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5 Habits of Emotionally Strong People | by Nick Wignall | Feb, 2023 | Medium

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5 Habits of Emotionally Strong People | by Nick Wignall | Feb, 2023 | Medium

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Mental Health Toolkit - Transcend Education

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Mental Health Toolkit - Transcend Education

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Students are experiencing mental health challenges at an unprecedented rate. The following resources will help school communities understand those challenges, factors that can buffer against them, and specific practices they can implement to honor those factors.
You can purchase professionally printed versions of the two resources above through Transcend's online store.
Mental Health Practices Toolkit

WHAT CAN SCHOOLS DO TO SUPPORT MENTAL HEALTH?
This toolkit contains information on eight practices that can help schools support mental health. Click on the icons below to see more on each practice.

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Mental Health Toolkit - Transcend Education

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Students are experiencing mental health challenges at an unprecedented rate. The following resources will help school communities understand those challenges, factors that can buffer against them, and specific practices they can implement to honor those factors. You can purchase professionally printed versions of the two resources above through Transcend's online store.

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A Trauma-Informed Approach for Responding to Racial Injustice

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A Trauma-Informed Approach for Responding to Racial Injustice

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The ongoing and disparate impacts of racism and systemic oppression demand our attention. At Girls Inc., we acknowledge the burden of these realities on the Black community, and we have a responsibility to respond with approaches that seek to remedy and not retraumatize. We continue to take steps in becoming a trauma-informed organization, and we want to take the opportunity to share guidance and approaches from SAMHSA around having safe and meaningful discussions around racial injustice and toward racial justice with the girls and young people in your life.

Defining Trauma

While there are many definitions, trauma may be most easily understood through the 3 E's:

Event: A single incident or series of events involving an actual or extreme threat of harm. (e.g., watching the 10 minute and 6 second video of George Floyd being killed or seeing images of young people like Taniyah Pilgrim and Messiah Young being assaulted)

Experience of the event: How one labels or assigns meaning to the event. (e.g., some adults/children may experience the recent videos of Black people being killed or assaulted as traumatic and feel overwhelmed, perpetually unsafe, or powerless)

Effects: The impact of the event on an individual, which may occur immediately or have a delayed onset (some trauma responses include: issues with focus, confusion, nervousness or hypervigilance, normalizing the trauma, disconnecting, self-isolating, mistrusting)

Responses to Trauma

All trauma responses are unique and complex, as are the experiences of events. There is no one size fits all antidote, but a trauma-informed approach can guide us to respond with care and sensitivity. A trauma-informed approach may be most easily depicted through the 4 R's:

Realize the widespread impact of trauma and potential paths for recovery. Community dialogue can create opportunities for healing and reveal girls' resilience through sisterhood.

Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma. Some girls may be struggling with time management and focus, sleep disturbances, mood regulation or uncharacteristic shifts.

Respond through actions, use of language and practices that demonstrate the six principles of a trauma-informed approach. Be curious about what has happened to girls instead of what is wrong with them.

Resist Retraumatization by minimizing stressors and reducing barriers to healing. When a girl confides in you as a trusted adult, avoid being defensive or narrowly solution focused. Try validating her experience through empathetic listening, model vulnerability, and affirm her honesty.

What Girls Need

Being ready to support girls as a trauma-informed adult means taking steps to assure that girls have certain essentials:

Safety as defined by those impacted by trauma, including physical and emotional safety. Offer opportunities for girls to consider and share what might make them feel more physically and emotionally safe.

Trustworthiness and Transparency go hand in hand. Transparency builds trust and supports a sense of belonging. Clearly articulate the focus and content of conversations and discussions you want to have with the girl(s) in your life. Ask for feedback from her/them. Use the Girls Inc. Bill of Rights as a resource to guide those opening conversations.

Peer Support promotes connection to others with lived experiences of trauma and helps establish safety and hope. Create a safe space for listening where girls can ask questions, process their feelings, and share their own experiences. Consider groups and clubs where girls can connect around their shared differences as additional sources of support.

Empowerment, Voice, and Choice fosters opportunities for girls to be heard and promotes self-advocacy. Help girls identify and articulate issues within their community that they would be interested in getting involved and serve as agents for positive change. Who are the mentors available to assist girls in developing their action plans? How can you support or participate in those relationships?

Cultural, Historical, and Gender Recognition acknowledges the impact of historical trauma and leverages the healing value of cultural connections. Seek out opportunities so girls can meet and interact with community leaders and activists who can provide a historical perspective. These opportunities may be available through your local girl-serving organization. For example, Girls Inc. of Central Alabama is promoting activities that encourage the girls to explore the historic role that the City of Birmingham played during the civil rights movement.

Do's & Don'ts for Non-Black Individuals

Being informed about racial trauma is a crucial step as we navigate the impact of historical oppression of Black individuals and communities. It requires reflection, accountability, and intentionality from us all. These strides also involve the possibility of mistakes. Missteps are likely, but we must feel comfortable to acknowledge them and accompany them with efforts towards continuous improvement.

Below are some key considerations and challenges for non-Black individuals:

Do:

1. Acknowledge and call out the pain caused by racist beliefs and actions

2. Center Black voices without placing the burden on Black individuals to lead conversations about race

3. Listen to the voices of those most impacted

4. Risk personal discomfort to engage in dialogue if you are not a member of the Black community

5. Convey openness to listening and deepening your understanding about others experiences and the effects, with no expectation that they take you up on it

6. Take responsibility for your own education and examine your understanding of the intersections of race, class and gender

Don't:

1. Remain silent in the face of injustice

2. Be defensive

3. Expect Black individuals or youth to educate you. This is potentially retraumatizing

4. Participate in performative allyship

5. Share viral recordings of Black individuals being brutalized

6. Assume that every Black person is impacted in the same way or needs the same kind of support

Additional Resources

Addressing Race and Trauma in the Classroom : A guide from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network to explore the interplay of race and trauma and its effects on students.

Building Trauma Informed Communities for Youth : A presentation from The National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments explores the cumulative and historical impact of racism, discrimination, and oppression and promotes healing and resilience.

Complex Trauma: In urban African-American Children, Youth and Families : A resource from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network which explores complex trauma and offers tips for providers.

Racial Trauma is Real : A resource from the Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture with specific resources for recovery and healing from ongoing racial trauma.

Self Care Tips for Black People Struggling from a Painful Week : Practical strategies for self care from author Rachel Wilkerson Miller.

Sources

Guided by SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach and further informed by Racial Trauma is Real , a compilation of research and resources from the Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture, Girls Inc. hopes to further develop a shared understanding of racial trauma as an organization, to better support our girls, communities, and one another.

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A Trauma-Informed Approach for Responding to Racial Injustice

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The ongoing and disparate impacts of racism and systemic oppression demand our attention. At Girls Inc., we acknowledge the burden of these realities on the Black community, and we have a responsibility to respond with approaches that seek to remedy and not retraumatize.

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How to Create a Mindful Space for Self-Regulation in Elementary School | Edutopia

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For more than a decade, Healthier Generation has worked with schools, youth-serving organizations, businesses, and communities to empower kids to develop lifelong healthy habits by ensuring the environments that surround them provide and promote good health. Driven by our passion that all young people deserve a chance to live healthier lives, our work has impacted up to 28 million kids across the country.

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SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach

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SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach

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How School Leaders Can Build Hope and Prevent Teacher Burnout | Edutopia

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How School Leaders Can Build Hope and Prevent Teacher Burnout | Edutopia

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How School Leaders Can Build Hope and Prevent Teacher Burnout

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The best cure for burnout is preventing it in the first place, by improving working conditions and fostering teachers’ sense of hope for the future.

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5 Strategies for developing a school-wide culture of healing - MindShift

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5 Strategies for developing a school-wide culture of healing - MindShift

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When supporting students, Ginwright encourages educators to ask themselves, "How do we create strategies that allow for our young people to move out of trauma and into transformation?" For instance, ongoing systemic racism compounded the experience of COVID-19 and created stress and trauma among Black students. Many students felt helpless after George Floyd's murder in 2020 and it prompted teachers to make space for students to talk about how they were feeling and the changes they'd like to see in their community. Ultimately many students were inspired to take action from protesting police presence in schools to organizing neighborhood cleanups.

Keeping up with constantly changing COVID-19 safety guidelines meant that students and educators alike felt like things were out of their control. "Even as leaders, you sometimes felt incompetent through all of this because you thought you understood what you were supposed to do and then you would do it only to find out the next day that it was something different," said Dr. Sheila McCabe, assistant superintendent of educational services with the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District in California. While those in the district couldn't have control over the big picture, they found opportunities to exercise agency. Identifying and creating district-wide goals helped many people feel like they had a little bit of influence over their environment.

Transactional or Transformative Relationships

In school settings, according to Ginwright, relationships fall into two categories: transactional or transformative.

Transactional relationships are related to the title or status a person has. For example, being a principal isn't void of power dynamics with regards to staff. "Transactional relationships are effective and efficient relationships, but they're not sufficient for healing," said Ginwright. "Transactional relationships are easy to break because they are not about people. They're about titles."

Transformative relationships, however, may require adults to learn how to be more vulnerable with each other and in turn cultivate a safe environment for students . Transformative relationships, he said, are built on pieces of our humanity. "And when we let our humanity spill out on each other, we create a bond that matters."

At Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District, administrators are using HCE to take steps in addressing chronic absenteeism with their students.

Assistant superintendent McCabe said reaching out to students to learn more about why they aren't able to show up to school revealed that many chronically absent students live in low income parts of the district and are more likely to experience persistent stress. "We think that part of [the solution] is really developing strategies to build authentic connection with our students and their parents and through those authentic connections help to reengage kids," said McCabe. One strategy the district has used to create more transformative relationships is doing a check-in at the beginning of conversations with students. "The questions might be something like, 'Share with the group the best thing that has happened this week' or 'What are you most proud of,'" said McCabe. "We are a few months into really using this technique and staff members have shared that they feel like their conversations, even those that might be challenging conversations, are more meaningful and more productive."

In McCabe's district, they aren't just strengthening relationships in the classroom. They're building rapport among staff too. McCabe said her colleagues start every meeting by grounding the team with a breathing exercise. "It would take maybe three minutes of a one-hour meeting, but every time I'm like 'Okay, I'm here.'"

Meaning

Being caught up in the daily grind can make people who work with kids lose sight of why they engage in this work in the first place, which is to build community, facilitate healing and wellbeing, and support young people in the restoration of their humanity. "We have to remind ourselves of the purpose that we're engaged in when we are working with young people. We also have to remind young people of the broader, bigger, deeper purpose of their engagement." Ginwright said, upholding the meaning in healing-centered engagement simply means that there is ongoing focus on the things that matter.

Aspirations

COVID has made being a teacher and being a student incredibly difficult. However, it's just as important to continue to envision a possible future, said Ginwright.

"We know that schools are way more than knowledge exchange and acquisition. Schools are social emotional spaces," he said. "So when we address the trauma and we create healing environments, then it means we get to the deep learning that young people so need and want."

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5 Strategies for developing a school-wide culture of healing - MindShift

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Shawn Ginwright's healing-centered engagement model builds on social-emotional learning and trauma-informed care to provide educators and school leaders with tools for healing.

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Students' social and mental health care needs weigh heavily on schools - MindShift

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Students' social and mental health care needs weigh heavily on schools - MindShift

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Of course, the rise in children's mental health symptoms didn't start with this school year. Recent studies show that the pandemic exacerbated an already growing crisis in youth mental health. CDC data shows that the proportion of mental health emergency visits for kids started going up early on in the pandemic. In the fall of 2020, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Children's Hospital Association and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry declared an emergency in child and adolescent mental health.

The U.S. Surgeon General also called attention to the crisis in an advisory on youth mental health issued in December 2020.

The rise in symptoms continued through 2021. According to data from the Children's Hospital Association, there were more than 47,000 mental health visits to emergency departments at 38 children's hospitals around the country in the first three quarters of 2021 - nearly 40% higher than the same period in 2020.

And the situation has worsened in recent months.

Stressed students are hurting others - and themselves

Schools are seeing many kids acting younger than their age, says Dr. Vera Feuer, an associate vice president of school mental health at Cohen's Children's Medical Center in Long Island. For example, high schoolers are behaving more like middle school students, often shoving and pushing each other in the hallways, she says. Some kids who are struggling often manifest their emotions with more aggression and violence.

"In some districts, they are seeing really alarming numbers of fights among students," says Mullaney.

In addition, Mullaney says there have been recent reports of violence against those in authority: a school principal in Massachusetts was assaulted by a student, he says, and other schools have had staff members assaulted by students.

And many students are hurting themselves. There has been a rise in students reporting self-harm, suicidal thoughts and attempts in his district, says Mullaney. His school district has referred more kids for mental health treatment than ever before, he adds.

Based on data from nearly 40 children's hospitals around the country, there were 14,630 ER visits for children aged 5-18 years between January and September of last year.

"And unfortunately, younger children are experiencing higher rates of this than they have in the past," said Amy Knight, president of the Children's Hospital Association (CHA), who moderated a congressional briefing on the youth mental health crisis.

Indeed, health-care providers across the country are seeing more referrals with cases that go beyond schools' capacities.

"Definitely we're seeing schools referring kids with more behavioral issues and aggression," Feuer says. She and her colleagues are also seeing kids with depressive symptoms and those refusing to go to school and needing to be assessed for suicide risk. According to CDC data, the number of Emergency Department visits due to suspected suicide attempts by people aged 12-25 started to rise by May 2020, and children's hospitals around the country have seen those numbers continue to increase.

The psychological cost of a year away from in-person school

Much of this increase in reports of mental health issues stems from the stress of returning to school, says Dr. Tami Benton, psychiatrist-in-chief at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, referring to her and her colleagues' observations working with patients and schools.

"The year that they were out of school was a year that they didn't have the opportunities for developing the social skills that normally happen during their period of development," she says. "And you're sort of catching up on all of that under extraordinary circumstances."

High school junior Francesca Henderson of Atlanta says many of her friends have felt anxious about navigating the social landscape after a year in isolation. While Henderson herself was able to maintain her friendships through the pandemic, she says she initially found it difficult to interact with people up close again.

"The biggest issue I had was adjusting back to in-person life," says the 17-year-old.

Academics have been stressful, too. "They made a lot of things a lot easier [last year]," Henderson says. "We didn't have exams; we had projects and almost all of our assessments were open. So you didn't have to study as much."

Henderson and her peers have had to re-learn skills like time management and are focusing to catch up with this year's tougher academic pressures.

That catching up has been particularly hard for some kids, Benton says.

Children with special needs who relied on in-person support at school fell far behind their peers both academically and developmentally last school year, as did kids who had a mental health diagnosis before the pandemic.

"Many people had delayed services, so by the time they did seek mental health treatment, they were actually doing worse," says Benton. "For some of those kids, who had actually pretty strong peer support groups prior to the pandemic, [they] had to reestablish those [relationships] when they returned to school."

Henderson has seen that among some of her friends, whose emotional wellbeing benefited greatly from social interactions at school before the pandemic. "So you take that away cold turkey, it was kind of detrimental."

Then there are children grieving the loss of loved ones to COVID-19. An estimated 175,000 lost a parent or a caregiver, according to a CDC study. Kids of color have been disproportionately affected by these losses because long standing inequities caused higher death rates in their communities. The CDC study showed that compared to white children, Asian children were 4.5 times as likely to have lost a parent or another caregiver to COVID-19, Black children were 2.4 times as likely and Hispanic kids twice as likely.

"And that trauma alone is very significant," says Dr. Nicole Christian-Brathwaite, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and chief medical officer at Array Behavioral Health, a telepsychiatry company. It's especially strong "when there are some children who have lost generations of family members and then going into school and having to manage that stress without necessarily having a therapist available or school counselor or nurse."

Nor is there always adequate help for these children. Schools in many underserved communities have no mental health support, she adds. "Some schools have one counselor spread across an entire district."

And many kids who developed symptoms of mental health problems during the first year of the pandemic didn't get help right away because they were away from school staff who might have spotted symptoms early on.

Pre-pandemic, schools were "kind of like the first responders" with respect to student mental health issues, explains Mullaney, the Massachusetts superintendent. Teachers and other school staff would spot changes in behavior or symptoms of mental illness and connect those kids to help. But that proved harder in a virtual learning environment.

A perfect storm: more need for help, harder to get it

With an already saturated health-care system, kids and families are struggling to get timely help.

"You're seeing this perfect storm of just the increased need [and] difficulty accessing care," says psychiatrist Feuer, referring to the demand on mental health professionals. "Everybody's booked or not taking new patients or really scheduling very far in advance. But in many cases, not even scheduling, just saying 'right now, we can't take anybody new,' because they are so full."

As a result, families are left with no options but to take their child to a hospital emergency room for diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues, especially if the child is in a crisis.

Emergency department visits at Colorado Children's hospital for child and adolescent mental health increased by 75% in recent months, said Heidi Baskfield, vice president of population health and advocacy at Children's Hospital Colorado, speaking at a virtual congressional briefing last month. She called the situation "untenable" for providers and communities.

"On any given day in our emergency departments, there are between 15 and 40 children with mental health needs seeking care," she says. "We are consistently full with all of our mental health units. Our outpatient visits went from a three-week wait to sometimes upwards of nine months. Imagine you're the parent of a child in crisis calling for help and being told, 'call us back in a year.' "

The steep rise in need has led schools and health-care providers to come up with some solutions on the fly. Overwhelmed school staff in many places have reached out to mental health-care providers for advice on better spotting symptoms of mental and behavioral problems so that they can help kids sooner. In some well-resourced communities, schools and providers are collaborating to connect kids to care before things escalate.

There has been some recognition of the problem at the federal level, and some resources to address it. The CARES Act and the American Rescue Act have helped many schools add more counselors and social workers to address the increased demand.

But Mullaney is still concerned about what will happen when the money from COVID relief plans run out.

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Students' social and mental health care needs weigh heavily on schools - MindShift

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Of course, the rise in children's mental health symptoms didn't start with this school year. Recent studies show that the pandemic exacerbated an already growing crisis in youth mental health. CDC data shows that the proportion of mental health emergency visits for kids started going up early on in the pandemic.

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20 Tips to Help De-escalate Interactions With Anxious or Defiant Students | KQED

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Anxiety is a huge barrier to learning and very difficult for educators to identify. "When anxiety is fueling the behavior, it's the most confusing and complicated to figure out," Minahan said. That's because a student isn't always anxious; it tends to come and go based on events in their lives, so their difficulties aren't consistent. When we are anxious our working memory tanks, making it very difficult to recall any salient information.

Researchers surveyed a group of first graders none of whom had any reading or math disabilities. Those who had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder were eight times more likely to be in the lowest achieving group in reading, and two-point-five times more likely to be in the lowest quartile in math achievement by the spring.

"Anxiety is a learning disability; it inhibits your ability to learn," Minahan said. But it isn't usually recognized as a learning disability and there is almost never a plan for how to address it in the classroom. "For kids with anxiety, the 'can'ts fluctuate," Minahan said. "When they're calm they can. When they're anxious they can't. And that's very deceiving."

Anxiety isn't about ability, it's about interference, which means that traditional rewards and consequences don't often work with this group of learners.

"Rewards and consequences are super helpful to increase motivation for something I'm able to do," Minahan said. But an anxious person's brain has shut down and they aren't able in that moment to complete the task being asked of them. The best way to combat this tricky problem is to try to prevent anxiety triggers and build up students' social and emotional skills to cope with the moments when anxiety sets in.

When kids are in the throes of bad behavior they have poor self-regulation skills, often get into negative thinking cycles that they can't stop, have poor executive functioning, become inflexible thinkers and lose social skills like the ability to think about another person's perspective. That's why kids can seem so unempathetic when teachers ask, "how do you think that made Sam feel?" At that moment, the student acting out has no ability to take Sam's perspective, but a few hours later or the next day, he might be able to show the remorse educators want to see.

ALL BEHAVIOR HAS A FUNCTION

Bad behavior is often connected to seeking attention, and when kids act out, they can see the results.* "Negative attention is way easier to get and hands down easier to understand," Minahan said. "It's much more efficient." Adults tend to be unpredictable with attention when a student is doing what she is supposed to do, but as soon as there's a dramatic, obvious tantrum, the student has the teacher's attention. And negative attention is powerful -- one student can hijack a whole classroom.

A common teacher response to low-level negative attention seeking is to ignore the student. The teacher doesn't want to reward bad behavior. "I want to caution you about ignoring someone with anxiety because their anxiety goes up," Minahan said. Ignoring an already anxious student can accidentally convey the message that the teacher doesn't care about the student, and worse might escalate the situation. Perhaps a teacher can ignore a student tapping his pencil or banging on his desk, but threatening behavior can't be ignored. And the student learns exactly what level of behavior he must exhibit to get attention.

TIP 1: Instead, "what you need to do is make positive attention compete better," Minahan said. She often suggests that teachers actively engage the most difficult student at the beginning of class saying something like, "I can't wait to see what you think of this assignment. I'm going to check on you in 5 minutes." When the teacher actually comes back in five minutes, validates the student's progress, and tells her another check-in is coming in ten minutes it sets up a pattern of predictable attention for positive behavior. And while it might seem unfair to take that extra time and care with one student, it ultimately saves instruction time when a teacher doesn't have to deal with a tantrum that sends the student out of the room.

