Big Ideas, Real Impact.

Steve’s journey as an educator and Consultant spans nearly three decades—and it’s still evolving.

An award-winning high school teacher, Steve has spent 29 years in the classroom, driven not just by content, but by a deeper purpose: to cultivate happiness, compassion, kindness, and a genuine sense of humanity in every space he enters.

Teaching high school social studies just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, Steve’s career has never been confined to a single role. He has worn many hats—presenter, mentor, curriculum designer, coach, advisor, and teacher-leader—each one reflecting his commitment to reaching students and adults in meaningful, lasting ways.

In 2021, he expanded that mission by founding Banno Educational Consulting, creating new pathways to support educators, administrators, coaches, and anyone who works with children and adults in building more thoughtful environments where people feel better, stress less, and achieve more.

Throughout his career, Steve has worked at the forefront of educational innovation while thoughtfully preserving the enduring principles of teaching and learning.

From integrating social-emotional learning into everyday instruction to advancing inclusive practices, restorative approaches to discipline, and equitable classrooms, his work reflects a belief that education should develop not only informed students but good humans. His efforts have also extended to reimagining homework, strengthening 21st-century skills, and connecting learning to real-world community engagement. His recent work centers on critically examining the intersection of technology and human experience, with a particular focus on its implications for AI ethics, pedagogy, and the broader development of human potential.

For Steve, education has never been just about what students know—it’s about who they become.

He earned his Bachelor of Arts in history, with dual minors in Philosophy and English Literature from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he also competed as a scholarship NCAA Division I tennis player—an experience that shaped both his discipline and collaborative spirit.

Steve returned to Massachusetts to earn his Master’s degree in secondary education, focusing on urban education and human development, areas that continue to inform his approach to teaching and learning.

His career began at Newton North High School, and then he began teaching Social Studies at Sharon High School, where he has been teaching Advanced Placement United States History since 2001.

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.

He continued his studies through online coursework, engaging with the academic foundations of positive psychology, and the interdiscpinary study of compassion and altruism. Happiness connects people more powerfully than almost any other human experience. Those positive changes ripple through social networks, amplifying joy and strengthening community. As we nurture these moments, we often find ourselves surrounded by the very goodness we’ve helped to foster. The best way to change any organizational culture is to grow the well-being of its members.

In 2005, Steve developed one of the first high school curricula that prioritized social and emotional learning as a class. He called the course: The Love Course: Exploring The Art of Living.

Over the course of more than two decades, and with the participation of over a thousand students, the course has invited teenagers into a sustained exploration of the scientific and philosophical foundations of eudaimonic well-being, kindness, and altruism, guiding them to translate these enduring principles into meaningful action within their own lives and communities

As one former student noted about their experience in The Love 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.”

In 2021, Steve founded Banno Educational Consulting. Steve also partnered with Denver Training Group to provide business and corporate training to build emotional intelligence, create resilient cultures, and connect work to purpose. Steve continues to work with adult clients, understanding that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to well-being. Instead, his work invites individuals to learn how well-being can be cultivated and strengthened like a muscle, to explore meaningful practices, stories, and insights, to engage in experiences that foster genuine connection, and resiliency.

Steve wrote his first book, Teaching What Matters: Activating Happiness, Kindness, and Altruism, published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2022.

Since 2022, Steve has partnered with clients and organizations across the United States, leading professional development workshops in Rhode Island, throughout Massachusetts, San Antonio, Texas, Maryland, Washington, D.C., New York City, Denver, Colorado, and Stillwater, Oklahoma—empowering clients with practical strategies to enhance engagement, foster well-being, and translate research into meaningful practice.

He has conducted professional development workshops for middle and high school educators in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Stillwater, Oklahoma.

He has presented and given talks at The Learning and The Brain Conference on Teaching Social Brains #LatB23 held in Times Square, NYC, and at MassCUE (one of Massachusetts’ largest professional conferences). Steve also manages to provide business and leadership training with the Denver Training Group in Denver, Colorado, as well as independently.

Massachusetts’s non-profit GetPsychedSports hired Steve to develop a novel curriculum that integrated SEL competencies with sports psychology to help coaches and athletic directors integrate social and emotional learning into the realm of high school sports. In 2024, he co-authored Remodeling Sports to Transform Lives: An Example of a Social Emotional Learning Curriculum for High School Sports Teams.

Steve consulted for the non-profit 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.

Partnering with Sangha Studios, an innovative Community Wellness Center, in historic New Bedford, Massachusetts, Steve has begun offering adult introductory workshops exploring how we might improve our internal world while creating opportunities to better our external one. These workshops encourage and empower people with empirically based strategies to connect their intellects with their hearts, believing in the positive possibilities of the human spirit, not as naive idealists or biased optimists, but as defiant humanists. These workshops aim to broaden success as positive sum, promoting positive changes we all wish to see in the world:

Optimism instead of cynicism,

flourishing instead of languishing,

compassion instead of combativeness,

thriving instead of surviving,

and togetherness instead of isolation.

As part of a local community initiative, Steve was asked to be a Thrive Dartmouth Ambassador, presenting two free workshops. The initiative’s objective is to promote healthy living for all. THRIVE DARTMOUTH is free, offering ideas and strategies to enhance the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of neighbors and members of various Southcoast communities.

Outside the classroom, Steve tries to put into practice what he teaches. Whether it’s reading with a cup of coffee in hand, running or biking along the coast, practicing yoga, playing tennis, or exploring the outdoors, he values the rhythms that support both reflection and energy. Lately, he has added pickleball to the mix.

Steve lives in coastal Massachusetts with his wife and their dog.