Elementary schools are no longer exclusively about academics. Now, educators also share responsibility for building students' character, as well as their social and emotional health. Today on The Angel Nest, we meet Maria Howard, founder of Heroes Made, a character education platform for grades one through six that personalizes lessons to every student through storytelling, eliminating prep time for overburdened teachers while giving every child the experience of being the hero of their own learning journey. Joining Maria is Dr. Maurice Elias of Rutgers University, a pioneer in social-emotional learning who is not affiliated with Heroes Made but believes so deeply in what they are doing that he is helping them get the message out. Together they discuss why character cannot be taught from the outside but must be caught from the people and environments surrounding a child, how Heroes Made analyzed why good programs collect dust on shelves and built something specifically designed not to, the circle of control lesson that teaches students to separate what they can manage from what they cannot, the role of technology in personalizing education without isolating children behind screens, and how the platform turns students into published authors whose stories are read by peers across every participating school. The mental health crisis reaches down to primary school age, and Heroes Made is one of the rare programs designed not just to respond to it but to get ahead of it. Learn more about Heroes Made at heroesmade.com and reach us with comments or questions at theangelnest.com.