TIP 2: Often in an attempt to form a positive relationship with a student teachers will publicly praise positive behavior. That can backfire, especially with anxious kids who don't want any extra attention from peers. Private or non-verbal praise is often better. Minahan recommends pulling students aside at the beginning of the year to ask how teachers can best tell them they're proud. "It's a gift to your February self if you can figure out a system now, otherwise you'll get stuck on the negative attention scale," Minahan said.

Tip 2.1: She also recommends fact-based praise as opposed to general praise. Vague praise is easy to dismiss.
ANTECEDENTS TO BAD BEHAVIOR
Many kids have predictable anxiety triggers like unstructured time, transitions, writing tasks, social demands or any unexpected change. Similarly the antecedents of negative behavior are fairly predictable: unfacilitated social interactions, interaction with an authoritative adult, being asked to wait, when demands are placed, being told no, writing, and transitions.**

Tip 3: "Teach waiting now," Minahan said. "When you are anxious, despite your age, it's very hard to wait." She was asked to observe a boy who constantly disrupted class. Minahan soon noticed the boy often did his work, but if he finished early or there was downtime in the class, he would start causing trouble. When Minahan pointed this out to him he had no idea what "wait time" was. She had to spell out to him that when he finished a task he should apply a strategy, like turning over the paper and doodling appropriately on the back. After this small intervention the student's behavior was so improved that his teacher thought he'd gone on medication.

'You can have really bright, able children whose anxiety is interfering so much.'

For kids with anxiety, there are a number of strategies teachers can employ. The first is not to take any student behavior personally. The student isn't trying to manipulate or torture the teacher, his behavior is reflecting something going on internally. Often a short movement break can help relieve anxiety, but not the way they are commonly given.

Minahan described a seventh grade girl who was recovering from an eating disorder. The girl was scraping her arms so badly they would bleed. After lunch, predictably, the behavior was worse, so her teachers were letting her color and draw to relieve her anxiety. Another common break is to tell a student to go get a drink of water down the hall. The coloring break wasn't working for this seventh grader and Minahan soon figured out why. "We accidentally left her alone to fester in her anxious thoughts," she said.

Tip 4: Leaving class doesn't give the student a break from internal negative thoughts like "I'm fat," or "I'm not smart enough," which paralyze thinking. But a break paired with a cognitive distraction does offer respite from the "all or nothing" thinking that's so common with anxious students. An older student might take a break and record herself reading a book out loud for a younger student with dyslexia. It's impossible to read out loud and think another thought. Other distractions could include sports trivia, sudoku or crossword puzzles. Little kids might do a Where's Waldo or look through a Highlight magazine for the hidden picture.

Tip 5: When teachers want to wrap up a task they often use a countdown. "Silent reading time is going to be over in five minutes." But counting down doesn't support a high achieving anxious child who feels she must finish. And it takes a lot of executive function skills and cognitive flexibility to fight the urge to keep going after the time is up. So instead of counting down, a teacher might walk over to that student and say, let's find a good stopping point. She may stop a minute later than the rest of the class when she reaches the designated point, but it won't escalate into a tug-of-war.

Transitions are another common time for kids to act out. Younger students often don't want to come in from recess, for example. But when a teacher says, "Line up. Recess is over. It's time for your spelling quiz," it's no wonder the student doesn't want to go from something he loves to something he hates.

Tip 6: The teacher can give students an in-between step to make the transition more palatable. Go from recess, to two minutes of coloring, to the spelling quiz. The intermediary step gives that non-compliant student behavioral momentum. He's already sitting down, quiet, with pen in hand, so the jump to spelling isn't as jarring.

For middle and high school students, school is all about being social, but the only times students get to see their friends are in the two to five minute passing periods between classes. Again, the transition is from something they love to something they hate, so don't make that transition extra hard by collecting homework as they come in the door. The toughest kids are probably already not doing well in the class, and a reminder of the homework exacerbates feelings of inadequacy.

Tip 7: One high school geometry teacher started playing two minute YouTube videos about geometry as students came into class. It got students from the hallway into the classroom without thinking negatively and her class started to run more smoothly. She didn't have the same interruptions she used to, which made the lost two minutes seem worth it.

Tip 8: Minahan also likes some of the biofeedback tools that are now available, like the EmWave. A wound up student puts a sensor on his finger and calming down becomes a game. He might start out with a picture of a black and white forest, but as he calms down (and the sensor monitors his heart rate) the colors start to pop in. It can take as little as two to five minutes to completely calm a kid down when they can see the feedback so clearly.

"I like it because it's so concrete," Minahan said. A student with high functioning autism might not even know what a teacher means by "calm down," but with the biofeedback device she can see what it means.

WORK AVOIDANCE

Minahan says it's very common for students to have trouble initiating work, persisting through work and asking for help, but there are strategies to help kids build the skills to get better in these areas.

"You can have really bright, able children whose anxiety is interfering so much," Minahan said. The anxiety isn't coming from nowhere; it's coming from prior experiences of feeling frozen and stupid. In that moment the child's working memory isn't working, so teachers need to find ways to bypass it until the anxiety passes.

Tip 9: One way is to let students preview the work for the day. In the morning, an elementary school teacher might work on the first few problems with the anxious child so she knows she can do it. Then, when it's time for that work later in the day, that child receives the sheet she's already started and can go from there.

Tip 9.1: In high school, teachers can give students with trouble initiating the preview as homework. Students can start at home without any pressure and continue at school. "Fight or flight is the worst when they first see it," Minahan said, so try to bypass that moment and prevent a breakdown.

Tip 10: At the same time, when the teacher names the strategies a student is employing, he is helping the student build a toolbox that can be used independently. Strategies might include, asking a teacher to help her start when she feels frozen, or asking to preview the homework. For perfectionist students, difficulty starting can stem from a fear of messing up. Give those students dry erase boards, where the mess ups can be easily erased. It helps when teachers treat the difficulty starting as a small problem and say something like, "Looks like you're not initiating. What strategy are you going to use?"

'When I shift the reinforcement to skills, I've noticed the skills go up and that's what makes the difference for the kids who have mental health difficulties.'

Tip 11: Some strategies to build persistence include skipping the hard ones and doing the ones a student knows first, working with a buddy, and double checking work on problems that have been completed.

Giving help in class is often a tricky balance, especially if a student is too embarrassed to ask vocally. Instead of acting out because she can't do the work, the student might raise her hand, pass the teacher a note or make eye contact. Then the teacher has to be careful not to give too much help. "We accidentally create dependency because we help so much," Minahan said.

That goes for academics as well as behavior. Often a teacher will notice a student becoming agitated and dysregulated and tell him to take a short walk. But ultimately the student will be better served if he can learn to monitor himself and implement strategies when he notices early signs of agitation. "Kids have to learn how to catch themselves on the way up and calm down there," Minahan said, because that's when the strategies work. But kids need to be taught how to recognize the signs.

Tip 12: Teach kids how to do a body check. With younger students a teacher can describe the signs of agitation as they are happening so the student starts to recognize them. With older students, ask them where in their body they feel anxious, for example, "in your belly?" "Give them the data every day," Minahan said. "This is your body on the way up." After the groundwork has been laid, a teacher can just say "body check, please" to let a student know it's time to check in with themselves and start using a strategy.

But what can you do when a kid is already exploding? Minahan says, not much because the child will have a very hard time reacting in a reasonable way once he or she is riled up.

Tip 13: What educators can do is anticipate those moments and rehearse self-calming strategies when the child is calm.

In one case, Minahan knew an elementary student she was working with was going to have a traumatic change in her life. The child's mom was giving her up to foster care and the date had been set. To prepare for what would undoubtedly be a moment when the student couldn't control herself, Minahan had her practice self-calming in the social worker's office, where she would probably go on the day. Twice a day for five minutes she rehearsed a self-calming routine when she was already calm so her working memory was available and she was learning the strategies.

When the day came and the child did freak out, Minahan quickly got her into the office with very little touching or verbal interaction which might further set her off. Once there, the girl got into her routine, and started singing to herself as a cognitive distraction. "The rehearsal allowed for automaticity and did not require cognition or working memory in that moment," Minahan said.

Tip 14: Rehearse replies to confrontations. Minahan worked with a high school student who constantly got in fights. If he felt disrespected he'd start swinging. Together they rehearsed over and over him saying, "I don't have time for this," and walking away. During the rehearsals, Minahan gave him something to hold in his hands as he said this. And soon, he stopped getting in fights. It gave him the moment he needed to make a decision not to use his fists and a go-to automatic reply.

Tip 15: Use data to disprove negative thinking. Writing is a common barrier for kids with anxiety, Minahan said. But one way to begin getting students past this hurdle is to ask them how hard a task will be before they start and again after they've completed it. Almost always the perception of the task is worse than the actual task. With several weeks of data you can show students the pattern in their responses.

Minahan worked with a girl who hated writing so much that she was skipping school twice a week. She would often say that writing was torture to her. Minahan broke writing down into component parts with corresponding strategies for getting started on each part. When the student worked on a writing task Minahan would ask her how many strategies she employed. Often the girl didn't use that many strategies, which didn't fit with her own conception of herself. "We reframed her whole thinking and she felt more empowered to solve her problems," Minahan said.

INTERACTION STRATEGIES

In any interaction with students teachers can only control their own behavior, but that's actually a lot of power. "We are 50% of every interaction with a child," Minahan said. "We have a lot of control over that interaction."

Tip 16: If a teacher gets off on the wrong foot with a student early in the year, try randomly being kind to the child, rather than only giving positive attention based on his or her behavior. This kind of noncontingent reinforcement helps the child to see the teacher likes him for who he is, not because he does math well or reads perfectly, Minahan said.

Tip 17: In areas where the difficult student is competent, give her a leadership role. Maybe let her take a younger child to the nurse or start an activity club. This helps change the child's perception of herself and also her relationship to the teacher.

Tip 18: When demanding something of a student, don't ask yes or no questions and teach kids not to ask yes or no questions. In that scenario, someone has a 50 percent chance of being disappointed with the answer. By changing the question, the teacher opens the door for the answer to be diffusing, rather than an escalation of defiance. For example, if a student asks, "Can I work with Jack?" The teacher can reframe the question: "Oh, did you want to know when you could work with Jack? You can ask: When can I work with Jack." The student might not like the answer, but it likely won't produce the same explosive reaction as getting an outright "no."

Tip 19: Give kids time and space. If a student is prone to arguing, eye contact and physical proximity can escalate potential protests.*** For example, if a kid is humming in an annoying way, a typical teacher move might be to make eye contact with the child and shake your head to get him to stop. But in this situation eye-contact is non-verbally asking the child for a response, which he may be incapable of giving at that moment. Instead, calmly walk over and put a note on his desk that says, "please stop humming." Then run away and do not make eye contact with that student for a few minutes.

"The initial reaction is not pleasant and you have to wait for them to de-escalate before they can comply," Minahan said. Sometimes the mere presence of the teacher prevents that de-escalation.

Tip 20: Reward practice or strategy use, not performance. "When I shift the reinforcement to skills, I've noticed the skills go up and that's what makes the difference for the kids who have mental health difficulties," Minahan said. Ultimately, educators are teaching kids the skills and strategies that they can then use throughout their life when they're anxious, so rewarding practice makes sense.

The more teachers can empathize with students, teaching skill building and focus on preventing challenging behavior, the smoother the classroom will run. Often that means learning about the student in order to identify triggers and design new ways of interacting with even the most challenging students.

*An earlier version of this post overstated the connection between bad behavior and seeking attention.
**An earlier version of this sentence highlighted only one type of negative behavior -- fighting.
*** This section was updated to include the situations under which eye contact could make a situation worse for a student. We regret these errors.

Don't miss an episode of the MindShift Podcast

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20 Tips to Help De-escalate Interactions With Anxious or Defiant Students | KQED

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Interventions and strategic behaviors can help teachers manage students who are acting out or missing out on learning because of behavioral issues.

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Helping Students Create Healthy Relationships — Pear Deck

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Helping Students Create Healthy Relationships — Pear Deck

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Relationships are the glue that connect us to each other. As adults, most of us have come to realize that relationships are essential, not only in success but also in daily living. How long did it take for us to learn such a valuable lesson? Where and how did we learn to establish relationships?

Some may be able to recall elementary school as the "Where" and our interactions with classmates as the "How." There really wasn't a class for it. Learning and developing relationships seemed pretty self-paced with no differentiated instruction available. At times, the learning curve was steep. With limited technology, seemingly safer communities, and sometimes forced social situations - like parents making kids go outside and play - kids of yesteryear were forced to create relationships with peers.

Fast forward many years later, students are still learning math, reading, writing, history, social studies, science, and a variety of other subjects - but relationships isn't one of them. Well, not officially. Some schools do offer groups and Social Skills training, which often aids in the development of relationships; however, the importance of relationships is rarely realized until students exhibit behavioral issues.

Let's face it: Many school districts and leaders don't really think about teaching "Relationships" when they prioritize content, determine grade-level placement, construct classroom rosters, and create master schedules and agendas throughout the school year. Ironically, most of the behavioral incidents that occur in many schools are a result of poor relationship skills. Of course, there are incidents that couldn't even be resolved by a relationship guru, but the majority are not those. The majority are often a result of a misunderstanding, a miscalculation of some sort.

Behavioral incidents usually involve one of the following: lack of empathy, lack of active listening, lack of interpersonal skills, lack of effective (verbal/nonverbal) communication, or an inability to resist peer pressure. Now that we know this, we can prevent every behavioral issue in every school district across the world, right? Okay, maybe not, but it sure is a good indicator of target areas educators can help students develop throughout the course of the school year.

Over the past two years, students have slowly regressed in their ability to form, maintain or repair relationships. Prior to sheltering in place, quarantining, and social distancing due to COVID-19, the younger generation was already replacing traditional relationship skills with those of an impersonal variety: texting and DM-ing.

Technology has seemingly erased the angst many adults recall during their teenage years - the feeling of calling your significant other and getting sweaty pits because you didn't know who was going to answer the phone, or having to muster up all of your courage to ask your crush to go out with you. Those days required nerves of steel because in many instances, you had to actually face or speak to the person, not wait for a readable response on a cellular device. Sounds archaic, right? There's something about those experiences - the unnerving anticipation, wondering if the person feels the same way, if we are the person being asked, wondering how you can say "No" without hurting feelings. Needless to say, those times are no more.

Ironically, being told "No" can build resilience. The adversity that we endure in those moments of rejection can truly build resiliency when we are able to process those feelings of discomfort and overcome them. Face-to-face situations do not allow us to escape through technology. We are often unable to soften the blow or minimize feelings like shame and rejection. As we get older, the way in which we process or work through those feelings becomes the manner in which we deal with similar situations in our lives. Those experiences help shape us into the version of us that is able to process and rebound from rejection.

Now that we've taken a trip down memory lane, what can teachers do to help students create healthy relationships?

1. Incorporate opportunities for students to build relationship skills. During instructional time, intentionally create situations that require students to utilize relationship skills. For example: Have students pair up with classmates they don't usually pair up with, and give limited instruction aside from interviewing each other. Students are only allowed to talk to their partner.

2. Engage students in class discussion. Classroom discussion is not only a great way to help students process what they're learning, but also a way to encourage students to express their thoughts and feelings related to the subject. When students share opposing opinions, there is an opportunity for them to understand the perspective of others and constructively work through differences.

3. Encourage discussions about empathy. Teachers have seemingly 1.5 million tasks to complete on any given day. Sometimes we have to take moments out of our day to directly discuss particular topics. Empathy is one of those topics. We would like to think that most students know what empathy looks, sounds, and feels like, but we'd be wrong to assume. Understanding empathy is a step toward demonstrating empathy; when our students are able to regularly demonstrate empathy, there's less room for ridicule, bullying, and rumors to operate among them.

4. Help students remember the cost of negative peer pressure. A student's peer group is the greatest sphere of influence at this stage in their life. Regardless of educator input, stories told, and potential consequences, students are easily swayed by their peers. Since our students are often more prone to listen to their peers, it's essential to help them realize the importance of surrounding themselves with peers who make responsible decisions. These conversations are typically done on an individual basis once we've started to notice trends or changes in student behavior.

5. Virtual relationships still require relational work. When it comes to feelings toward technology, there are two separate crowds: The "Technology is the greatest thing ever" crowd and the "I miss how things used to be before technology" crowd. In actuality, there is room for both crowds to exist. If you are an educator who believes technology is the greatest ever and you've been able to create and sustain friendships through the internet, your students could benefit from your expertise. Taking the time to explain DM (Direct Messaging), texting, email, and comment etiquette may be the one lesson your students take away from your class. Don't shy away from an opportunity to incorporate that information or have a direct conversation to educate your students.

6. Coordinate efforts to address student relationship skills with a school counselor. Regardless of the grade level, school counselors can provide a wealth of knowledge and insight regarding relationship skills. Classroom counselor lessons are an easy way to directly address and teach relationship skills. If there are particular students that present with challenges, inform your school counselor for individual follow-up.

In short, RELATIONSHIP SKILLS are often referred to as "soft, people skills" that include empathy, active listening, effective communication, cooperation, and resisting negative pressure. The phrase "soft, people skills" simply means there are particular nuances when utilizing them. Since relationship skills are essential in how we function as humans, there is an ever-growing need to evolve with technology; therefore, the tried-and-true skills of building and establishing relationships are needed virtually.

Although technology has minimized (and in some ways eliminated) the risk taken in social situations, the ability to build, maintain, and repair relationships will always require a particular set of skills. Helping your students develop the tools necessary may be the best lesson your students could ever learn.

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Helping Students Create Healthy Relationships - Pear Deck

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Relationships are the glue that connect us to each other. As adults, most of us have come to realize that relationships are essential, not only in success but also in daily living. How long did it take for us to learn such a valuable lesson? Where and how did we learn to establish relationships?

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Feeling Overwhelmed? Remember RAIN - Mindful

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When I was in college, I went off to the mountains for a weekend of hiking with an older, wiser friend of twenty-two. After setting up our tent, we sat by a stream, watching the water swirl around rocks, talking about our lives. At one point she described how she was learning to be "her own best friend." A wave of sadness came over me, and I broke down sobbing. I was the furthest thing from my own best friend. I was continually harassed by an inner judge who was merciless, nit-picking, demanding, always on the job. My guiding assumption was, "Something is fundamentally wrong with me," as I struggled to control and fix what felt like a basically flawed self.

Over the last several decades, through my work with tens of thousands of clients and meditation students, I've come to see the pain of perceived deficiency as epidemic. It's like we're in a trance that causes us to see ourselves as unworthy. Yet, I have seen in my own life, and with countless others, that we can awaken from this trance through practicing mindfulness and self-compassion. We can come to trust the goodness and purity of our hearts.

In order to flower, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. Compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves. To help people address feelings of insecurity and unworthiness, I often introduce mindfulness and compassion through a meditation I call the RAIN of Self-Compassion. The acronym RAIN, first coined about 20 years ago by Michele McDonald, is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness. It has four steps:

1. Recognize what is going on

2. Allow the experience to be there, just as it is

3. Investigate with kindness

4. Natural awareness, which comes from not identifying with the experience.

Practice RAIN with Tara Brach:

You can take your time and explore RAIN as a stand-alone meditation or move through the steps in a more abbreviated way whenever challenging feelings arise.

R-Recognize What's Going On

Recognizing means consciously acknowledging, in any given moment, the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are affecting us. Like awakening from a dream, the first step out of the trance of unworthiness is simply to recognize that we are stuck, subject to painfully constricting beliefs, emotions, and physical sensations. Common signs of the trance include a critical inner voice, feelings of shame or fear, the squeeze of anxiety or the weight of depression in the body.

Different people respond to the sense of unworthiness in different ways. Some might stay busy, trying to prove themselves valuable; others, fearful of failure, may become discouraged or even paralyzed. Still others may resort to addictive behaviors to avoid facing their shame and fear. Any of these strategies can lead to either defensive or aggressive behavior with others, or unhealthy attachment.

Some of us are at war with ourselves for decades, never realizing how our self-judgment and self-aversion keep us from finding genuine intimacy with others or enjoying our lives. One palliative caregiver reports that a key regret of the dying is not having been true to themselves. Rather than listening to and trusting our inner life, most of us try to live according to the expectations of others, which we internalize. When we inevitably fall short of the mark, we condemn ourselves.

Though it may sound depressing or overwhelming, learning to recognize that we are at war with ourselves is quite empowering. One meditation student described the trance of unworthiness as "...the invisible and toxic gas I am always breathing." As he became increasingly mindful of his incessant self-judgment and feelings of inadequacy, his aspiration to free himself from his painful inner prison grew.

A-Allowing: Taking a Life-Giving Pause

Allowing means letting the thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensations we have recognized simply be there. Typically when we have an unpleasant experience, we react in one of three ways: by piling on the judgment; by numbing ourselves to our feelings; or by focusing our attention elsewhere. For example, we might have the sinking, shameful feeling of having been too harsh in correcting our child. But rather than allowing that feeling, we might blame our partner for not doing his or her part, worry about something completely different, or decide it's time for a nap. We're resisting the rawness and unpleasantness of the feeling by withdrawing from the present moment.

We allow by simply pausing with the intention to relax our resistance and let the experience be just as it is. Allowing our thoughts, emotions, or bodily sensations simply to be doesn't mean we agree with our conviction that we're unworthy. Rather, we honestly acknowledge the presence of our judgment, as well as the painful feelings underneath. Many students I work with support their resolve to let it be by silently offering an encouraging word or phrase to themselves. For instance, you might feel the grip of fear and mentally whisper yes in order to acknowledge and accept the reality of your experience in this moment.

