Steve is an award winning high school educator spanning a twenty-eight year teaching career.
Steve’s great joy has been to foster happiness, benevolence, compassion and kindness in both his professional and private life. He currently teaches high school social studies outside of Boston, Massachusetts.
During this time Steve has been a presenter, teacher-leader, tutor, mentor, curriculum developer, student club advisor, and coach.
In 2021, Steve founded his consulting business, Steve Banno, Jr. Consulting.
Steve has been in the vanguard of educational reform initiatives ranging from the integration of social and emotional learning across subject areas, special education reform and inclusive classrooms, restorative justice/disciplinary practices, reevaluating homework, racial equity, 21st century skills, to community service learning.
He focused on practical learning and guided students in making a documentary about local World War II veterans. The film was showcased at the National Service Learning Awards in Washington, D.C.
Steve is a firm believer in what Aristotle taught, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Before social and emotional learning became ubiquitous as a national educational initiative, Steve was committed to fostering a child-centered learning renaissance.
In 2005, Steve developed one of the first high school curriculums that prioritized social and emotional learning as a class. He called the course: The Love Course: Exploring The Art of Living. The course has encouraged teenagers to discover the scientific and philosophical underpinnings of eudaimonic wellbeing, kindness, and altruism and apply their findings to their own lives and their communities.
As one former student noted about their experience in Steve’s high school course,
“This course teaches all that really important stuff you don’t learn in school. What a beautiful concept and goal. The lessons we learned in that class-both the ones directly stated and the ones we reached after teaching ourselves and making connections-are the ones that truly last a lifetime. From the classroom students spread acts of joy and altruism to the school at large; to the community and then to college and then to their own future families…Every person who passes through your classroom emerges a different person, whether those changes are immediately evident or somewhere deep down.”
For almost two decades, Steve has trained to bring mindfulness into the high school classroom, studied positive psychology, and the science of compassion and altruism.
Steve has conducted professional development workshops for middle and high school educators in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma, and throughout the United States, presented and given talks at The Learning and The Brain Conference on Teaching Social Brains #LatB23 held in NYC Times Square, and at MassCUE (one of Massachusetts’ largest professional conferences). Steve also manages to provide business and corporate trainings with the Denver Training Group in Denver, Colorado as well as independently.
Steve has also been hired by Massachusetts’ non-profit GetPsychedSports to develop and write a novel curriculum that integrates SEL competencies with sports psychology to help coaches and athletic directors integrate social and emotional learning into the realm of high school sports. Steve has also been hired by the San Antonio Sports Foundation in San Antonio, Texas to develop SEL activities to be integrated into their sports curriculum to support students in 66 schools in the San Antonio area.
Steve received his B.A studying history, philosophy and english literature at Duquesne University, where he also played on their N.C.A.A. Division 1 tennis team. Steve obtained a Master’s Degree in secondary education from the University of Massachusetts, Boston with a specific interest in urban education and human development.
In his spare time, Steve is busy making memories with family and friends. Steve also enjoys reading while sipping coffee, running, biking, playing tennis, and spending time outdoors. He has recently discovered the fun of pickleball.
Steve resides in coastal Massachusetts with his wife (his high school sweetheart), son, and their lovable dog.
Interested in connecting with Steve, drop him an email at sbannojr@gmail.com