we educate students in ways that strengthen physical, emotional, and social well-being from day one, we reduce the downstream strain on medical and mental health systems.

Partnering with HealthX feels like an opportunity to help bridge those worlds, to bring education and healthcare into closer conversation. For us, that’s both strategic and deeply aligned with our mission.

Learn more about Breathe for Change at breatheforchange.com.

Note: This interview was lightly edited for readability.