Allowing creates a space that enables us to see more deeply into our own being, which, in turn, awakens our caring and helps us make wiser choices in life.

Victor Frankel writes, "Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in this space lies our power and our freedom." Allowing creates a space that enables us to see more deeply into our own being, which, in turn, awakens our caring and helps us make wiser choices in life. For one student, the space of allowing gave her more freedom in the face of urges to binge eat. In the past, whenever she felt restless or anxious at night, she'd start thinking of her favorite food-trail mix-then mindlessly consume a half pound of it before going to bed, disgusted with herself. Learning to recognize the cues and taking a pause interrupted the pattern. While pausing, she would allow herself to feel the tension in her body, her racing heart, the craving. Soon, she began to contact a poignant sense of loneliness buried beneath her anxiety. She found that if she could stay with the loneliness and be gentle with herself, the craving passed.

I-Investigating with Kindness

Investigating means calling on our natural curiosity-the desire to know truth-and directing a more focused attention to our present experience. Simply pausing to ask, what is happening inside me?, can initiate recognition, but investigation adds a more active and pointed kind of inquiry. You might ask yourself: What most wants attention? How am I experiencing this in my body? Or What am I believing? What does this feeling want from me? You might notice hollowness or shakiness, then discover a sense of unworthiness and shame masked by those feelings. Unless you bring them into awareness, your unconscious beliefs and emotions will control your experience and perpetuate your identification with a limited, deficient self.

Poet Dorothy Hunt says that we need a "...heartspace where everything that is, is welcome." Without such an attitude of unconditional care, there isn't enough safety and openness for real investigation to take place. About ten years ago I entered a period of chronic illness. During one particularly challenging period of pain and fatigue, I became discouraged and unhappy. In my view I was terrible to be around-impatient, self-absorbed, irritable, gloomy. I began working with RAIN to recognize these feelings and judgments and to consciously allow the unpleasantness in my body and emotions to just be there. As I began to investigate, I heard an embittered voice: "I hate living like this." And then a moment later, "I hate myself!" The full toxicity of self-aversion filled me.

Not only was I struggling with illness, I was at war with the self-centered, irritable person I believed I had become. Unknowingly, I had turned on myself and was held captive by the trance of unworthiness. But in that moment of recognizing and allowing the suffering of self-hatred, my heart began to soften with compassion.

Here's a story that helps to describe the process I went through. Imagine while walking in the woods you see a small dog sitting by a tree. You bend down to pet it and it suddenly lunges at you, teeth bared. Initially you might be frightened and angry. But then you notice one of its legs is caught in a trap, buried under some leaves. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern. You see that the dog's aggression sprang from vulnerability and pain.

This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful, reactive ways, it's because we're caught in some kind of painful trap. The more we investigate the source of our suffering, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart toward ourselves and others.

When I recognized how my leg was in a trap-sickness compounded with self aversion- my heart filled with sorrow and genuine self-care. The investigating deepened as I gently put my hand over my heart-a gesture of kindness- and invited whatever other feelings were there to surface. A swell of fear (uncertainty for my future) spread through my chest, followed by an upwelling of grief at losing my health. The sense of self-compassion unfurled fully as I mentally whispered, It's all right, sweetheart, and consciously offered care to the depths of my vulnerability, just as I would to a dear friend.

When the intention to awaken self love and compassion is sincere, the smallest gesture-even if, initially, it feels awkward- will serve you well.

Compassion arises naturally when we mindfully contact our suffering and respond with care. As you practice the RAIN of Self-Compassion, experiment and see which intentional gesture of kindness most helps to soften or open your heart. Many people find healing by gently placing a hand on the heart or cheek; others, in a whispered message of care, or by envisioning being bathed in warm, radiant light. What matters is that once you have investigated and connected with your suffering, respond by offering care to your own heart. When the intention to awaken self love and compassion is sincere, the smallest gesture-even if, initially, it feels awkward- will serve you well.

N-Natural Loving Awareness

Natural loving awareness occurs when identification with the small self is loosened. This practice of non-identification means that our sense of who we are is not fused with any limiting emotions, sensations, or stories. We begin to intuit and live from the openness and love that express our natural awareness.

Though the first three steps of RAIN require some intentional activity, the N is the treasure: A liberating homecoming to our true nature. There's nothing to do for this last part of RAIN; we simply rest in natural awareness.

The RAIN of Self-Compassion is not a one-shot meditation, nor is the realization of our natural awareness necessarily full, stable, or enduring. Rather, as you practice you may experience a sense of warmth and openness, a shift in perspective. You can trust this! RAIN is a practice for life-meeting our doubts and fears with a healing presence. Each time you are willing to slow down and recognize, oh, this is the trance of unworthiness... this is fear... this is hurt...this is judgment..., you are poised to de-condition the old habits and limiting self-beliefs that imprison your heart. Gradually, you'll experience natural loving awareness as the truth of who you are, more than any story you ever told yourself about being "not good enough" or "basically flawed."

A friend of mine was sitting with her dying mother while she was in a coma. At one point the mother opened her eyes, looked at her daughter with great lucidity, and said "You know, all my life I thought something was wrong with me." She closed her eyes, sank back into a coma and died shortly thereafter. For my friend, her mother's words were a parting gift. They inspired her to dedicate herself to the mindfulness and self-compassion that frees us.

We each have the conditioning to live for long stretches of time imprisoned by a sense of deficiency, cut off from realizing our intrinsic intelligence, aliveness, and love. The greatest blessing we can give ourselves is to recognize the pain of this trance, and regularly offer a cleansing rain of self-compassion to our awakening hearts.

This article also appeared in the August 2014 issue of Mindful magazine.

In her new book, Tara Brach helps break a trail through the dense forest of anxiety with the practice of RAIN. Read More

Psychologist and longtime meditation teacher Tara Brach discusses why self-compassion is more essential for our well-being than ever. Read More

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Feeling Overwhelmed? Remember RAIN - Mindful

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When I was in college, I went off to the mountains for a weekend of hiking with an older, wiser friend of twenty-two. After setting up our tent, we sat by a stream, watching the water swirl around rocks, talking about our lives.

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Access Toolbox by Hyper Island to build an innovative workplace and support well-being. Unlock your team’s full potential now!

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"Taylor isn't motivated." How many times have you heard that about a student? It's an explanation for lack of progress that, unfortunately, looks past what might be getting in the student's way.

"I taught it. They didn't learn it." This comment betrays an uninformed view of how learning happens. We have long known that a transmission-of-knowledge model, where students passively receive and then reproduce information, isn't how learning occurs.1

"They just don't care." This kind of reasoning reflects a lack of understanding about the importance of relevance and purpose for learning as a foundation for building from known knowledge to new knowledge.

Too often, we ascribe student barriers to learning in sweeping terms without looking closely at causes. That makes it impossible to see what we might do to make a positive impact. Better to flip the script and examine what's getting in the way of learning, realizing that there are cognitive barriers to effective teaching.

Engagement Tip

Explain the value of learning, increase students' ownership of it, and explore the habits of minds and mindsets to strengthen engagement in the classroom.

Nine Cognitive Barriers...

Drawing on extensive research on how students learn, Chew and Cerbin2 proposed a framework for understanding what might be getting in the way of being able to teach a student effectively. These barriers don't only block students; they represent roadblocks to our own effectiveness. Figure 1 shows the nine cognitive barriers to learning, as well as teaching strategies that aim to overcome them.

...And How to Surmount Them

You can increase the precision of your teaching by aligning your efforts with the barriers you perceive in students. When confronted with a student who isn't making expected progress, resist the urge to focus on outward behaviors alone. Learning struggles that manifest through similar behaviors often have far different root causes. Rather than simply attributing the behavior to disengagement, find out from the student what's getting in the way. Talk with the student about where they're having difficulty-and what's helpful for them-with questions like:

Tell me about a time when you learned something you were interested in learning. What did you do to help yourself?

What's an idea, topic, or project you're doing right now that really interests you?

When you make plans, how do you carry them out?

What do you find to be easy about school? What's more difficult for you?

What learning strategies would you recommend to a future student taking this class?

The idea is to keep the questions open-ended so the student can give you insight into how they perceive themselves as learners. In addition, the student's responses can tell you about whether any ineffective cognitive habits and dispositions are getting in the way. The insights you glean from the conversation can inform your teaching responses.

Gradual Release of Responsibility Instructional Framework

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2-part series starts March 14, 2023, 6:30 PM-8:00 PM EDT

In the video accompanying this column, 4th grade teacher Sara Ortega of Chula Vista Elementary School District in California holds a follow-up conference with a student whose comments about her learning had given Sara a glimpse of her student's problematic mental mindset, a barrier that could undermine a teacher's effectiveness. The student seemed to have an externalized belief that it was solely because of the teacher that she'd improved her reading. Sara discusses this with the student to increase her sense of agency, empowering the girl to see her actions as key to reaching her goals. Making these actions explicit will help this girl continue to enact them in her future learning.

Becoming Barrier-Spotters

Let's promise ourselves to not rely on simplistic explains of complex learning barriers that students face. When confronted with outward signs of disengagement, let's dig further to find out what's getting in the way. Effective teachers are strength-spotters who notice what each child brings to the learning community. The best teachers go further to be barrier-spotters-and teach intentionally to remove barriers that can slow student learning.

Show & Tell / Tending to Students' Mindsets

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Show & Tell: A Video Column / Why Do Students Disengage?

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"Taylor isn't motivated." How many times have you heard that about a student? It's an explanation for lack of progress that, unfortunately, looks past what might be getting in the student's way. "I taught it. They didn't learn it." This comment betrays an uninformed view of how learning happens.

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Thank You - Explore Your Adult SEL Resources | Panorama Education

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Thank You - Explore Your Adult SEL Resources | Panorama Education

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Thank You - Explore Your Adult SEL Resources | Panorama Education

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Use these worksheets in a staff or professional learning community (PLC) meeting to explore definitions and examples of social-emotional learning and connect ongoing SEL initiatives to your role in creating an inclusive school climate.

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Thank You - Explore Your Adult SEL Resources | Panorama Education

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Thank You - Explore Your Adult SEL Resources | Panorama Education

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Thank You - Explore Your Adult SEL Resources | Panorama Education

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Use these worksheets in a staff or professional learning community (PLC) meeting to explore definitions and examples of social-emotional learning and connect ongoing SEL initiatives to your role in creating an inclusive school climate.

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Step By Step / 6 Steps to... Help a Distressed Student Get to the "Upstairs" Brain - ASCD

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Step By Step / 6 Steps to... Help a Distressed Student Get to the "Upstairs" Brain - ASCD

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A young child's behavior flips and becomes intense-think screaming, threatening, "hiding" in a closet. (We call this a "flipped lid.") How can teachers respond in ways that keep everyone safe?

The brain is like a house with a basement (i.e., your limbic system and amygdala) meant for safety in times of threat) and storage. Students who've experienced trauma are familiar with their "basement." They're in a constant state of alert, and when a child's lid is flipped due to a trigger, the thinking part of the brain shuts down, and the lower system puts him in that "basement." It's a response born of habit. At that point, presenting consequences or having the child choose a calm-down strategy won't work. Here are tips to help a child get "upstairs":

Check the environment. Is it safe and will it preserve student dignity? To support a student who struggles regularly, ensure that all adults have the same basic plan for responding. The plan should be simple; address questions like, Is the student a threat or overwhelmed? Who needs to move-the class or student? Any plan should ensure that calm, familiar adults are present.

Model calm for the student who is struggling. Coregulation is key here for this student and all others in the room (in a crisis, humans look for someone who "takes charge" because that indicates safety). If your words say you're safe but your tone and breathing project stress, your message will be lost. Safety can be felt.

The kind of behavior we're talking about will feel extreme, but often the best thing to do is be quiet and patient or use simple speech. You will want to talk, ask questions, tell the child to do things-Resist this temptation (and trust us, you can't simply tell a person with a flipped lid to calm down). The desire to communicate is often to ease our anxiety, not the students'. Concise words-"Let's get juice." "Snack?" "Lego at the office"-are best.

This can provide an indicator of how deep into the basement the student has gone: If the student accepts food, you will know they are ready for help. Food or drink helps activate the sucking reflex, which is calming for all children. Try different textures of food to hit the sensory needs-apples, carrots, a juice box, even a lollipop. There won't be time to leave to grab snacks, so have them easily accessible.

Offer Legos, playdough, markers-or let them use a sand table. High-interest items that occupy a kid's hands are a great strategy for when someone dips into the basement. Let go of the idea that giving the student something to play with is a reward; it's a tool to help him regulate.

The child will need time-to get out of the basement and to regulate enough to interact once they're out. This requires patience and self-talk. Remind yourself the behavior isn't personal, but an adaptive response for the student. Some kids can get "upstairs" in a few minutes; for others, it could take hours. Working within the confines of bells, providing lots of time won't always be possible-but, if you can provide the time needed, the overall time a child's lid is flipped will begin to decrease.

Although we'll never know all the triggers that cause a student to retreat to their basement, educators must understand the steps to help them climb out. A trauma-informed approach emphasizes that a student is hurt, not bad, and that their problematic behavior is an adaptive response to their environment.

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Step By Step / 6 Steps to... Help a Distressed Student Get to the "Upstairs" Brain - ASCD

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A young child's behavior flips and becomes intense-think screaming, threatening, "hiding" in a closet. (We call this a "flipped lid.") How can teachers respond in ways that keep everyone safe? The brain is like a house with a basement (i.e., your limbic system and amygdala) meant for safety in times

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After a Year of Trauma for All, How Can We Discipline More Fairly? - ASCD

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After a Year of Trauma for All, How Can We Discipline More Fairly? - ASCD

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Students of color are often disciplined more harshly. We can't let that happen this year.

Credit: October 2021

Over a year ago, many of us saw on screen the public murder of George Floyd, a Black man accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill. This story played out on national television, YouTube, and elsewhere on the internet. A police officer kneeled on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes until he suffocated to death. Even when Floyd lay motionless, the officer refused to take his knee off his neck as the paramedics checked Floyd's pulse-to find none. The world watched Floyd plead for his life, even yelling out to his deceased mother. This happened in the midst of a pandemic, which so far has claimed the lives of more than 600,000 Americans.

Kids Are Facing Trauma-Including in School

The Floyd incident caused severe anxiety in a lot of people, especially children and adults of color. These types of tragic incidents tend to happen to Black and Brown people more often than any other group. Experiencing or witnessing violent events like this can lead to trauma-and we must realize that the events of last year may have caused trauma in many of our students.

There are four ways to experience trauma: directly, watching something happen to someone else, hearing about something that happened to someone else, or repeated exposure to a stressful experience. I know the Floyd incident-and many similar incidents I've personally witnessed or experienced over the years-has affected me and my Black friends. I've been traumatized over and over in my life, including at school. I had to push through pain, obtain my education, and try to be a model student while many of my friends were killed (Carlos Jefferson, Michael Butler, Tony Binion, Larry Shotwell, Billy Williams, Anthony Day, and Monterrio Holder, to name a few). I watched as many of my peers were disciplined harshly and suspended from school or (later) given long prison sentences for minor offenses. I often wonder whether these friends' outcomes would've been different if they'd been treated differently by educators.

My Black friends' experiences of being "pushed out" of school are common. Data from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights show that in the 2011-2012 school year, Black students-especially males-were more likely to be suspended than white students. Black male students represented 8 percent of enrolled students but accounted for 25 percent of students who received an out-of-school suspension. In all, 1.2 million Black and Latino males were suspended from K-12 schools in this country in the 2011-2012 academic year (Smith & Harper, 2015). Educator and author Pedro Noguera (2008) notes that Black males are often seen as being generally threatening, disruptive, uncooperative, and defiant, while their white male counterparts are more likely to be seen as engaging in specific discipline issues or violations, like smoking or fighting-not as "trouble" overall.

The disparities in how Black and white students are disciplined are real, and explain why so many Black males are suspended, sometimes for lesser offenses than those committed by their white counterparts. The data don't lie. I'm sure some students deserved to be suspended. But too many are disciplined inappropriately, suspended, or even end up in the criminal justice system because an educator didn't have the tools to prevent such outcomes from happening. We must ask, when students are suspended, where's the possibility for rehabilitation? How can kids improve their behavior if they are never taught? How can a student learn within an institution that has policies in place that lead them to fail, such as "three strikes and you're out" rules? To tell someone they have three chances, and then, if they don't get it right, proclaim you're done with them is degrading and cruel. Learning within such a situation takes an emotional toll.

The mistreatment I received from educators when I was in school is still fresh in my mind. Teachers' tone changed when interacting with students of color. Instead of being supportive, they sounded angry. I and many other Black students assumed they were upset because they had to teach us. Discipline was harsh and swift, with paddling, suspensions, and public humiliation the norm.

In 7th grade, a coach slammed me up against the wall in front of my friends and teammates. It traumatized me. To this day, when I think about the physical and mental pain I felt, I wish I could have somehow defended myself. That coach should have been fired, or at least disciplined-but I was the one who was made to feel inferior and inadequate. Another time, I said hello to a kid who spoke to me in the lunch line. A white female teacher snatched me by the arm and put me in the back of the line behind several classes that had just arrived. By the time I got my lunch, I only had a few minutes to eat. I was angry, hurt, and hungry. I don't recall that teacher ever explaining why I was removed.

I also remember the unwarranted and disturbing labels teachers put on me: aggressive, lazy, a troublemaker, won't amount to anything. Yes, I heard this from actual educators who were supposed to educate me and motivate me. Instead, their words tore down my self-esteem.

When Anxiety Looks Like Defiance

Many students carry the burden of anxiety and depression into school. This was true even before COVID-19. Two years ago, seven in ten U.S. teens said anxiety and depression are a major problem among people their age in their community, according to a Pew Research Center survey (Horowitz & Graf, 2019). The numbers have likely increased during the pandemic, as many students report feeling lonely. Pre-criminalization, fear of gun violence, harassment, parental incarceration, and worry for their families' financial stability-all experienced more by Black and Latino students-can intensify isolation and loneliness.

Students' negative emotions sometimes surface in ways that look like defiance or disrespect. Some educators misinterpret fearful behavior as aggressive behavior or as kids wanting to cause trouble. But children who have experienced trauma need to know that someone cares. Some may need professional help.

I was one of those children. But instead of receiving empathy and care, I was reprimanded. Instead of being affirmed, I was told that kids like me weren't college material. I actually had an educator tell me I needed to work on learning a trade because I wasn't "college material" and would eventually be working with my hands. I'm not good at working with my hands. Despite her disparaging statement, I knew I was capable-but imagine a student who's more impressionable. Such an interaction could change the trajectory of a student's life, for the worse.

"Servanthood Spirit"

This fall, most schools will go back to in-person learning after 15 months or so of mostly virtual learning. Some students will come back stressed out, anxious, or depressed. Besides the stresses of learning online, some may have been neglected, overworked, or even abused by parents. Many will be behind academically. It will take patience, kindness, self-control, and a positive attitude to help them have a positive reentry. We'll need caring and humility in our hearts to bring hurt students back to a sense of normalcy.

One word that comes to mind in dealing with students now is servanthood. Servanthood is the act of giving yourself to and for others, seeking to meet the needs of others, not your own. Leadership requires servanthood, especially when educating students and motivating them to be great. You can develop a servanthood spirit as you engage-and discipline-students this fall:

Stay humble. Live in your humility. Stay out of your pride. Don't take what kids do or say personally. Respond with empathy, understanding there's a deeper issue that needs to be addressed.

Offer compassionate discipline. Disciplining with care means explaining what a student did wrong and helping him understand accountability-and that you will give him another chance to get it right. It may mean being transparent about issues you faced when you were a student and how you overcame them. Be the example you want to see by offering students understanding and practical suggestions, not more anger and frustration. For instance, if a student begins yelling in your classroom, instead of kicking them out, walk through seven questions commonly used in restorative practices that change the trajectory of school discipline:

1. How did it happen?

2. What part did you play in it?

3. How were you affected by what you did?

4. Who else was affected by what you did?

5. What can you do to repair the harm?

6. What do you need to do to make it right?1

Face your shortcomings. Identify some weaker areas you want to work on, such as a short temper or tendency toward negative thoughts. Ask a trusted colleague, reflect carefully, or watch yourself on video to help you do this. Consider how those shortcomings affect your relationship with students. How might you improve in one of these areas?

Be at peace. Don't let anything or anyone compromise your joy. Protect your peace-but protect your students' peace, too, by checking your tension at the door. Give yourself a moment to recover after a tense interaction or situation. Take breaks as needed, vent to someone, or meditate regularly.

Check Your Biases!

Part of humbly serving others is understanding where you might have a bias or blind spot. Everyone has biases, often unconscious ones, triggered by things like race or by emotions like fear, anxiety, or envy. A biased perception can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and teachers' discipline styles have been shown to differ depending on a student's race (Riddle & Sinclair, 2019). The key is to be aware of biases and how they affect your interactions with students-and try to get past them. Here are four suggestions:

Watch your word choice. Words are extremely important. Words can help or hurt students; when a child hears something repeated often, they start believing it. So be mindful of your words. My 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Sangster, one of the most effective teachers I've had, always told students, "You matter," "you are somebody," and "you are smart." Those words, spoken more than 40 years ago, still resonate with me and my former classmates.

Avoid stereotyping. Racial microaggressions are everyday insults sent by people who are unaware of the messages they are sending. One way to avoid microaggressions is to consciously avoid stereotyping kids. Don't assume that just because a student comes from a tough, low-income neighborhood, they don't want to learn. Don't assume that a student coming from an affluent household has it all together. You won't always know their circumstances. Get to know students. Ask questions to gain a deeper understanding of each student's situation.

Be sure your messages reflect your intentions. If you want all your students to be successful, your messages and actions should reflect that. If they don't, students will pick up on it. What kind of energy are you feeding your students? Do you start every day with a positive phrase or affirmation? Do you tell students you believe in them-and show it? Frequently express your positive desires for your students. Be consistent with that message, no matter the circumstances.

Prioritize relationships. Build healthy relationships with students-through caring, respect, fairness, empathy, and support. Forming relationships strengthens trust and eliminates anxiety on both sides. It creates a healthier working environment. You can see the impact of developing relationships when former students come back to see you and tell you where they are in their lives. It's a joy to hear their positive memories of interactions with you as well as what they learned from you.

Correct false narratives. Another way to combat bias-and perhaps the problem of harsher discipline for Black and Brown kids-is to display positive images of men and women of color around classrooms and the school. Students and educators need to see positive images of Black and Brown adults besides athletes and entertainers. They should see doctors, lawyers, educators, police officers, etc. All students need to learn the stories of Black history, Latino history, and Asian history. One reason biases form is that people don't understand each other, so they make judgements based on false narratives, shallow media accounts, or the influence of family and friends.

Avoid Stereotyping

Don't assume that just because a student comes from a tough, low-income neighborhood, they don't want to learn. Don't assume that a student coming from an affluent household has it all together.

Part of Cultural Competence

To be a culturally competent educator means more than embracing students' diversity. It means having a system of discipline built on healthy relationships, trust, respect, empathy, and accountability-not on harsh punishment. This not only creates a positive school culture; it helps students perform at higher levels-which increases internal stability and elevates the institution. Especially now, let's discipline all our students in ways that show we care.

Related Resource

Read more from Robert Jackson in Becoming the Educator They Need: Strategies, Mindsets, and Beliefs for Supporting Male Black and Latino Students.

References

Horowitz, J. M., & Graf, N. (2019). Most U.S. teens see anxiety and depression as a major problem among their peers. Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center.

Noguera, P. A. (2008). The trouble with Black boys: The role and influence of environment and cultural factors on the academic performance of African American males. New York: Wiley and Sons.

Riddle, T., & Sinclair, S. (2019, April 23). Racial disparities in school-based disciplinary practices are associated with county-level rates of racial bias. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Smith, E. J., & Harper, S. (2015). Disproportionate impact of K-12 school suspension and expulsion on Black students in southern states. Philadelphia, PA: Center for Study of Race and Equity in Education.

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After a Year of Trauma for All, How Can We Discipline More Fairly? - ASCD

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Over a year ago, many of us saw on screen the public murder of George Floyd, a Black man accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill. This story played out on national television, YouTube, and elsewhere on the internet.

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Emotions are inevitable, but working well with student emotions and appropriately expressing and containing your own takes effort and skill-the skill of emotional intelligence. Chances are, you have students who need more social and emotional support, whether due to what they experienced during pandemic-related distance learning or the ongoing uncertainties that are part of their lives. Yet how frequently do the adults in schools fall short on modeling the emotional intelligence they're working to nurture in students?

After all, what educator hasn't been triggered by the behavior of a student? Imagine, for example, that one of your students shouts an insult that lands hard on another student. Or another student's behavior disrupts instruction. You probably will feel a kick of adrenaline, resulting from frustration, anxiety, fear, shame, worry, or even a bit of anger or disgust. These are natural human emotions that occur when we or those we care about are hurt or hurting others. Problems arise, though, when we make disciplinary decisions while still experiencing these emotions. Why? Because such decisions inevitably lack emotional intelligence-the mental fitness we all need to make good choices.

Emotional intelligence involves recognizing and using our own emotions well, and recognizing and working well with, or even influencing, the emotions of others. No one "achieves" emotional intelligence once and for all. Increasing emotional intelligence (EQ) is an ongoing process, and our capacity can shift because of many factors such as levels of stress, our experience with similar situations, or how well-rested we are. Given that teaching is cited over and over as one of the most stressful professions out there, understanding the relationship between stress and your ability to employ emotional intelligence as you strive for effective, equitable, and compassionate discipline is crucial.

Consider the comparison on page 58 between what we're asking students to master via social-emotional learning (SEL) (CASEL, n.d.) and the components of emotional intelligence as defined by Reuven Bar-On in 1997 (Multi-Health Systems, 2011). The Bar-On model is frequently used for executive coaching and leadership development.

Note that the major difference is the separate category for stress management in the EQ model. Given the known pressure-cooker environment teachers work in, viewing adult skills development through the EQ model so that we can incorporate the importance of managing emotions under stress is invaluable if we are to create caring environments where students can flourish academically, socially, and emotionally.

Have you ever, after a stressful day at work, lashed out at important people in your personal life? Or, after a high-level planning session about policy or discipline or lesson planning, found yourself eating more junk food than usual or skipping a planned workout because you need downtime? Realize that these tasks all draw on the same bucket of energy in your brain-we call it your brain bandwidth (Holm & Kise, 2020).

No matter how emotionally intelligent you are, if you use up your bandwidth in one way, you must recharge to have enough for the next challenge. If you're still caught in negative emotions as you make decisions about student discipline, you're probably low on bandwidth. Chances are, you'll struggle to effectively employ emotional intelligence. And it's not fair for us to expect students to grow in social-emotional learning if we educators aren't exhibiting emotional intelligence as adults.

So, what can educators do? Ensuring you have enough bandwidth to both participate in the draining tasks of teaching and to engage with students effectively is an ongoing journey, but here are four effective, doable steps to get you started.

Step 1: Name the Judge

The first step is building self-awareness of your emotions. This is the starting place of emotional intelligence maturity, yet easy to ignore in the moment. When you feel that surge of frustration, anger, fear, shame-that bundle of negative emotions-pause. You're being hijacked by them and need to step back before making any decision.

Consider what thoughts tend to first crowd your mind when you need to take disciplinary action. Try to explore your reactions with curiosity rather than judgment. Do you blame yourself first, with a voice in your head crying something like, Why can't I create a classroom of caring where students respect each other? What's wrong with me? Or, do you tend to blame others for the situation, thinking things like, It seems as if I have more than my share of problem students or These students know the administrators won't do a thing if I send them to the office? Or do you think first of the impact of other factors and circumstances? So much else is going on in the lives of my students, and that messes up all our neat discipline theories and practices.

Usually, the root cause of a student's misstep is a blend of two or all three of these factors, but good disciplinary solutions come from appropriately allocating the portions that you are responsible for, the student's and others' part in what happened, and the impact of circumstances (Chamine, 2012). Knowing your default way of judging the reasons behind student behavior is one way of recognizing when your emotions are hijacking you.

Step 2: Get Composed

Once you recognize you're being hijacked by emotions, you'll want to compose yourself so you can employ the rational part of your brain. This isn't easy because emotions block us from using the more analytical parts of our brains. Emotions are necessary data; few disciplinary decisions succeed without understanding the emotions of everyone involved. However, emotions can't be in control. One needs to employ logic as well as empathy when engaged in discipline. For example, are you setting a precedent, such as for all students to receive this same consequence for a similar behavior in the future? Or how might "if/then" thinking clarify the options, as in, If I involve this student in setting her own consequence, then I can expect less pushback from her because I'm allowing some autonomy even as I insist on compliance. Or you can judge whether your choice is based on sound principles that can be applied in other situations.

Empathy, by contrast, involves understanding the experience of the student being disciplined, the other students in the class, and even yourself. However, you can't be both logical and empathetic at the same time. When you're in empathy mode, the logic centers of your brain are inactive. And when you're in logic mode, the empathy centers of your brain are inactive (Case Western Reserve University, 2012).

So, how do you calm down your emotions to become your wiser self, allowing empathy to inform your logic rather than rule it? One proven technique is in-the-moment employment of mindfulness. While mindfulness is often discussed as practices for a set-aside part of your day, drawing on a few simple strategies can bring composure when you most need it.

When you feel that burst of negative emotions, for example, try rubbing your thumb across the fingernails of the same hand. Feel the ridges, smooth areas, sharp edges, temperature, variations in size and shape. This is a subtle gesture that students won't notice, but it increases your body awareness, which increases awareness of emotions.

You can also use the popular strategy of paying attention to your breathing. Calmly note your next three breaths, feeling your lungs expand, hearing the air leave your nostrils, noting the temperature as you inhale and exhale.

Another technique is to post a picture or favorite quote in a place that easily catches your attention-and take notice of it when you're stressed. Perhaps it's a picture of your education hero or someone you admire for staying calm when emotions run high. Or, it could be a picture of a calming place-a favorite park, beach, or forest.

All of these strategies are meant to take just a few moments-long enough to make you aware of your emotions before making any disciplinary decisions. Before each class or as you change activities with students, take stock of your stress level and assess whether a quick dose of mindfulness might increase your capacity to deal with what might happen next. Think of the time, energy, and frustration you might save if you can realize you're running low on bandwidth and refuel before something happens where you wish you had more.

If you practice the same techniques daily, for even as little as five minutes, you'll be able to shift more quickly to positive emotions. Just as getting physically fit requires daily effort, so does getting mentally fit so that you are in charge of your reactions and decisions.

Step 3: Stay Curious

Now that you've shifted to your composed brain, it's time to rethink your first reaction to the root cause of a student's behavior. Whether you tend to blame yourself, others, or circumstances, think through other potential causes. To increase your capacity to do this in the moment, take time for reflection on the patterns you've seen, perhaps with another teacher to broaden your perspective. This will help you consider more possibilities.

For example, is the student simply too tired to make good choices? One assistant principal I worked with asked every student sent to his office to lean back in the rather large chair he had while he finished up some paperwork. Often, students fell asleep and, after a short nap, were able to recognize their mistakes and come up with a good return-to-classroom plan. Lack of sleep drains everyone's mental fitness.

Other options might be that a student is reacting to the difficulty of the classwork and too frustrated to ask for help. Or they may have just acted without thinking. Or maybe something else used up the student's capacity for self-control, such as being teased on the bus, completing a difficult task in a previous class (yes, concentration uses up emotional capacity), or worrying over food or money or a boyfriend. Remember that worries and stresses are often why adults eat the cookie or ignore the gym or snap at their colleagues after a tough day. While these underlying causes do not excuse behavior, they do offer an explanation.

What if, instead of assuming disrespect, you gave them a second chance by asking, with a bit of a smile, "Is that what you really meant to say?" Chances are, with even a split second to think, they'll say, "Um, no . . . sorry." And if they continue to misbehave, you can still move to the next step of discipline.

Look back through this list and add other ideas based on your experiences. Can you see how imposing discipline while you're hijacked by negative emotions might lead to discipline that doesn't fit the "crime"? Remembering these alternative explanations bolsters your ability to make a good disciplinary decision while under stress.

Step 4: Take Action

Events can unfold with lightning speed in the classroom, but the time you put into preparing to take the first three steps of emotional intelligence will increase your capacity to consistently demonstrate the emotional self-management you are trying to develop in your students. Remember that choosing not to act or choosing to ignore a behavior are in fact action steps. When you've calmed your own emotions, become aware of the student's emotions, and applied a bit of logic, you're less likely to overreact or take a step that won't sit well with you later. Even if school policy requires you to take a specific action, you'll be able to do it in a way that communicates to the student that she or he is a permanent part of your classroom family no matter what, even if this particular behavior isn't acceptable. You can discipline while still meeting their core need for belonging.

If you can, provide a simple choice. Choice also lies behind the strategy of, "I'd like you to come up with a plan so this doesn't happen again. Why don't you sit [in whatever spot lets them calm down] and we'll talk privately in a few minutes." You've met their core need for having some autonomy, yet retained classroom control.

Even if the offense requires a trip to the office or even detention, your composed, wiser self can calmly remind the student of policies while reassuring her or him that you'll be waiting to welcome them back.

Getting Mentally Fit

The more you prepare to take these steps before the need arises, the more mentally fit you'll be to employ them when students make mistakes. Investing in these steps calms your physiology, activates your wiser self, and allows access to a much broader range of options for discipline that will help your students grow in their own capacity to manage themselves.

Reflect & Discuss

Can you think of a time when your emotions got the better of you in the classroom? What could you have done differently?

What are some in-the-moment strategies you can employ to take stock of your emotions?

What components of EQ are you strongest in? Which could you work more to develop?

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Emotions are inevitable, but working well with student emotions and appropriately expressing and containing your own takes effort and skill-the skill of emotional intelligence. Chances are, you have students who need more social and emotional support, whether due to what they experienced during pand

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Addressing the Suffering Underneath - ASCD

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Addressing the Suffering Underneath - ASCD

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Student Talk Supports Social-Emotional Learning - ASCD

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Student Talk Supports Social-Emotional Learning - ASCD

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Student Talk Supports Social-Emotional Learning - ASCD

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If you’re involved in education in any way, then you are acutely aware of how challenging the last few school years have been for our students. This is especially true for our youngest learners. While young children can quickly adapt to new situations and are astoundingly resilient, they are coping

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Professional Learning Is Self-care | Learning Forward

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Professional Learning Is Self-care | Learning Forward

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Do you feel this school year is even harder than last? If so, you're not alone. I'm hearing this from educators all over, and it's been my own experience, too. We continue to face difficulties that we hoped to leave behind in June, plus a host of new ones that are often complex and heated. Finding a way forward is a constant challenge, one that asks us to dig deep for solution after solution.

It is important to acknowledge that, 19 months into this pandemic, we are tired. We have all been experiencing long-term, sustained stress, and our brains and bodies are not designed to function well under these conditions. In an August Washington Post article, psychologist Amy Cuddy and writer JillEllyn Riley coined the term "Pandemic Flux Syndrome" to refer to the feelings of "acute anxiety, sadness and detachment" that so many of us are experiencing. Psychologist Adam Grant, in his latest TED Talk, referred to a widespread sense of languishing, and education consultant Jennifer Gonzalez explained why teachers are "barely hanging on" in a recent episode of The Cult of Pedagogy podcast.

A frame that I find helpful for understanding the state we're in is VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity). The term comes from the Army War College and is about learning to think and plan strategically in times when there is no "right" answer. While we all faced moments of VUCA before COVID, the pandemic has brought with it a season of VUCA that has had no breaks.

Throughout this long period, we have repeatedly heard calls for self-care. Perhaps in the early days of the pandemic, a bubble bath, some yoga sessions, or time spent with a good book brought some relief. But at this stage of the pandemic, telling an educator (or any front line worker) to exercise those forms of self-care is tone-deaf at best, offensive and negligent at worst.

Caring for ourselves is vitally important, but we should work to redefine self-care. We should focus on finding meaning and real satisfaction in our work and personal lives instead of covering up our stress and discontent. Although it might sound counterintuitive, one way to do that is giving yourself time and space to engage in professional learning.

''We should work to redefine self-care. We should focus on finding meaning & real satisfaction in our work & personal lives instead of covering up our stress & discontent.'' @Winslost Click To Tweet

I'm not talking about the outdated sit-and-get type of professional learning, but the kind of engaging, inquiry-based learning that happens when an educator chooses an area of interest to specifically target a practice or piece of content they want to master. Such high-quality professional learning is energizing and inspiring. It can reignite your passion for education.

Engaging in high-quality professional learning meets three conditions identified by Adam Grant in his talk about how to move out of the state of stagnation and overwhelm of languishing. Those conditions are:

Mastery - You must have the desire to master the activity. We all want to be the very best educators we can possibly be, so working towards mastery is a condition that is easily met as we learn, practice, and aim to master new content or strategies.

Mindfulness - You need to be mindful of your time, giving yourself space and opportunity to engage in the activity. When you really engage in professional learning, you have to set aside time to truly engage - you have to turn off email, limit distractions, and turn yourself over to the learning experience.

Mattering- The activity you are engaging in needs to truly matter to you and to others. There is no question that this work matters. In fact, it matters now more than ever before, because the students need us and we need each other so much.

If you are feeling a little (or a lot) worn out, stuck, anxious or overwhelmed, I encourage you to take a moment and think about engaging in some learning that you have been putting off. It might be something that relates directly to your current challenges, but it might instead be something you've wanted to learn for a long time, like how to become a mentor to other teachers or learning another language to communicate with your students' families. Try taking some time to pursue this interest. You may be surprised at the small sense of control you gain and the inspiration you find to keep going.

''If you are feeling a little (or a lot) worn out, stuck, anxious or overwhelmed, I encourage you to take a moment & think about engaging in some learning that you have been putting off.'' @Winslost Click To Tweet

I also encourage you to advocate for dedicated professional learning time and resources in your job role. Learning should be part of who we are as educators, and we all deserve time on the job to improve our practice. Gather some like-minded colleagues and propose a professional learning community. Join a virtual network or course and share with your supervisors what you are learning and how it is helping you meet your system's goals for students. Work with your professional learning department to let them know what topics are of high interest and need right now.

However you decide to proceed, remember that what you are doing is hard but important, what you are feeling is normal, it is okay to cry. Most importantly, you are absolutely not in this alone. Your professional learning community can be a tremendous support during this stressful time. Whether you are already part of such a community, or just starting to find one, remember that time learning together is time well spent.

Sources:

Cuddy, A., & Riley, J. (2021, August 11). Why this stage of the pandemic makes us so anxious. Washington Post.

Grant, A. (Presenter). (2021, September 28). How to stop languishing and start finding flow. Speech presented at TED. Gonzalez, J. (Host). (2021, October 19). Teachers are barely hanging on (No. 179) [Audio podcast episode]. In Cult of Pedagogy. Cult of Pedagogy. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/barely-hanging-on/

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Professional Learning Is Self-care | Learning Forward

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Do you feel this school year is even harder than last? If so, you're not alone. I'm hearing this from educators all over, and it's been my own experience, too. We continue to face difficulties that we hoped to leave behind in June, plus a host of new ones that are often complex and heated.

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A District Leader's Guide: Building Teacher Capacity for SEL | Panorama Education

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A District Leader's Guide: Building Teacher Capacity for SEL | Panorama Education

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A District Leader's Guide: Building Teacher Capacity for SEL | Panorama Education

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Download a guide for school and district leadership on how to support classroom teachers and build capacity for social-emotional learning.

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The Benefits of Reflection in Elementary School Discipline | Edutopia

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

When elementary students act out, one thing they need is time to reflect on the roots of their actions-and how they might respond differently next time.

Astrakan Images / Alamy Stock Photo

My first job as an educator was in-school suspension monitor. The majority of the students assigned in-school suspension were there because of their behavior, and on my first day, the vice principal explained that the best approach was to walk around the room, never smile, and not be cordial with students.

That mean, hard-nosed, punitive approach to school discipline is a practice from the past that really should be reevaluated. While I respect various approaches to student discipline, I found one particular approach back then that was effective-and it was not the vice principal's. It was giving students a structured opportunity to reflect on their behavior.

During my year as suspension monitor, I had many opportunities to interact with students, and I made it my goal to discover the root cause of their behaviors. I found that just spending time with them, informally talking one-on-one about why they did the things they did that resulted in suspension, seemed to make a difference. Students who were frequent visitors to the suspension room became infrequent visitors. And I learned that outside of the suspension room, they were improving in their academic and social performance.

The Importance of Reflection in Changing Students' Behavior

Perhaps connecting with students and talking with them about their actions was helping them change course in a way that coming down on them had not. And this made sense to me, because in my own years as a student, I seemed to be on a downward trajectory, and two middle school teachers changed my path by taking the time to talk with me. My science teacher appealed to the social and emotional aspect while my language arts teacher spoke directly to my intellectual aspirations and desire to be a better person. Neither approach was wrong; both were what I needed as a young teen looking for meaning and purpose in life.

Students need time and help to think about their actions, and sitting in isolation during detention or suspension is ineffective and counterproductive-it sends the message that no one has time to deal with behavior that does not comply with school rules.

Now a director, I apply what I learned back then to how I approach disciplining students. As adults, we often forget that children make mistakes, and that mistakes are an integral part of learning in behavior as much as in academics. In addition, we can at times neglect the power of care and attention in helping children consider their actions and make better choices going forward.

In the place of such care, we work with a one-sided ideal of how we should address their behavior-leaning at times toward harshness, separation, and correction-to redirect them from their wayward ways. But what if we offered opportunities for students to think about what led up to them making poor choices, and how they should address their own behavior?

Teaching Students How to Reflect on Their Actions

Students need support in complying with rules and opportunities to reflect on their actions when they break rules. Reflection is a skill best supported not by telling students to do it but by showing them how to do it. Unlike administering punishment when a child does something wrong, helping students critically reflect on past mistakes enables them to be proactive in changing how they act in the future. Teaching students to reflect is an intentional process that incorporates love, care, and attention.

I discovered this truth as office referrals were increasing in my school. Detention was ineffective, and students became callous to disciplinary practices, including suspension. As a school, we resolved to teach students to become reflective thinkers. We created a "reflection room" for students who displayed a continued pattern of behavior infractions.

The reflection room is not like in-school suspension-it's an intentional process to engage the student in thinking about specific incidents that continue a pattern of undesirable behaviors that lead to the administration deciding to intervene.

Traditionally, detention and in-school suspension allow students to sit and become more upset. The reflection room, though, asks provoking questions to help the student-and teachers-understand the root cause and expected outcome of the student's actions, which they need to know in order to identify better options.

At the conclusion of the student's time in the reflection room, the student and their parents or caregivers meet with teachers and administrators to discuss the root cause of the child's actions, alternative options for the child's behavior in similar circumstances, and next steps in the case of continued behavioral patterns.

Staff were trained to teach students who were given referrals how to reflect on their actions and become strategic thinkers. The process begins with teaching students to understand and not run from their feelings and emotions-their feelings and emotions are not bad, but how they are displayed can be problematic. Undesirable behaviors typically come at a cost, and students can reflect on a cost analysis of their actions and missed opportunities, both academic and social. Teachers are thought provokers who challenge students to think about their actions in totality, not as isolated incidents.

On day one, staff sit with the students to explain the process. Students complete a reflection sheet with a series of 20 questions to answer either verbally or in writing about the incident(s), their feelings about the incident, their intentions and the results they sought, the cost of their actions, their thoughts about the feelings of those affected by their actions, public perceptions of their actions, and how they would approach similar incidents in the future.

The reflection sheet is saved in the student's file for a few purposes-as a reminder to the student and parents of the agreed-upon steps the student indicated they would take if a similar situation arises, and to determine the number of students who have repeated the reflection process, which also helps to determine the reflection room's effectiveness. The data is disaggregated so we can analyze it by gender, grade level, and ethnicity to ensure that school practices are equitable.

The reflection room is effective and produces results not because it's magical but because it addresses the root cause of student behavior.

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The Benefits of Reflection in School Discipline

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) When elementary students act out, one thing they need is time to reflect on the roots of their actions-and how they might respond differently next time. Astrakan Images / Alamy Stock Photo My first job as an educator was in-school suspension monitor.

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School Leaders Take Note: Teacher Care is a Lot More Than Self-Care | EdSurge News

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If you get burned in a fire, you first treat the wound, but you also try to put the fire out. In education, we treat the wound and then usher our teachers back into the fire. Excuse the pun but they are more than burned out, they are scorched.

Chelsea Prax, a program director at the American Federation of Teachers, sums it up succinctly.

"You can't deep-breathe your way out of a pandemic; you cannot stretch your way out of terrible class sizes; you cannot 'individual behavior' your way out of structural problems," she says.

This quote, which comes from Education Week's aptly titled piece, Teachers Are Not OK, Even Though We Need Them to Be, is just one of numerous articles, reports and statements outlining the stress that educators are under, and the well-intentioned but flawed approach of asking educators to save themselves.

Just in the past month we've read:

But the only solutions we are presented revolve around "self-care," i.e., rest, relaxation, meditation, physical activity and yoga. Basically, it's up to you to save yourself. No doubt these strategies are helpful in addressing the wound, but they do little to nothing to address the cause. For many educators, being asked to "find time for themselves" is both impossible and, in itself, stress inducing when finding time is not a real option.
For more on the future of learning, check out the weekly EdSurge Podcast, wherever you listen.
Larry Felazzo, the award-winning teacher who writes a popular education blog and a teacher advice column, recently wrote, "I teach in an almost ideal situation and I'm exhausted after just the first month of this year. I don't know how others who might be in less than ideal situations are handling it."

The experts are exhausted. The experienced are exhausted. We can safely assume that those new to the profession are exhausted too.

So, what do we do?

Sean Slade, 2021.

We must stop expecting educators to save themselves and instead start to address the group climate and culture of our schools. We must improve the environments that educators find themselves in everyday and at a minimum decrease the stress and increase the supports available in that setting. Collaboratively, we must start to address the systems that we have helped foster that have caused much of the stress in the first place.

If we only focus on self-care, we only affect the top of what I've coined the Wellbeing Pyramid. Not only is the effect temporary but it butts up too often against unsupportive environments and unresponsive systems. We must target the group interactions and focus on our school cultures, and then we must address the underlying causes. We give most attention to the Self but we must place more attention onto the Group and eventually the System.

As educators, or in fact as anyone who works with children and youth, we have less impact over our System-the scheduling, supports, time for collaboration, funding, duties, responsibilities and accountability systems. But we have more influence over the Group and consequently our culture and climate at the school. This is reflective of how we-the adults-treat each other. How we interact, how we react and how we support one another.

And while everyone in the school setting, from students, to staff, to families, influences the culture and climate, the person, or persons, who influence our school cultures the most are our school leaders. As my colleague Alyssa Gallagher and I wrote earlier this year, "Principals have the power to set the tone and establish a new order of business in a school. The principal provides education credibility to almost any initiative they champion, and as such, most school teams buy-in."

Acknowledging individuals, both personally as well as professionally

Demonstrating our human side of collaboration, and of leadership

Increasing our own understanding of how we react to, and interact with others

Adjusting our communication and leadership styles.

How do we do this?

We start by enhancing and improving the ways we interact and the ways we react to one another. These skills can be learned and fostered, but in general they revolve around core understandings and actions.

If we continue to focus only on self-care without addressing the causes of the stress we lose in both the middle and long game. We must start to focus more attention on the venues where we work and the interactions that influence the culture. This will not alleviate all stress (after all, most stress comes from our system), but if we continue to build our schools into places of care, support and positive interactions, we start to buffer the system stresses, and support the self-care that may take place.

It is not teachers' responsibility to save and take care of themselves; it is our responsibility to help ensure and develop safe, supportive environments with them.

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School Leaders Take Note: Teacher Care Is a Lot More Than Self-Care - EdSurge News

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If you get burned in a fire, you first treat the wound, but you also try to put the fire out. In education, we treat the wound and then usher our ...

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Leading a School Through a Staffing Shortage | Edutopia

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Administration & Leadership

A lack of substitute teachers has educators feeling strained, but there are things principals can do to help.

Scott Laumann / The iSpot

Late fall is typically when school administrators and teachers fall into a familiar rhythm, but staffing challenges in schools have made that rhythm hard to find this year.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the local and state education job sector lost 161,000 jobs in September. Educator job vacancies in schools have made it difficult for school leaders and staff to find a familiar stride. Having unfilled teaching positions, let alone having to cover absent teachers, has made school life challenging. Few staff members' roles are as defined as they once were. The "other duties as assigned" clauses in job descriptions have taken on new meaning. It's first important to remember that leaders must be more agile and more adaptable if we are to navigate the daily uncertainty that staffing shortages create.

"A couple of times this year, I've had teachers have to go into the library to monitor someone else's class while they teach theirs," said Greg Cole, a high school principal in Nevada whose school has seven teacher vacancies. "They have to teach their own Algebra I class, for instance, and they volunteer to accept another Algebra I class that same period in the library and teach them both."

Other principals throughout the country share that they are experiencing a shortage of substitute teachers. Their difficulty arises when they must cover instructional staff members who are absent from work. The difficulty covering absent teachers intensifies the higher the school's poverty level.

"I feel like I'm putting together a jigsaw puzzle some mornings when it comes to covering absent staff," said Christine Richards, EdD, a middle school principal in New York. "We often don't have enough substitutes to come in. We have to prioritize and determine which classes have students with the highest needs, ensure those classes are covered, and ask teachers to cover the rest."

As school leaders, we have to remain flexible when traversing staffing challenges and help staff members do the same. We can't control which teachers or their family members get sick. We also can't control all the mechanizations that lead to a candidate being placed into a job vacancy. We have to do the best we can to help as many children as we can with the staff members who work alongside us every day.

The Academic Impact

It's important to remember to be courageous and creative in how we help students learn standards amid a staffing shortage. Teaching is an art and a science. These are times that may require more artistry from us. The impact of staffing shortages may create challenges outside of your or your staff's experience.

The situation is taking a toll on teachers. They are exhausting the time and energy they have to help their students learn. As administrators, sometimes we must ask teachers to go consecutive days without taking their scheduled planning and preparation times to ensure that every child has access to classroom teachers.

Sometimes the substitute shortage affects a school's professional development opportunities.

"We can't find subs," said Steve Brand, a high school principal in Iowa. "We have to handle professional learning differently because I can't find substitutes to come in for a day to cover a department so that we can learn together."

Stephanie Brant, an elementary school principal in Maryland, echoed this sentiment.

"When substitute teachers don't pick up jobs in my school, the staff development teacher, the reading specialist, the assistant principal, the school counselor, and I cover for the shortage of substitutes," said Brant. "It takes us away from supporting the work of teaching and learning. Our faculty depends on us to facilitate conversations and provide resources. It trickles down to kids because teachers don't have quick access to those resources or supportive conversations with resident experts."

Some schools, districts, and states have found ways to mitigate educator shortages. Utah retained teachers throughout the pandemic, despite many teachers leaving districts throughout the United States.

"I haven't had to ask teachers to give up their collaboration time," said Milton Collins, an elementary school principal in Utah. "I have zero teaching vacancies this year. We have been fortunate to be able to get experienced subs when teachers are out. I have paraprofessionals that are trained to take over a classroom for a day if needed."

Adjusting Expectations

To help leaders and teachers to navigate daily staffing uncertainty, districts must be mindful of what they ask educators to do with fewer people. When short-staffed, schools don't know if staff absences will upend the best of plans, and administrators can't count on asking teachers to dedicate their prep times to collaborate to meet new directives their districts may demand.

Ramona Esparza is a retired high school principal and vice president of the Leadership Institute of Nevada. She reminds administrators to balance the need to improve learning and the uniqueness of leading during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected many functions of schools, such as staffing.

"Leadership matters," said Esparza. "This is the time for districts to attend to the needs of teachers and leaders. Leaders need to attend to the socio-emotional needs of employees. This pandemic has brought so much trauma into people's lives. As leaders, our students, families, and staffs are still addressing trauma, loss of loved ones, food insecurity, and so much uncertainty that we need to adapt, [and] be agile to address these needs first. How do we find the balance leading empathetically while maintaining a focus on academic learning? If we navigate them simultaneously, rewards will be in student achievement."

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Administration & Leadership A lack of substitute teachers has educators feeling strained, but there are things principals can do to help. Scott Laumann / The iSpot Late fall is typically when school administrators and teachers fall into a familiar rhythm, but staffing challenges in schools have made that rhythm hard to find this year.

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Trauma Informed Practices Equity For All

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Trauma Informed Practices Equity For All

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Trauma-Informed Care is a relatively recent concept that is growing in acceptance. In contrast to other kinds of care, it starts with the assumption that the person receiving care (counseling, therapeutic, medical, etc.) has experienced trauma. Therefore, the care needs to take the trauma into consideration from the start. It's not a bad assumption as trauma is common, even if it does not become post-traumatic stress disorder.

In this post, we'll cover what trauma means, what it looks like, and how to support an individual with trauma. The ideas here come from a presentation given by Fiona Wilson from St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton at the 2016 National Conference on Peer Support.

There are many kinds of support for individuals who have faced a traumatic situation. However, before you can understand how to support an individual you must understand what trauma means and what it looks like.

Trauma is defined as a threat to life and limb or body integrity of self or someone else. The experience of trauma is terrifying, individuals can experience sudden and out of the ordinary feelings of helplessness and fear. The causes such as witnessing or directly experiencing an event can lead to extreme stress that can overwhelm an individual and their ability to cope. There are two major types of trauma:

1. Interpersonal Trauma (i.e., childhood abuse, sexual assault, historical trauma, loss due to homicide, torture and forcible confinement, elder abuse)

2. External Trauma (i.e., war-combat, killing, fear of being killed, witnessing death and extreme suffering, dismemberment, victim of crime, sudden death of loved one, suicidal loss, natural disaster, extreme poverty, etc.)

Trauma can be experienced personally or vicariously. For example, many people who work in mental health and or addiction services may have experienced personal trauma. Some individuals can use their personal traumas and use their resilience and strength to support others. The idea of peer support is built upon this premise. Unfortunately, when you work with individuals who are dealing with trauma you are putting yourself at risk of developing vicarious trauma. Vicarious trauma is the experience of "bearing witness to atrocities that are committed human against human. It is the result of absorbing the sight, smell, sound, touch, and feel of the stories told in detail by survivors who are searching for a way to release their own pain."(Health Canada, 2001)

There are many responses to handling stress and trauma, many know of the fight or flight response. However, there are many options as to how someone could respond to the stress they are feeling.

Flooding of physiological changes related to aggression

Seen as aggressive behaviour, but meant as a safety response - not meant to hurt but to create a safe space around one's body.

Both physical and psychological (avoidance, dissociation, hiding, etc.)

Protective response like flailing, shielding raising hands over head and body - preparing for injury.

Terror response, sometimes to seemingly benign triggers. Physical responses may include shortness of breath, startled, sleeplessness.

Instinctive placating behaviour for women/girls who have been sexually abused.

Both physical and psychological; body becomes paralyzed, dissociation - person becomes more vulnerable.

Person becomes completely vulnerable, but more in control "playing dead". Sometimes labelled as "risk taking".

If individuals are unable to cope appropriately and effectively, there are many health consequences they could face. Some examples are:

Substance Abuse/Smoking

Depression and Anxiety

Eating and Sleep Disorders

Feelings of Shame and Guilt

Poor Self-Esteem

Phobias and Panic Disorders

Physical Inactivity

Psychosomatic Disorders

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Suicidal and Self-Harm Behaviour

Much research has been conducted on how to help individuals cope with the above mental health consequences of trauma. Trauma-informed care (TIC) includes both individual and organizational responses to the acknowledgement of the link between trauma and the experience of mental illness and/or addictions. TIC acknowledges that some of the mental health conditions acquired after trauma may be adaptive responses instead of a mental illness. The assumption of a trauma experience guides individual's interactions despite whether the individual understands or remembers the trauma history. Their response to the trauma and the defence they put forward can be reframed as a coping strategy and this is recognized as a strength. The goal of TIC is to help individuals feel empowered and knowledgeable through their use of skills to take care of themselves, have a sense of choice, and internal control and autonomy of their lives.

"Abuse knows no boundaries, no cultural group, ethnic background, lifestyles, educational or socioeconomic background is spared"

Trauma-informed support is guided by the principles of peer support. Having an individual use their personal trauma to support others. There are many strategies that should be used to properly provide TIC.

1. Practicing the principle of "Do No Harm"

Pro-actively avoiding re-traumatization

Do not lead where you are not prepared or able to follow.

2. Grounding

Helping someone be completely in the here and now.

Discussing what would make a person feel safe in the moment

Use pillow, blankets, warm or cold liquids, etc. to refocus attention on the present & give comfort.

3. Validating

Respond to disclosure with belief and validation

Disclosure does not require you to do something other than watch for triggers and helping to make efforts to connect with experts in trauma/abuse.

4. Reframing
Acknowledging the person's coping behaviours/actions as ways to survive - supporting an exploration of alternative behaviours and actions as part of the recovery process.

5. Modeling Self- Care
Share ways in which you've taken care of yourself during difficult or distressing situations.

6. Practicing Self-Care

In order to model good self-care, you must first practice good self-care.

What are the things you need to do for yourself on a regular basis to feel good and stay healthy.

Ultimately recovery is the core goal for trauma survivors, their families, and their treatment providers. This does not mean complete freedom from post-traumatic issues but it can allow you to move forward. The recovery process allows individuals to regain the understanding, support and practical assistance so that trauma survivors can find within themselves a genuine basis for hope, as well as personal, relational and spiritual renewal.

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Trauma-Informed Care is a relatively recent concept that is growing in acceptance. In contrast to other kinds of care, it starts with the assumption that the person receiving care (counseling, therapeutic, medical, etc.) has experienced trauma. Therefore, the care needs to take the trauma into consideration from the start.

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Beacon House is passionate about developing freely available resources so that knowledge about the repair of trauma and adversity is in the hands of those who need it. Please feel free to use our resources in your home or work setting.
All we ask is that you credit our team for the information and design using this credit: Image or information courtesy of Beacon House Therapeutic Services & Trauma Team | 2022 | www.beaconhouse.org.uk
As a specialist trauma service, our resources are written using a 'trauma lens' and offer information, ideas and strategies from this perspective. We know that there are other perspectives and overlapping experiences, meaning that 'one size doesn't fit all'. We are working to be as inclusive as possible and alongside this acknowledge that not everything we produce will be relevant for everyone.

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Beacon House is passionate about developing freely available resources so that knowledge about the repair of trauma and adversity is in the hands of those who need it. Please feel free to use our resources in your home or work setting.

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Social and Emotional Supports for Educators During and After the Pandemic - Center for American Progress

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Social and Emotional Supports for Educators During and After the Pandemic - Center for American Progress

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Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 educators have faced unique challenges and tremendous pressure. From quickly adapting to remote learning to balancing the impacts of the pandemic on their personal lives, the past year has seen educators particularly overwhelmed with stress, trauma, and burnout. Although those in the education sphere have engaged in a great deal of discussion about the best way to provide social and emotional supports to students during and after the pandemic, it is essential that the social and emotional needs of educators are also part of the conversation, especially since educators are often the individuals most likely to provide initial supports to students.

Defining SEL

CASEL defines social and emotional learning (SEL) as:

the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.

SEL training would help teachers balance the stressors of their jobs

Furthermore, data from the 2012-13 school year found that turnover rates are 50 percent higher for teachers in Title I schools-where children from low-income families comprise at least 40 percent of total enrollment-and 70 percent higher for teachers in schools serving the largest concentrations of students of color. Teachers who are BIPOC also had higher turnover rates than white teachers and were more likely to work in communities with lower socioeconomic statuses. These educators are also more likely to work in schools with weaker professional supports and leadership. Black teachers in particular have almost twice the turnover rate as non-Black teachers. According to the Learning Policy Institute report, Black educators who left the profession were more likely to cite dissatisfaction with their salaries, lack of resources, and worries about job security and accountability measures than they were to cite personal or family reasons. In addition to addressing the lack of funding and structural disparities in schools that disproportionately affect educators who are BIPOC, making comprehensive adult SEL training available would provide all educators with opportunities to learn to balance the common social and emotional stressors they face in their profession.

Moreover, educators need continued training once they enter the classroom, but such opportunities are often not comprehensive-or even available. Research from 2016 found that although 87 percent of educators recognized the importance of SEL, fewer than half reported being given resources, training, or professional development in adult SEL. An EdWeek Research Center survey found that only 29 percent of teachers said they received ongoing training in SEL throughout the school year, and one-fifth said they never receive opportunities in their job to "reflect upon and improve their own social-emotional skills."

Despite not having sufficient professional opportunities to develop their own SEL skills, however, teachers are often called upon to help their students develop SEL. Learning SEL skills is a critical part of students' K-12 education; it not only improves student behavior but also improves student outcomes and school climate. This is especially important given the fact that school psychologists, who are more likely to be prepared to provide social and emotional support to students, are overwhelmed: While roughly 30 percent of students who receive mental health services do so through school, school psychologists are responsible for an average of 1,200 students each-nearly double the recommended number. In a 2017 CASEL survey, 70 percent of school principals said they expect all teachers in their school to teach social and emotional skills to students. A 2019 Education Week survey found that 78 percent of teachers felt that part of their job was to help students develop strong SEL skills, but only 40 percent felt they had adequate solutions and strategies to do so. And while fewer than half of elementary and secondary school teachers in a RAND Corporation survey agreed with the statement "professionals other than myself have primary responsibility for my students' social and emotional needs," in a different RAND survey, educators cited a lack of time, lack of strategies to incorporate SEL into curriculum, and lack of engagement from parents and families as barriers to providing SEL to their students effectively.

Pandemic-related stressors have taken a toll on educators

Similarly, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) educators have confronted a rise in anti-AAPI hate crimes throughout the pandemic. A report analyzing hate crime data from the first quarter of 2021 across 15 major U.S. cities found that hate crimes rose by 169 percent in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the same time period in 2020. This tragically manifested in the Atlanta spa shootings in March 2021, in which eight people, including six women of Asian descent, were murdered. Like their Black co-workers, AAPI educators must process these events not only in their personal lives but also in their professional ones.

SEL supports for educators benefit school communities

Providing SEL supports for educators has also been shown to benefit students and school communities. Research by Pennsylvania State University found that teachers who developed their SEL skills improved both their own well-being and the social, emotional, and academic development of their students. On the other hand, research from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence found that teachers who were required to teach SEL without being provided professional opportunities to develop their own SEL skills worsened the skills of their students. This is especially important given that research has shown that SEL improves students' academic achievement by an average of 11 percentile points; helps students develop skills in self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making; and decreases the likelihood that students will live in public housing and receive public assistance after graduating, have interactions with police before adulthood, or ever spend time in a detention facility. In July 2020, the Center for American Progress published its recommendations for providing social and emotional supports to students who are Black, Indigenous, and other non-Black people of color (BIPOC).

Similarly, schools with leaders who have strong personal SEL skills and who invest in those of their educators have better climates. Research has found that school leaders who have strong social and emotional competencies positively affect teacher effectiveness and school climate. Providing educators with SEL supports results in lower levels of stress among the workforce, improved employee attendance, increased ability to model positive emotions for students, and lower levels of turnover. As school districts look to recover from the pandemic, investing in the SEL skills of their workforces will be essential.

Recommendations

School districts and individual schools should invest some of the federal relief funds they receive from the American Rescue Plan in efforts to establish norms, practices, and resources that support educators' social and emotional needs. These should both address immediate concerns and be sustainable in the long term. The U.S. Department of Education has affirmed that funds can and should be used to support educators' social and emotional needs in the "Supporting Educator and Staff Stability and Well-Being" section of Volume 2 of its COVID-19 handbook. Districts should employ multiple strategies and targeted supports to ensure that all educators' unique needs are being met.

Building- and school-level supports

School staff should be included in any discussions and plans that school districts have around reopening. Giving staff the latest information will help reduce their anxiety and uncertainty and give them a chance to address outstanding concerns from the 2020-21 school year.

Districts and schools should survey their educators at the start of the school year to identify what SEL supports and programs they would find most helpful. Districts and schools should conduct regular check-ins and surveys on these measures throughout the school year to gauge what is and is not working. Schools should also build time into staff meetings and professional development days, or establish other regular check points throughout the year, to discuss best practices for mental health, school norms, and new SEL opportunities and resources.

Furthermore, educators should be provided with ongoing professional development opportunities to develop their SEL skills and learn how to best use those skills to provide SEL supports to their students. Districts could work with external partners to provide opportunities to staff from marginalized backgrounds who may benefit from more individualized trainings, as well as offer training on trauma-informed practices to benefit themselves and their students. Central office staff and district leadership should also be included in these trainings.

Finally, districts should use American Rescue Plan funds to prevent layoffs, raise teacher pay, and hire additional support staff. This will help relieve educators' stress and reduce their workloads.

Individual and opt-in supports

Schools should help organize peer mentorship programs or similar opportunities that allow educators to establish support networks at school. They may want to consider affinity groups where educators who are BIPOC can choose to share their unique experiences with peers.

School districts should also offer self-care and wellness programs for staff and make sure they are aware of current and upcoming offerings. They should provide staff with resources to assess their self-care and well-being, as well as offer on-site counseling. They may even choose to develop staff well-being toolkits. Schools should also assist educators in establishing a set of norms and expectations that prioritize their social and emotional needs. This may include policies such as limiting school communications outside of school hours or establishing a schoolwide "emotional intelligence charter."

Conclusion

Educators have gone above and beyond during the pandemic, leaving many burnt out and with little time to process the events of the past year. The influx of federal relief funds presents a unique opportunity to transform how educators are supported in their profession, not just during the recovery but also in the long term. In order to ensure that the education system is able to fully recover from the impacts of the pandemic, it is critical that schools and districts invest in their educators, especially in their social and emotional health.
Megan Ferren is a research assistant for the K-12 Education team at the Center for American Progress.

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Social and Emotional Supports for Educators During and After the Pandemic

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As K-12 districts and schools plan for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential that providing social and emotional supports for educators is a key part of the conversation.

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For middle school students, this year is especially turbulent - Chalkbeat New York

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For middle school students, this year is especially turbulent - Chalkbeat New York

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Low stamina and school avoidance: For tweens, this year is unusually turbulent

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After two COVID years, students are ‘traumatized by many of the normal routines of a school day.’

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Teachers Are Barely Hanging On. Here’s What They Need. | Cult of Pedagogy

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Teachers Are Barely Hanging On. Here’s What They Need. | Cult of Pedagogy

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
Sponsored by CommonLit and Brain Power Academy

Update: Since the publication of this post, it has been brought to my attention that I missed some topics, specifically one issue that is creating an incredible amount of stress, fear, and heartbreak for so many teachers: the pushback from parents, community members, and the media on Critical Race Theory, SEL, culturally responsive teaching, and other teaching and curricular approaches that fall under this umbrella. This is a serious topic that will be addressed in a future post. Thank you to those who held me accountable for this omission.

The 2021-22 school year is off and running, and what I've been hearing from teachers over and over, from every corner, is that this is the worst school year ever. So much worse than 2020, which should have easily held the title for "worst year ever" in every category, for a long, long time.

But for so many teachers the worst year is turning out to be this year, and that really grinds my gears, because it shouldn't be.

Every day I see a new post on social media from a different educator shouting at the top of their lungs on this topic, so what I'm going to say here is nothing new, but I'm hoping that if I add my voice to the very large chorus, maybe it will reach some new ears.

My thoughts are not well-organized right now, but I want to get them out, so I'm going to break them into eight loosely linked parts.

Part 1: A Confession

I am not a teacher anymore because I know I couldn't handle it if I tried.

At one time, I was able to. Sort of. When I was a lot younger, with no children of my own, I managed to pull off teaching middle school language arts well enough. Granted, I brought home at least two hours of work every afternoon, got about 5 hours of sleep a night, and was accused on the regular of being a workaholic, but I managed.

Once I had kids, things changed. Gone were the after-school hours to plan lessons and grade papers. Gone was the ability to tolerate a staff meeting that ran over an extra fifteen minutes. Gone was the ability to go into my classroom on a Sunday to catch up. After giving it a try for a semester with a newborn and a lot of support from home, I decided to step away from the classroom for a few years, knowing there was no way I could be a great teacher and a great mother at the same time.

That was 2005, before all the nonsense really got going. No Child Left Behind had started infiltrating schools, but back then we had no idea how bad it was going to get.

I had a few more kids, but I always planned to go back. I was going to stay at home with them until they were in school, then I'd return to the classroom. Ultimately, other opportunities presented themselves, then I launched my own website, so I never ended up following the original blueprint. Still, the question comes up often, from curious friends who ask if I've ever thought about going back, to people who actually offer me teaching jobs, to readers who dislike something I've written and suggest that my voice has no merit since I'm no longer in the classroom.

My most compelling reason for not taking on a full-time teaching job is that it would require me to stop doing what I do now, researching and sharing good teaching practices through blog posts and podcast episodes. There simply wouldn't be enough time left. But equally important is the fact that I really don't want to invite back into my life the stress and horrible imbalance that comes with a teaching job. It stressed me out in 2005; I can't even imagine what it would do to me in 2021.

And that's a real shame, because I know I would be an incredible teacher. I wasn't half bad back in the day, but knowing what I know now? Forget about it. I'd be frickin' brilliant. And yet I wouldn't do it, because I know how much non-teaching is required of teachers, how much unnecessary and unmitigated crap is being piled onto teachers' backs right now, and I feel 100 percent certain that I wouldn't be able to handle it.

So if you're still hanging in there, but you're about at the end of your rope, hear this: The problem is not you.

It's not you.

Part 2: The Problem, Briefly

So what's going on? Why is this the worst school year ever? I put the question out on Twitter and got hundreds of responses. The root of the problem seems to fall into one of three categories: time, trust, and safety.

TIME

Historically, teachers have never had enough time to do their jobs well. This has been a problem for generations, but it's gotten worse in recent years as standardized testing has become the end-all-be-all for measuring success. Pre-COVID, there was already no margin for error, no extra space or time for most teachers to thoughtfully plan, collaborate, and assess student work.

I'll say that again: Before COVID, teachers already didn't have enough time to do their jobs well.

Now that schools are transitioning from fully remote back to in-person classes, the problem of teacher time has reached epic proportions.

This has happened despite all the lessons we should have learned from the pandemic. The worldwide shutdown prompted lots of people to reflect on how busy life used to be. Many of us were determined to never go back to that frantic pace once things started opening up again. Unfortunately, it appears that not everyone felt that way.

Especially those in charge of schools.

Instead of trying to approach things differently, many school leaders have gone full speed ahead, putting their reopening focus on recovering as much "learning loss" as possible, as if everyone could just do the teaching and learning more quickly and get caught up at twice the speed. This is playing out in far too many districts in the form of a renewed focus on data and testing, with more frequent assessments and screenings, more documentation, and more data analysis. The message is that we are behind and we now need to work extra hard to make up for it.

On top of that, they are adding new stuff: new technology, new curricula, new programs. This stuff might be good, it might be outstanding, but it's still new, and it comes with a learning curve, which means more time.

Meanwhile, extra work has been added in order to comply with COVID-related requirements, help students make up work missed due to quarantining, and cover classes that have no responsible adult in charge due to an accelerating shortage in teachers and substitutes.

All of this combined has created an absolute dumpster fire of mental distress for teachers. Being short on time puts us in a terrible state as human beings. When I'm running late and I hit a patch of traffic or get stuck behind a slow driver, I am so far from my best self it's embarrassing: my heart rate goes up, I yell at every single thing that goes wrong, I hate everyone else on the road, and the profanity is off the charts. Literally nothing can go wrong without turning me into a raving lunatic. At some point, if the traffic never eases up and it becomes clear that I'm not going to get to my destination on time, I might eventually settle into a catatonic state, where I've accepted my situation and just go numb. It's a terrible way to feel. It's something I'm working on, believe me. But at least it's temporary.

That's the mental state so many teachers are in every day. It's turned down to a slightly lower vibration-they may not be running down the halls shouting profanities at everyone who gets in their way-but the chronic lack of time in their lives means there's zero margin for error. They don't have the luxury of thinking deeply about their classroom practices or studying student work in order to adjust their instruction. People whose cortisol levels are regularly elevated don't have the mental capacity to have tough, vulnerable conversations about bias or take in constructive feedback about their disciplinary practices. The clock is ticking and they have a mile-long to-do list so all that good, deep stuff will have to wait.

And these are smart, thoughtful people. These are people who care about their students, who are passionate about their content, and who have formal training in pedagogy and on-the-ground experience in what works best for kids. But when they are put into a constant state of stress and anxiety, the best of their knowledge, experience, and intuition is wasted.

TRUST

While the impossible race to make up for lost time is the biggest culprit here, another problem makes things even worse: A lack of trust. Teachers are being required to hand in detailed lesson plans, document interventions on a daily basis, and complete all of their professional development in a setting where their participation can be observed. The message is this: We don't think you will do your job if we are not constantly checking behind you.

No doubt, these additional duties still fall under the time problem, but they get an added asterisk because they are also demoralizing. For most teachers, this level of micromanagement is completely unnecessary; whether their work is documented or not, they'll still do good work. Ironically, the time it takes to document their work is more likely to weaken its quality than improve it. The time lost in writing full, formal lesson plans every day is time that could be used to conference with a student, watch a video about an innovative technique, or restructure an activity that isn't quite working.

In every school, there are probably a few teachers who need more accountability for one reason or another. But applying that to all teachers, regardless of their performance, in an environment where lack of time is already creating so much stress, just adds insult to injury.

SAFETY

When a teacher does not feel physically safe, they are incapable of concentrating on anything that will improve their teaching. Prior to 2020, teachers already had enough to worry about when it came to safety. In the U.S., for example, gun violence in schools is a very real concern and has been for a long time.

Now we have a virus to contend with, and we're still not done with it. So schools that are willfully going against CDC recommendations-or not really enforcing them -are putting teachers at risk. We could go round and round about whether or not our current levels of protection from vaccinations are enough; the fact remains that we are still learning about this virus, everyone's situation is different, and if a teacher feels that their life is at risk by coming to work every day, that's going to eventually send them looking for a safer job.

Part 3: Not All School Leaders

I just want to pause briefly to add a disclaimer: I am not talking about all school administrators. Some teachers have reported to me that their admins are doing an incredible job and have set reasonable expectations. I have met many administrators who I know are handling this school year as thoughtfully as they possibly can.

So if you're hearing all this and thinking, Hey, I'm not doing that stuff, then know that I'm not talking to you.

With that in mind, though...

The truly outstanding school leaders I have known are outstanding because they are reflective. Because they think they always have room for improvement. Because they seek authentic, honest feedback and use it to get better.

If that sounds like you, then what you're likely to do is find one or two things I say here that could make things more sustainable for your teachers, apply it, and end up with a faculty that is even more grateful that they work for you.

Part 4: Things That Are Not the Solution

Before we talk about the things that will really make conditions better for teachers, here's a list of things that won't:

Jeans day or other clothing-related "rewards." For the love of Pete, we are pulling out of a global pandemic. Just let your teachers wear jeans whenever they want.

Donuts, bagels, pizzas, etc. Food is always appreciated and enjoyed, so there's no need to stop offering it; just know that it does nothing to fix the bigger problem.

Surface talk about self-care without any structural changes. Encouraging teachers to meditate, do yoga, practice mindfulness, take bubble baths, get mani-pedis-none of that addresses the real problem. In fact, more than one teacher has pointed out how insulting it is to have leaders give lip service to self-care while upholding conditions that chip away at mental health.

Surface-level invitations for teacher input. If a teacher is invited to participate in a focus group, complete a survey, or otherwise give input into school decisions, their input should actually carry weight. If a decision has already been made for all intents and purposes, or the teacher input has no impact on the outcome, then the teacher's time has been wasted.

Unpredictable or short bursts of free time. When it comes to doing challenging cognitive work, "free time" is not the sum of its parts. Five minutes here, another seven there and another 20 there is not the same as knowing you have a full hour of protected, uninterrupted time. Although it's nice to randomly end a meeting 10 minutes early or show up in a teacher's class to give them a surprise bathroom break, teachers can't really make the most of this kind of free time. What they need is longer blocks that they know about in advance so they can plan for them and make good use of the time.

Pep talks. Telling a room full of teachers that they are doing a great job will likely go in one ear and out the other of those who are worn out and demoralized.

Part 5: Solutions

Here are some things that will actually make a difference. Again, I'll break these into the categories of time, trust, and safety.

TIME

Most of these ideas came from replies to a tweet I sent out asking teachers what could be taken off their plates. The specific changes needed to give your teachers more time will be unique to your school, so the best approach would be to talk directly to your teachers about it, but it's pretty likely that something on this list is a culprit.

Cut WAAAAAY back on testing and data analysis. You may not have the authority to get rid of all of it, but you can do two things: (a) reduce or eliminate all the in-house testing and data analysis that is not required from above you, and (b) push back harder on what's required from above. It never did anyone any good before COVID, and it's definitely not helping anything now.

Fewer, shorter meetings. There are so many ways to reduce meeting time. Just a few are: Reduce the number of meetings, make them shorter, find other delivery methods for the information (a.k.a. "This could have been an email"), only require attendance for certain meetings from those who need the information presented there, and during meetings, fiercely guard against conversations that derail the agenda. The phrase "Let's talk about that after the meeting" should be used frequently.

No new initiatives. This is not the year for a new curriculum, room changes, new programs. The focus should be on stability, quality over quantity, building relationships, and everyone's health and safety. Accept that you'll have to let go of some good ideas for now. If the change is already underway and you'd waste more time going back to the old way, then find a way to cut back on how thoroughly teachers need to implement. Brainstorm ways you could put things on pause for now. It can wait a year. It can wait two. There's no rush.

Hire help for administrative, clerical, and supervisory work. There's no reason teachers should be doing data entry, organizing fundraising, or managing permission slips or forms of any kind. Bus duty and lunch supervision could be handled by a few part-time people hired just for that purpose. Errands could be run by temps. Teachers are trained professionals who are being paid for their expertise in instruction. Draining their energy and time with tasks that any college intern could do is terrible management of resources.

Compensation for extra work. If extra tasks absolutely must be assigned to teachers, compensate them for it. If you can't get a sub and a teacher is covering another teacher's class, you have the money for that time. Pay them.

Treat classroom time as precious. Look for ways to limit the number of times teachers are interrupted in class. Respect and protect that time. Ask your teachers if this is currently a problem and if it is, what they'd suggest to reduce the interruptions.

Reduce teaching hours. This may not be something that can be implemented right away, but a number of teachers pointed out that their school worked well last year on a 4-day schedule. Could that be continued this year? If not, could you add in more teacher PD days to the current schedule?

Take over a class. If every single administrator took over the teaching of one class for a month, or even better, a full grading period, things would definitely change. If this is impossible, then do the next best thing by shadowing a teacher for a full day, then repeating that with another teacher on a different day. Just like with childbirth and parenting very young children, our memories tend to trick us into thinking it's easier than it really is, because we forget how hard it was. Until administrators have to actually walk in the shoes of a teacher, they will continue to heap too much onto their plates.

TRUST

Like any workplace, most schools will have a few employees who do less than they're supposed to, but most teachers work hard and want to do a good job. Treating everyone as if they need constant babysitting chips away at morale until it's nonexistent. Here are some ways you can make teachers feel like trusted professionals:

Talk to them. Your teachers know exactly what needs to change, and they probably have some very good ideas for how to go about it. Ask them questions, listen carefully to the answers, and then seriously consider how you might implement some of their ideas.

Stop micromanaging. If you require teachers to submit lesson plans, stop. You may have a handful of teachers who could benefit from the structure and accountability of submitting lesson plans. But making everyone do it is a waste of time, and I'd bet money that most of these plans are never even read. This article from the Principal Center offers a thoughtful discussion of lesson plan submission and some good suggestions for what to do instead of requiring it. Along those same lines, if you're requiring all kinds of other documentation for the sake of accountability, stop that, too.

Stop broad-brushing your staff. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: When individual teachers are doing something wrong, deal directly with them instead of reprimanding your entire faculty. Those who are doing what they're supposed to do will be confused by the scolding and will likely waste time and energy wondering what they've done wrong.

Allow for virtual meetings and virtual PD. If teachers are requesting the option to attend meetings or professional development virtually, let them. This allows them to take off their masks, relax a little bit, and have a snack. They don't all have to be in the same room.

Look for other things to drop. Is there a safety video teachers are required to watch every year, or something else along those same lines? This may be the time to revisit the requirement and ask what's reasonable. Could it be an "every three years" thing instead?

Some of these requirements may be official policy in your district or state. But that doesn't mean they can't be changed. Every policy was created by humans and it can be dismantled by humans as well.

SAFETY

So much has already been said on this topic for the past year and a half; I don't think I can add anything new. Just know that no job is worth losing your life over. So if you're currently making teachers choose between personal safety and job security, you're going to lose.

Part 6: Something to Ponder About Gender

I want to point something out: The teaching profession is still overwhelmingly female, right? And what we're talking about is a system in which a whole bunch of people are basically getting exploited for unpaid labor. That exploitation seems to be fueled primarily through gaslighting, examples of which can be found here, here, and here, for starters.

If this profession were made up mostly of men-cisgender, heterosexual, white men, anyway-would this be happening? Many of the men I have taught alongside (who fit the above description) found ways to sidestep these unrealistic expectations and didn't seem to be working themselves to the bone. And yes, we have loads of women in positions of leadership who perpetuate these norms. And yes, there are certainly women who push back on this. Still, the culture of education was built on a tradition of women doing a lot of work for very little money, and as long as everyone keeps cooperating with it, it's not going to change.

Just something to think about.

Part 7: An Apology

A few weeks ago, I had an eye-opening conversation with my sister, who has been a high school science teacher for the better part of two decades. I'm paraphrasing her here, but basically she said this: You put out really good stuff, Jenn. I mean, the ideas are great. It's stuff I really want to try. But most of the time I'm thinking "That'll never happen." Because there's no time. So I end up feeling like a crap teacher because there's this ideal out there that I'm clearly falling short of and I know I'll never get there. You just don't understand what it's like.

For the past eight years, I have been putting out content on my platform to help teachers do their jobs better. And I really hope that it has been helpful, that you've been able to use it to improve. But I am deeply sorry if I have ever implied that doing it should be a piece of cake, that you should happily ignore all the jacked-up expectations that make it nearly impossible to do this job well, or that being a good teacher means running yourself ragged for the sake of the kids.

Part 8: A Call to Inaction

In most of this post, I've been addressing leadership, but now I want to speak directly to the teachers: In the event that your administrators at all levels don't do what needs to be done to make things better, I want to suggest to you that quitting, as appealing and cathartic as it might seem, is not your only option.

The alternative is simply saying no. It's subversion. Conscientious objection. Passive resistance. It's looking at the massive pile of time-consuming, micromanaging, misguided nonsense you're being told to do and simply not doing it. You don't even need to say no. Just don't do it. You're at the end of your rope anyway.

Yes, you could lose your job. That's a definite risk. But haven't you been thinking about leaving anyway? And if the ten best teachers in your school decided to simply refuse to perform some of the duties being asked of them, do you really think you'd all be fired?

You might be. It could happen. And yes, a lot of kids might be left without teachers. As a parent, I don't relish this thought. But I also don't want my kids' teachers hating their jobs. At this point, if the people in charge refuse to make the necessary changes, it might be time for the system to completely collapse.

This might actually be a hill worth dying on.

Come back for more.
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Teachers Are Barely Hanging On. Here's What They Need.

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Hint: It's not meditation and jeans passes.

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How Do I Know if My Teen Is OK? - The New York Times

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How Do I Know if My Teen Is OK? - The New York Times

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In the pandemic, many of the traditional measures that indicate a teen is thriving have been rendered irrelevant.

Credit... Getty Images

Alix MacDonald is 17 years old, and the future weighs heavily on her mind. A high school senior in Chicago, she was "stressed a lot" in the fall about "whether or not to apply to college," especially during a pandemic.

What comforted her was "talking through pros and cons with my mom and dad" - without feeling as if her parents had an agenda. "They didn't push me," said Alix, who has both attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and a lesser-known learning difference called slow processing speed, and has long grappled with school-based anxiety. "They asked questions about what I wanted."

Alix, like young people across the country, is wrestling with feelings of apprehension and uncertainty about what the next year will bring, made all the more intense in the pandemic. For parents, it has become harder to assess if their teenagers are doing OK. "Alix spends a huge amount of time alone in her room," said her mother, Veronique MacDonald, a real estate broker. "We try to implement something fun to get her to join us."

In the pandemic, many of the traditional measures that indicate whether a teen is thriving have been rendered irrelevant. Does my child attend school and stay engaged? Is my child participating in team sports or joining activities in our community? Is my child getting enough sleep with these early morning practices? Why is my child always alone?

Jennifer Hartstein, an adolescent psychologist in New York who specializes in anxiety and depression, said that in the absence of "age-old markers" of wellness, "we have to pivot and look at kids differently." Slow down and ask kids how they are doing, Dr. Hartstein advised.

She added: "A parent's biggest strength is knowing when you need to get help for your kids and for yourself."

As families prepare for post-pandemic life, there is an opportunity to reframe discussions of what it means to be doing well. Skills such as self-compassion, resilience and distress tolerance are strong indicators of how a kid is doing.

Rheeda Walker, a professor of psychology at the University of Houston and the author of " The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health," said that resilience "isn't about how many times we get knocked down" but rather, finding the factors that help us get back up. "What allows someone to tap into their strength when they need it most?" she asked. "Is it their family? Their faith?"

Dr. Walker encourages people to assess how they feel each day. "I talk in the Black community about psychological fortitude," she said, explaining that it means asking: "What is my rating on a zero to 10 basis to achieve my goals today and manage my life? If I am at a two, what is keeping me from getting to a six?" Parents can teach teens to practice this strategy when kids are struggling to meet their own daily challenges, even if the goal is merely to leave the house and interact with peers.

She also noted that it is important to look for shifts in behavior, shifts in mood, anything that indicates a change in your child's patterns - this is a signal for parents to investigate what lies underneath.

When I was growing up in the '80s, my doctor listened to my heart and lungs, checked my blood counts and monitored my growth. I checked all the boxes for "healthy." Yet I had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder throughout childhood that made my launch into college agonizing.

"We as pediatricians have come a long way in our awareness of mental health," said Dr. Sharon Robinson, a pediatrician in Evanston, Ill., who is raising two teenagers, ages 14 and 17. Anxiety is the most common adolescent mental health disorder, she said, and in her practice, they routinely screen all patients for depression starting at age 12.

When a child's survey triggers a positive response for depression, Dr. Robinson first meets privately with the patient to ask clarifying questions and assess their risk level for self harm and suicidal ideation before inviting parents back into the room. With mild to moderate depression, which account for the majority of cases, Dr. Robinson discusses therapeutic strategies with the family and provides a referral to talk therapy.

In severe situations, such as when a child indicates suicidal thoughts or has made a suicide plan, "we urgently refer those children to a psychiatrist or even to the emergency room for assessment," she said, and they also create a safety plan and schedule a follow-up visit.

Psychologists and pediatricians recommend that parents return to focusing on the milestones that they helped their kids develop in early childhood - eating, sleeping, separating from parents. Adults can scaffold the basics, providing support, structure and encouragement as young people rebuild in-person socialization into their lives, and then step back and allow them to stand on their own.

Research published in June of 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 18- to 24-year-olds reported the highest rate of struggles with mental health, substance abuse and suicidal ideation, as compared to older adults.

According to Ali Mattu, a clinical psychologist in Northern California and creator of the popular YouTube channel The Psych Show, teens and young adults are having a harder time psychologically than older generations because Covid has represented a bigger proportion of their lifetimes, and "the effects are greater."

He explained that the adolescent brain is wired to quickly make associations, and during the pandemic, some young people have learned to be hypervigilant, because we've trained them to associate going places with risk of a major disease. Since our brains don't finish developing until our mid-20s, he said, young people are quick to act on their emotions. For some, that means "anxious avoidance," which can manifest as a reluctance to leave home. For others, it means "overconfident approach," which accounts for teens and young adults who throng to parties, unmasked.

Dr. Mattu said the best thing parents can do for teens and young adults who are withdrawing is to help them develop four key skills. The first is "the ability to do things alone, like run an errand or do what needs to be done to get through their day," based on the expectations of their family and culture. Second is "the ability to ask for help, to be vulnerable and ask for support," such as by emailing a teacher on their own or reaching out to a counselor or parent.

Third is "the ability to support their peers, because teens are really focused on their relationships with each other," explained Dr. Mattu, and often, a peer is the first one to know when someone is struggling. And the fourth skill is "finding a connection to a larger community," such as a club, an organization, a fandom, a religious group - anything that creates meaning and purpose.

As young people take steps to re-enter the world, sometimes things will go wrong. The growth happens when they navigate their distress and try again instead of avoiding similar situations. Recently, my teenager asked me to drive her to meet a friend in downtown Chicago. "You can do this on your own," I said. When she never arrived, her friend called us. Our daughter had entered the right street address in Google Maps - in the wrong city.

By the time we contacted her, she was lost on the highway, hysterical and terrified. "I just want to come home," she cried. Our best friends, who live close to where she was, offered to drive out to meet her. My daughter swallowed her pride and accepted their help.

A week later, my daughter took a deep breath and got back on the highway to meet another friend. "This is you, being resilient," I told her, as she headed out alone. "I couldn't be prouder."

Carrie Goldman (@CarrieMGoldman) is an author, speaker and the social-emotional learning curriculum director for the Pop Culture Hero Coalition. She is currently working on a memoir.

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In the pandemic, many of the traditional measures that indicate a teen is thriving have been rendered irrelevant. Alix MacDonald is 17 years old, and the future weighs heavily on her mind. A high school senior in Chicago, she was "stressed a lot" in the fall about "whether or not to apply to college," especially during a pandemic.

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How to Support Teenagers as They Head Back to School - The New York Times

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How to Support Teenagers as They Head Back to School - The New York Times

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Not all teens are talkers though. Adolescents looking for psychological relief may need a good cry to release their frustration about the havoc caused by the pandemic. Others might temper their emotions by engaging in intense physical activity. So long as it's safe, don't be put off by how young people discharge psychological tension. You might not love the sound of heavy-metal music coming from your kid's room, but research shows that listening to sad or angry music can help young people process and ease distress.

It's critical that adolescents find effective ways to express their feelings, but that is only half of what it takes to regulate emotions. They also need to make use of adaptive strategies that contain feelings before those emotions become overwhelming. For example, a teenager might quiet her nerves about the unpredictable academic year ahead by meticulously organizing her school supplies. Another kid might take a break from worrying about the Delta variant by getting lost in a book or TikTok videos.

Especially in the psychological monsoon of the pandemic, many adolescents won't be able to regulate their feelings entirely alone. They might sulk in silence and need encouragement to open up, or they might become distraught and need support to regain their composure. For those times when adults need to step in as emotional civil engineers, here are some tested methods that can help teens express, or contain, their feelings.

Get out and about If a teenager seems to have shut down, you might help get their feelings flowing by going for a walk or a car ride together. Teens can be more inclined to share what's close to their hearts when they don't have to make eye contact.

Keep them off the emotional hot seat Young people can also be more communicative when they're not put on the spot. You may get a fruitful, if indirect, conversation going by asking a teen what she's hearing about her classmates' worries instead of posing direct questions about her own. And some adolescents will communicate a great deal about what's on their minds, but only when you inquire by text.

Serve as a sandbag In adolescence, short meltdowns are to be expected. Teenagers sometimes seem to be drowning in feelings because the emotion-generating part of their brains can readily outmatch their ability to maintain perspective. By being a calm and patient presence, a parent can often help an overwrought teenager gain control over a surge of distress. When adults offer their quiet company, or gently ask if the teen might want some fresh air, they communicate confidence that high emotional waters typically recede on their own.

Try distraction Sometimes teenagers need help to just stop focusing on a problem. Talking about what's wrong may offer some adolescents relief, but in other cases, ruminating only leaves them feeling worse. When a teenager goes from contemplating a problem to agonizing over it, distraction is a perfectly appropriate and healthy tactic. A parent might suggest that the teenager set the issue to the side, go do something fun or useful, and then, perhaps, return to the topic at a later point.

So long as teenagers can express and contain emotions in ways that provide relief and do no harm, you can trust that they are regulating their feelings effectively. This is true even if they need support from adults - and even if they are often upset. So how can you tell if it's time to worry about a teenager's emotional health?

Put simply, emotions should not be controlling a young person's life. Adolescents who become so swamped by anxiety that they cannot do the things they want or need to do - such as enjoy time with friends or focus on their school work - should seek professional help. Likewise, teenagers who are at the mercy of low or dark moods, or pose a danger to themselves or others, require and deserve the care of health professionals.

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How to Support Teenagers as They Head Back to School

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Not all teens are talkers though. Adolescents looking for psychological relief may need a good cry to release their frustration about the havoc caused by the pandemic. Others might temper their emotions by engaging in intense physical activity. So long as it's safe, don't be put off by how young people discharge psychological tension.

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Pandemic, Racial Justice Fuel Surge in Demand for Social-Emotional Learning

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Pandemic, Racial Justice Fuel Surge in Demand for Social-Emotional Learning

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Pandemic, Racial Justice Fuel Surge in Demand for Social-Emotional Learning

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But the growing interest in expanding SEL efforts is raising concerns about the quality of such programs, a report concludes.

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Why Kids May Be Melting Down at School - The New York Times

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Why Kids May Be Melting Down at School - The New York Times

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Teachers across the country on how to support children’s social and emotional learning.

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A Breathing Exercise | Bessel van der Kolk, MD.

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A Breathing Exercise | Bessel van der Kolk, MD.

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What Schools Need Now: Relational Discipline - ASCD

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As our schools continue to transition from pandemic-induced disruption to a new normal, educators must realize that our most vulnerable students are the ones who've been harmed the most.

Emerging research shows that, as with other disasters, most children and adolescents are exhibiting resilience in the face of this ongoing traumatic event. However, because of the large scale of this disaster, many children are living in households that experienced traumatic events—the loss of loved ones, jobs, housing, and stability, not to mention children's loss of learning and peer socialization. At the very least, many students experienced the pandemic as a period during which they were intensely bored, missing their friends, and academically unmotivated (Korzinski, 2020). So the number of students who will need school-based mental health care, or at least extra attention, this fall will be high.

I suspect that when schools reopened for the 2021–22 academic year, most children appeared to be OK. They returned with smiling faces, played with new friends, and responded to their teacher's requests. But those who were struggling to cope with the trauma and destabilization the pandemic created in their lives soon began to "act out." These children are letting us know they're not OK. As I often say to educators, behavior is the language of trauma; students will show you before they tell you that they are in distress.

Respond to "Acting-Out" with Support

The problem is, because trauma and mental health distress aren't immediately visible, we won't know which students are in a quiet state of psychological desperation. Therefore, it is best to respond to all acting-out behaviors with expressions of support that leave the door open to identifying any underlying issues. I call this responding with universal mental health precautions. Here's what that looks like:

Display nonconfrontational body language, such as holding your arms at your sides with your hands relaxed and not "towering over" a student. It helps to sit on the edge of a desk or kneel, depending on the student's height.

Keep your voice at a normal or slightly lower than normal volume. Stating your directives with a slow, deep, warm voice can reduce a student's anxiety and perception of threat.

Express your desire to meet the student's needs. Say that you want to understand why he is upset, hurt, angry, or sad so you can help resolve the problem.

Listen first. Ensure the student knows she's been heard by restating your understanding of her perspective or needs.

Whenever possible, facilitate the student's sense of safety, agency, and control by providing two non-punitive choices that let her display behaviors that meet your expectations.

Tell the student you value him as a member of the classroom community. Ensure that he feels belonging rather than shame.

When such actions become your habitual response each time students act out, you are providing them with developmental experiences that help them self-regulate.

Keep Students in the General Education Classroom

Remote schooling has painfully demonstrated the critical role that in-person schooling plays in simultaneously meeting many developmental needs. Besides academic learning, in-person schooling provides children with socialization and support from caring adults, peers with whom they can test out various identities as they discover themselves, and access to skilled physical and mental health practitioners. And for too many children, school is where they experience sanctuary from unsafe homes and communities, get reliable meals, and have access to other social services.

The loss of these supports last year, possibly on top of traumatic events at home, means many students will begin this academic year displaying symptoms that could meet the criteria for a range of mental health disorders. It will be tempting to manage the challenges their behaviors create by isolating these kids through extended time outs, separating their desks from the rest of the class, or even removing them from the general education classroom. However, we must resist the pressure to use exclusion and the special education system to manage behavior and learning challenges associated with adversity and poverty.

Four months into the 2020–21 academic year, I met with a group of school psychologists, counselors, and social workers. They expressed alarm at the pushback they were getting from classroom teachers and administrators when they declined to attach behavioral- or learning-disorder labels to students who'd been referred for assessment. These mental health practitioners resisted because it was clear to them that students' challenges were the direct result of how their families had been affected by the pandemic and remote learning.

Special education isn't set up to respond to behavior and learning challenges arising from temporary situational factors. Once special education labels are attached to children, it can permanently alter how they are perceived by educators and the educational opportunities they have. Testing for the purpose of assigning students to remedial or special education classes will only serve the needs of vulnerable students if we do things differently than before the pandemic. If we're serious about using testing as a step in the process of mitigating COVID-19-induced inequalities, it must be coupled with policies for providing students who've fallen the furthest behind with accelerated learning opportunities provided by the strongest educators (Myers, 2021).

The National Association of School Psychologists has clear guidance on identifying children for learning disabilities after the resumption of in-person schooling (National Association of School Psychologists, 2020). Although this guidance focuses on learning disabilities, the principles it details also apply to behavioral disabilities. At the core of their guidance is the need to implement strong Tier 1 interventions for all students, coupled with supplemental interventions for students exhibiting learning delays. As the NASP notes, this fall it will be almost impossible to rule out situational factors, like lack of access to appropriate schooling, until children have had adequate time in a supportive learning environment.

I understand educators' anxieties about how behaviors stemming from mental health distress or trauma can disrupt their attempts to progress through the curriculum. I understand their worries about whether escalated behaviors will make their classrooms unsafe spaces. However, if the underlying cause of students' disruptive behaviors is mental health distress, punitive and exclusionary discipline will worsen both their mental health and their acting-out behaviors. Students need to feel safe with you. They're most likely to feel safe when they know they won't be shamed in front of peers if they make poor behavioral choices.

Accelerated Learning Tip

To create conditions that will enable accelerated learning, change the current anxiety-filled, short-sighted conversation about maximizing instructional time.

The Basics of Relational Discipline

Relational discipline is grounded in research showing that leveraging positive educator-student relationships is more effective than punishment in motivating students to adhere to classroom expectations (Marzano, Marzano, & Pickering, 2003). The strongest educator-student relationships are built on a foundation of understanding each student as an individual and genuinely caring for each one's well-being, although the relationship-building process won't look the same for every educator.

Figure 1 provides examples of relational discipline. Educators who effectively use relational discipline value strengthening student voice, developing social and emotional competencies, and preserving student dignity while correcting behaviors. (This last point is crucial; even one public shaming interaction with a student can have widespread damaging effects.) Relational discipline isn't just about incidences of misbehavior. Its principles permeate decision making around daily routines and procedures, instructional practices, and ensuring that academic content is culturally responsive.

Plan in advance—and practice—responses to challenging behaviors so you can maintain composure and safeguard student dignity in the moment. Here are some behavioral corrections that are not relationally damaging:

Make extended eye contact with a student exhibiting off-task behavior. This is a subtle, powerful way of alerting them to the fact that you see them and their behavior needs correcting.

Make eye contact, then use a physical sign, like a finger to the lips, to indicate the behavior that needs to change. This is most effective when you follow that gesture with another that indicates what you want them to do as a replacement behavior, such as return to their reading.

If a student isn't following instructions, provide a short reminder of what they should be doing—as privately and subtly as possible.

Remind the whole class of the expected appropriate behavior and give students time to self-correct. This will reach the individual student who needs a behavioral correction and prevent other students from beginning to engage in off-task behaviors.

Building and maintaining positive relationships with students, especially those coping with trauma, can be challenging. The same actions won't work for every student—or every educator—nor can teachers have equally strong relationships with all students. An educator may need to seek help from other staff who have stronger relationships with a given student. Students need a network of supportive, collaborative adults throughout the school.

Needed: Engaged Instructional Time

While relational discipline will strengthen classroom management, your classroom will be even more productive when you create a learning environment that prevents behavior challenges.

Many administrators and educators will want a quick return to classroom procedures and protocols that "maximize instructional time." However, past disasters have shown that staff and students need time and support to reestablish the school as a learning community. This will only occur through actively teaching self-regulation and social skills necessary for managing the interpersonal frustrations that are a natural part of being in a community.

I understand the panic over "learning loss." I see it as an educational justice issue; the racial disparities that have widened during the pandemic threaten to wipe out generations of hard earned educational and socioeconomic progress. But we must remember that much more than academic learning has been lost. Behavioral learning loss has also been unequally distributed. Some children live in homes that were able to create a school-like structured learning environment. Some have had months of unstructured time and will require considerable social and emotional supports to relearn classroom routines. Others have been completely absent from the learning environment and will need to incrementally rebuild the behavioral and cognitive stamina required for attending to academic instruction.

To give classroom teachers the time and space to create the conditions that will enable accelerated learning, we need to change the current anxiety-filled, short-sighted conversation about maximizing instructional time. Accountability pressures are causing too many to lose sight of the needs of the students receiving instruction. Indeed, we're in danger of forgetting one of the lessons educators learned during the pandemic: student engagement is everything.

Remote schooling freed students from teachers' ability to physically demand and direct their attention to the often disconnected, often unengaging academic content being taught in most classrooms. Many students expressed their disengagement by not showing up to the remote classroom or showing up as silent black boxes. As we return to in-person learning, we must not equate students' physical presence in the classroom with their engagement in learning.

Figure 2 illustrates how engaged instructional time is a smaller subset of the actual time students are instructed. During engaged instructional time, acting-out behaviors are minimized because students' attentions and energies are focused on academic learning they perceive as meaningful and relevant.

Getting Into the Zone

Educators and students co-construct the engagement zone in Figure 2. We know students are in this zone when we see signs of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive engagement, as Figure 3 details.

Emotional engagement is listed first in Figure 3 because when educators focus on students' needs for emotional engagement, they create the conditions for the behavioral and cognitive engagement that facilitates learning. When students are emotionally motivated to learn, the burden of behavioral self-regulation is minimized because they don't have to fight against boredom. They will find creative solutions to obstacles that arise.

The following principles (Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2014) can help you plan instruction that will engage students emotionally:

Topic emotions relate to students seeing themselves and their life experiences in the content, thus feeling a personal connection to what they're learning. They may feel excitement or curiosity—or, if they can't see anything related to their reality in the content, alienation, and boredom. To positively engage topic emotions in learners:

Learn about the life and cultural experiences of your students. Use that information to connect your academic lessons to who students are.

Provide opportunities for students to engage in assignments in ways that interest them and reveal more about who they are, such as writing something based on a tale from their culture.

Social emotions are important because students are more engaged when they feel connected to others in the learning process. This includes emotions like happiness, caring, or sympathy. To foster positive social emotions during learning:

Do frequent whole-class verbal check-ins about the learning process and the content using interactive strategies.

When you see a student struggling with an assignment, send a check-in note with words of encouragement and an offer of support ("I noticed you only completed two of the math problems during homework jumpstart. I'll stop by your desk tomorrow to help you work through a couple of problems.")

Achievement emotions, like pride, hope, and joy, relate to the sense of accomplishment that motivates students to keep learning. If a learner routinely experiences academic failure, negative emotions like shame and fear may lead them to avoidance.

Identify students who have yet to experience success or mastery on a lesson or assignment. Create opportunities for them to experience success in your classroom.

Offer ways for students to be affirmed for effort and persistence, not just completion and achievement.

Explore whether a student who seems disengaged from classroom activities is actually feeling fear or lacking self-confidence.

When educators focus on students' needs for emotional engagement, they create the conditions for the behavioral and cognitive engagement that facilitates learning.

Micere Keels

Better for All

By using relational discipline and making instruction more engaging, we can ensure that all students—especially those still feeling the effects of trauma—have a successful return to school and learning. Instead of just returning to normal, we can "build back better."

Reflect & Discuss

Keels says it's crucial now that each student senses they are a valued member of their class, even if they make bad behavior choices. What practices—or visual reminders—could you build into your classroom routines to help each student know they're a valued member of your community?

Keels states that "behavior is the language of trauma." How might this perspective change you or your school's approach to student discipline?

What steps could you take to improve "relational discipline" in your school or classroom?

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What Schools Need Now: Relational Discipline - ASCD

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As our schools continue to transition from pandemic-induced disruption to a new normal, educators must realize that our most vulnerable students are the ones who’ve been harmed the most. Emerging research shows that, as with other disasters, most children and adolescents are exhibiting resilience in

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How to Use a Process Called Descriptive Inquiry to Support Teachers’ Efficacy and Well-Being | Edutopia

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Teachers often face difficult situations, and the collaborative process of descriptive inquiry can help them both find solutions and manage the stress.

Six-year-old Diane (a pseudonym with identifying details modified) always sits up close to her teacher, Cara, with her shoulders hunched and her hood pulled over her face. Diane often faces away from Cara. When Diane's face is visible, her brow is furrowed and her jaw is tight. She peppers Cara with questions and requests constantly in a staccato voice but seems resistant to any response. Cara dreads coming to work to face what feels like an immobile block of hostility. She needs strategies to try and also commiseration. What can Cara do?

As teachers return to classes in the fall, they'll inevitably face situations like this that are both perplexing and upsetting. The losses of the past year will exacerbate challenges while depleting the energy to face them. Policy makers, principals, and even teachers themselves tend to treat teachers' emotional health as separate from helping teachers improve their efficacy and as something teachers need to work on independent of the demands of school.

We, Cara and Cecelia, find that teachers benefit when the community develops and sustains new practices while attending to the teachers' social and emotional needs. In other words, teachers need supportive communities to sustain their well-being and help them to creatively respond to their students.

We argue that this teacher needs both emotional support and help problem-solving. Without this support, the teacher will not be effective or happy. Descriptive inquiry supports these efforts by providing a collection of processes that vary in focus and purpose and center around descriptive language that's as precise as possible and avoids judgments. Here we showcase how these processes can help a teacher with a student like Diane.

Descriptive inquiry typically begins with the teacher meeting with a department chair, a position that Cecelia often held. During this meeting, the teacher-Cara, in this example-shares a little bit about the situation, and together they settle on an open-ended question to focus the inquiry and the process or processes they'll use to guide their inquiry.

The teacher and chair then bring the inquiry to a group-in this case, Cara's colleagues at school. After Cara shares her question and the descriptive presentation, her colleagues analyze and weigh in with their thoughts, with both Cara and her colleagues benefiting from their ideas. Cara is then able to determine how she intends to go forward.

Using Descriptive Inquiry to Support Teachers

The Reflection on a Word: This stage focuses on an idea central to an issue or concern at hand and aims to both center a group's thinking and expand on the meaning they bring to the word or idea. The chair helps the teacher determine a word that resonates with the teacher's question. Reflecting on a word like alone could help Cara consider Diane's physical removal from others.

The Recollection: The recollection is a descriptive story related to the question that the teacher develops with the chair. Each person draws on their experience to tell a story (usually 6 to 10 minutes long), and the group explores how the issue at hand affects people's lives. A recollection of a time when participants felt like someone didn't understand the questions they were asking could help Cara and her colleagues tease out misunderstandings that lead to challenges in communication.

The Descriptive Review of the Child: This work aims to develop a holistic picture of a person using five headings-Physical Presence and Gesture, Disposition and Temperament, Relationships with Others, Interests and Preferences, Modes of Thinking and Learning-and asks the observing teacher to say what they see as descriptively as possible. It's a strength-based process that centers on the focus question.

Going back to the example of Diane, in writing a review, Cara noted the way Diane faced away from her and the rigidity in Diane's pose. Cara mentioned the somber tone she perceived Diane brought to class, that she always sat with the same students but didn't play with them at recess, her passion for small animals, and that she often asked questions but never seemed satisfied with the answers.

The Descriptive Review of Work: Here the focus is on visual or written work. This process asks participating teachers to first literally identify what they find in an artwork or other piece and then move to a more interpretive exploration. Cara might look at one of Diane's drawings-noticing how her work flows across the page, offering a useful contrast to the rigidity of her movement and voice.

The Descriptive Review of Practice: This is an opportunity for a teacher to explore an issue or question important to their work. The teacher develops a description having to do with a question they developed with the chair. Perhaps Cara might note that Diane sought out her peers in the classroom but then played alone at recess. Cara's focus question might have to do with what social interaction looks like in her daily schedule and curriculum. She might explore when children get adult-facilitated support or if the interactions are guided by resources such as a math game versus child-directed activities, where the child initiates and controls the interaction. Having done this review, Cara might decide that her students would benefit from more open-ended time so they could work through social interactions more independently.

Ultimately, Cara opted to present a descriptive review of Diane to her colleagues guided by the question, "How can I better hear what Diane is trying to communicate to help her feel more at ease and successful in school?" A number of practical ideas emerged. From the review, Cara saw Diane's facing away as trying to connect with peers rather than expressing anger at her. Diane's constant questions seemed to stem from struggles with processing and not resistance to instruction.

Yet, something else happened after the review. Cara no longer felt alone in her struggles. As her colleagues warmly listened and responded, Cara felt that they appreciated her efforts with Diane. As colleagues commiserated, she also worked through the hurt feelings she had felt while working with Diane.

Cara left the review feeling recharged with ideas that helped her and Diane develop a close and productive relationship. Teachers like Cara need both practical and emotional support this fall. Descriptive inquiry offers one form of professional development well suited to provide both.

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Using Descriptive Inquiry to Support Teachers

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Teachers often face difficult situations, and the collaborative process of descriptive inquiry can help them both find solutions and manage the stress. Six-year-old Diane (a pseudonym with identifying details modified) always sits up close to her teacher, Cara, with her shoulders hunched and her hood pulled over her face.

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Schools struggling with behavior issues as students return - Chalkbeat

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Schools struggling with behavior issues as students return - Chalkbeat

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Students are struggling with behavior. Here’s how schools are responding.

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Trauma, grief, and new routines are contributing to a rockier-than-expected start.

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Teachers Are Not OK, Even Though We Need Them to Be

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Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. CDC works to understand ACEs and prevent them.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Prevention Strategy Plan [3 MB, 20 Pages]
This resource outlines CDC's specific goals and objectives for ACEs prevention and response. The goals and objectives aim to prevent ACEs before they happen, identify those who have experienced ACEs, and respond using trauma-informed approaches in order to create the conditions for strong, thriving families and communities where all children and youth are free from harm and all people can achieve lifelong health and wellbeing.

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Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. CDC works to understand ACEs and prevent them. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Prevention Strategy Plan [3 MB, 20 Pages] This resource outlines CDC's specific goals and objectives for ACEs prevention and response.

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Oprah Winfrey New Book 'What Happened to You?' Listen Free on Audible - Rolling Stone

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Oprah Winfrey New Book 'What Happened to You?' Listen Free on Audible - Rolling Stone

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Products featured are independently selected by our editorial team and we may earn a commission from purchases made from our links; the retailer may also receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

Oprah Winfrey's latest book has quickly shot to the top of the Amazon bestsellers list, just 24 hours after its release. What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, came out Tuesday, and is billed as a collaborative effort by Oprah and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry. Oprah has called the book a "deeply personal" story, revealing memories of childhood trauma for the very first time.

As the talk show host and media mogul explains, What Happened to You? explores how we can better understand each other and ourselves, by addressing "the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age." Dr. Perry meantime, covers scientific and emotional insights on behavioral patterns, and how we can shift our approach to trauma.

The 304-page book is available now on hardcover, but you can also stream an Audible audiobook version to hear the book narrated by both Oprah herself, along with Dr. Perry. Both Oprah and Perry have said that the book is meant to be a conversation starter, so the audiobook lets you hear what feels like a real conversation, and get a better sense of the open dialogue that lead to the book's creation.

Sign up for an Audible trial here to listen to the book for free. The book is also yours to keep once it's downloaded, even if you cancel your Audible subscription. An Audible subscription costs $14.95 per month, but your one-time free credit can be spent any other book in Audible's library, not just What Happened to You?

What Happened to You? arrives a month after Oprah's interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and comes ahead of the talk show host launching a new interview series called Super Soul on Discovery+.

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'What Happened to You?': Oprah's New Book Is Now Streaming Free on Audible

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Products featured are independently selected by our editorial team and we may earn a commission from purchases made from our links; the retailer may also receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Oprah Winfrey's latest book has quickly shot to the top of the Amazon bestsellers list, just 24 hours after its release.

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Find Our Latest News:

The Building Community Resilience Collaborative

The Building Community Resilience (BCR) collaborative at the Redstone Center seeks to improve the health of children, families, and communities by fostering engagement between grassroots community services and public and private systems to develop a protective buffer against Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) occurring in Adverse Community Environments (ACEs) - the "Pair of ACEs." Connecting community organizations (through a church health ministry or trusted food pantry, for example) with larger systems (including those in health care, education, business, law enforcement) can begin to build a durable network to improve community wellbeing. The BCR sites are in the Greater Cincinnati Region of Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky, Dallas County, TX, the State of Oregon, Washington, DC-Maryland-Virginia, the State of Washington and Kansas City (MO and KS) and St. Louis, MO.

BCR sees community resilience as an essential factor in improving public health outcomes. Community resilience originates from buffers in communities and families to protect individuals from the accumulation of stress due to adverse childhood experiences, such as exposure to emotional and sexual abuse, maternal depression, neglect or incarceration. When these exposures are experienced in adverse community environments (ACEs), characterized by violence, racism, or poverty, for example, the effects are compounded and often lead to multi-generational stress and poor health outcomes.

The work of BCR is to build networks that foster resilience against the stressors that can become toxic to a child's development and long-term health: Adverse Childhood Experiences occurring in Adverse Community E nvironments - the "Pair of ACEs."

As our work evolved over time, we learned more about the relationship between trauma, equity and resilience. We are developing resources for communities to communicate and engage in the equity aspect of community resilience work. Read more about trauma, equity and resilience.

Currently, no process exists to break the multi-generational chain and address the "Pair of ACEs." The BCR design is informed by research on child health care systems and also on barriers to addressing the root causes of community and childhood adversity.

Barriers to fostering resilience include a clinician's lack of training to screen for a patient's social needs that impact health, such as food insecurity, housing needs and financial burdens. Barriers also include a clinician's difficulty or inexperience connecting patients to community-based resources and agencies to address their social needs. Systemic barriers include the inability to share information across large systems - such as housing, health, education, juvenile justice and public safety - in efforts to collaborate and foster community resilience.

BCR employs a systematic approach based on four central components that are applied as a continuous improvement model: creating shared understanding of childhood and community adversity, assessing system readiness, developing cross-sector partnerships, and engaging families and residents in a collaborative response to prevent and address the Pair of ACEs.

There are six sites across the nation currently implementing the BCR approach. Each site begins with different priorities, community makeup, resources, and set of partners. As such, each site develops its own unique strategies. The sites are:

SW Ohio & N Kentucky

Dallas County, TX

Kansas City (KS & MO) and St. Louis, MO

State of Oregon

Washington, DC-Maryland-Virginia

State of Washington

Reducing and eliminating adversity by fostering equity through policy, practice and program change to build resilience.
Using the novel Community Resilience (CR) framework developed at GW, health departments across the country are convening multiple sectors at the local, state and federal level to manage and deliver resources that contribute to a community's health and wellbeing.

Operating as Chief Health Strategists local health departments are Resilience Catalysts, driving initiatives that address the Pair of ACEs. Resilience Catalysts foster integration of cross-sector and community services and community-wide prevention by leveraging a public health approach to prevent the Pair of ACEs with a focus on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), opioid misuse and suicide.

We have a number of tools and resources to help communities develop their own BCR coalitions. They have been instrumental to the work of our BCR test sites in Cincinnati, Dallas, Oregon, Missouri-Kansas and Washington, DC. Click the links below to download.

BCR Pair of ACEs Infographic Templates

​​Coalition Building & Communications

From Our Partners:

Please email us at resilientcommunities@gwu.edu to receive updates about our communities, upcoming events, and new resources. You may also want to join the BCR Facebook community to exchange ideas with others passionate about community resilience.

This project is supported in part by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Kresge Foundation. Implementation of the BCR process was piloted as part of the Moving Health Care Upstream initiative, which is a joint project of UCLA and the Nemours Foundation.

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Find Our Latest News: The Building Community Resilience (BCR) collaborative at the Redstone Center seeks to improve the health of children, families, and communities by fostering engagement between grassroots community services and public and private systems to develop a protective buffer against Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) occurring in Adverse Community Environments (ACEs) - the "Pair of ACEs."

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A Path to Improving Students’ Emotional Intelligence | Edutopia

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

Teachers can merge social and emotional learning and student choice to guide students to better understand themselves.

monkeybusinessimages / iStock

Emotional intelligence includes the capacity to recognize and manage moods and emotions in real-world situations. Considered the starting point of social and emotional skill development, emotional intelligence can also predict future academic success.

Many educational technology tools can support emotional intelligence development. For instance, Pear Deck's guided slide show tool features social and emotional learning (SEL) templates for Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint. In my teaching, I have used the interactive Stress Check thermometer, which students can use to check in along a range indicating whether they are in a good space to focus or if they're having difficulty managing emotions today.

Other slides are open-ended, asking students what fills-or what drains-their metaphorical buckets. When I did this activity with my students during remote instruction, answers varied widely. Some expressed gratitude for friends and family, while others shared uncertainties. In fact, tAfter students checked in, a discussion around self-care strategies took place.

In addition to Pear Deck, Nearpod and Microsoft Teams offer SEL tool sets. Some teachers also use surveys, like Google Forms, to check in with students. These may also include reflective activities, as well as mood boards-images of emotive faces along with feelings words (happy, calm, sad) that children click on that match their feelings. Some mood boards adapt Gloria Willcox's 1982 Feelings Wheel, a visual taxonomy of emotions built around core emotions of sad, mad, scared, joyful, powerful, and peaceful. From these, spokes fan out, listing related emotions.

As with many classrooms, the Feelings Wheel hangs in my son's fifth-grade class. Students use it to recognize and label how they feel at any given moment.

Children Can Become 'Emotion Scientists'

The Mood Meter is an emotion check-in tool similar to the Feelings Wheel but slightly different in intent. The goal here is for people-not just children-to become what Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence founder Marc Brackett calls "emotion scientists." In his popular book Permission to Feel, Brackett wrote, "An emotion scientist has the ability to pause even at the most stressful moments and ask: What am I reacting to? We can learn to identify and understand all our feelings, integral and incidental, and then respond in helpful, proportionate ways- once we acquire emotional skills."

The Mood Meter is not a wheel; rather, it presents emotions in four color-specific quadrants connecting moods to energy levels. Along the numbered x- and y-axes, the red quadrant describes high-energy unpleasant moods, while yellow is where pleasant but high-energy emotions reside. The blue zone contains unpleasant, low-energy moods, and green represents pleasant but low-energy moods.

Use Mood-Aligned Choice Boards

Students' moods and energy levels can impact how they learn, as well as their behaviors in the classroom. For instance, students who self-report being in the yellow quadrant may be in the mindset to take part in creative problem-solving activities. Conversely, children who have high-energy, unpleasant moods can be led to harness their emotions in classroom debates or Socratic seminars.

In my new book, , I share gameful strategies to help students develop as emotion scientists in learner-driven environments. More than student-centered, "learner-driven" implies that students feel a sense of control over their education. Learner agency, or autonomy, along with feelings of competence and relatedness, describe three factors of self-determination theory. Self-determination is a basic human need, and sometimes people find other outlets to achieve it when they cannot in their everyday lives. This concept is one of the reasons so many of us play video games outside of work and school.

Choice boards are a strategy that some teachers use as a step toward supporting self-determination. Typically written as a menu of options that students can take to demonstrate learning, choice boards vary. Sometimes resembling a tic-tac-toe board, they can be made digitally using hyperlinks on shared Google or Microsoft Word documents. There are many free templates online, too, including options from SlidesMania. Choice can manifest in physical classrooms as well, with learning centers or stations geared toward specific learning outcomes.

As this video suggests, teachers can create SEL-aligned choice boards that match students' moods to learning activities, thereby deepening emotional intelligence skills while also engendering feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In a gamified classroom, choice boards can become quests. Teachers can use tools like Classcraft to wrap student learning as a choose-your-own-adventure hero's journey.

To level up, students can participate in brainstorming activities on a Google Jamboard if they are in the yellow quadrant or inquiry-based activities if they are in the blue. In project-based classrooms, teachers can align role-play to driving questions, boosting meaning to choices that students make. In a math class, students can approach authentic problems as architects; social students can become archaeologists.

In addition to mood-aligned choice boards, the activities themselves can embed SEL in the curriculum. Consider how students can work together to learn goal setting and team building as skills. Perhaps there are opportunities for learners to cultivate empathy and perspective-taking in lessons, particularly as students reconnect with one another in person, back in physical classrooms.

Self-determination can also be actualized using student choice and voice-a component of project-based learning where passions can drive experiences. If a child loves Minecraft or poetry writing or fan fiction writing and is in the mood to learn, the possibilities are endless.

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A Path to Improving Students' Emotional Intelligence

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Teachers can merge social and emotional learning and student choice to guide students to better understand themselves. monkeybusinessimages / iStock Emotional intelligence includes the capacity to recognize and manage moods and emotions in real-world situations. Considered the starting point of social and emotional skill development, emotional intelligence can also predict future academic success.

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How to Deal with Constantly Feeling Overwhelmed

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Our work lives have become increasingly demanding, presenting us with ever more complex challenges at a near-relentless pace. Add in personal or family needs, and it's easy to feel constantly overwhelmed. In their book, Immunity to Change, Harvard professors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey discuss how the increase in complexity associated with modern life has left many of us feeling "in over our heads." When this is the case, the complexity of our world has surpassed our "complexity of mind" or our ability to handle that level of complexity and be effective. This has nothing to do with how smart we are, but with how we make sense of the world and how we operate in it.

Our typical response to ever-growing workloads is to work harder and put in longer hours, rather than to step back and examine what makes us do this and find a new way of operating. I have a few clients who fit this description. When we started working together, they each had already resorted to getting up at 4 AM to do work. Sue, who works for a tech company that recently went public, is leading many simultaneous projects and is fearful she'll miss an important email. Ajay, a senior leader at a late-stage start-up, needs the extra quiet time to try to make a dent in his ever-growing to-do list, but feels like he's trying to dig himself out of a hole that just keeps getting deeper. Maria, a start-up co-founder, felt constantly overwhelmed as her company started to scale. While CEOs of trillion dollar companies like Apple's Tim Cook, wake up at 3:45 AM, most of us don't have quite this level of responsibility.

The cognitive impact of feeling perpetually overwhelmed can range from mental slowness, forgetfulness, confusion, difficulty concentrating or thinking logically, to a racing mind or an impaired ability to problem solve. When we have too many demands on our thinking over an extended period of time, cognitive fatigue can also happen, making us more prone to distractions and our thinking less agile. Any of these effects, alone, can make us less effective and leave us feeling even more overwhelmed. If you are feeling constantly overwhelmed, here are some key strategies to try:

Pinpoint the primary source of overwhelm. Ask yourself the question, "What one or two things, if taken off my plate would alleviate 80% of the stress that I feel right now?" While you may still be responsible for these items and cannot actually take them off your plate, this question can still help you identify a significant source of your stress. If it's a big project that's almost done, finish it. Or, if it's the sheer size of the task or project that is overwhelming you, break it down into more manageable components, ask for additional resources or renegotiate the deadline if you are able - or all of the above.

Set boundaries on your time and workload. This can include " time boxing" the hours you spend on a task or project, leaving the office by a certain time, or saying no to specific types of work. Ajay realized he was spending a significant amount of time mediating conflicts between various team members, which was not only an unproductive use of his time, but also reinforced their behavior of escalating issues to him instead of learning to resolve these problems themselves. Saying "no" to these escalations and setting expectations that they do their best to work out these issues before coming to him, created more breathing room for him to focus on his priorities with fewer distractions.

Challenge your perfectionism. Perfectionism can lead us to make tasks or projects bigger than they need to be, which can lead to procrastination and psychological distress. As things pile up, the sense of overwhelm grows, which can then lead to more procrastination and more overwhelm. Sheryl Sandberg famously said, "Done is better than perfect." Know when "good" is "good enough" by asking yourself, "What is the marginal benefit of spending more time on this task or project?" If the answer is very little, stop where you are and be done with it. Part of this is also recognizing that we cannot do everything perfectly. Sue was finally able to accept that sometimes an email will be overlooked, and that if it's important enough, the other person will follow up with her.

Outsource or delegate. Ask yourself, "What is the highest and best use of my time?" Activities that don't fall within your answer can be taught and/or delegated to others. This can include managing selected projects, delegating attending certain meetings, having a team member conduct the initial interviews for an open position, or outsourcing the cleaning of your home and meal preparation. Maria had the revelation that she should delegate the weekly Sales meeting that she had always led to - of all people - the Head of Sales! She realized she had hired this person over a year ago but was still clinging to certain responsibilities that "she had always done," and had never fully empowered him, for fear of giving up control. In the end, she admitted all she really needed was an email update. By letting go of this one task, she freed up 52 hours a year to focus on other high-priority strategic issues.

Challenge your assumptions. If feeling overwhelmed is an ongoing struggle, it is likely that you have assumptions that are keeping you stuck in unproductive behaviors. Kegan and Lahey refer to these as " Big Assumptions." For Sue, it was the belief that "If something falls through the cracks, I'd fail and wouldn't be able to recover from it." In Ajay's case, it was his belief that "If I'm not there to help others, I won't be needed and people will question my value." For Maria, her assumption was "If I lose control, others will mess up, and the company will fail." While these big assumptions felt real to each leader, these limiting beliefs were not likely 100% true and kept them stuck in old patterns that significantly contributed to their sense of overwhelm. By identifying and debunking these beliefs over time, they were able to broaden their previously contracted view of the world, which in turn allowed them to reduce their overwhelm and provided them with a greater sense of agency.

While we may all feel overwhelmed from time to time in our demanding work and personal lives, employing the above strategies can help mitigate the frequency and extent to which we feel this way.

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How to Deal with Constantly Feeling Overwhelmed

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Our work lives have become increasingly demanding, presenting us with ever more complex challenges at a near-relentless pace. Add in personal or family needs, and it's easy to feel constantly overwhelmed. In their book, Immunity to Change , Harvard professors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey discuss how the increase in complexity associated with modern life has left many of us feeling "in over our heads."

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Instead of trusting kids with choices - small at first, but bigger as adolescence progresses - many parents insist on micromanaging everything from homework to friendships. For these parents, Stixrud and Johnson have a simple message: Stop. Instead of thinking of yourself as your child's boss or manager, try consultant.

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Breathe. Exhale. Repeat: The Benefits of Controlled Breathing (Published 2016)

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Take a deep breath, expanding your belly. Pause. Exhale slowly to the count of five. Repeat four times. Congratulations. You've just calmed your nervous system. Controlled breathing, like what you just practiced, has been shown to reduce stress, increase alertness and boost your immune system.

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‘Trauma Is A Lens, Not A Label’: How Schools Can Support All Students - MindShift

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‘Trauma Is A Lens, Not A Label’: How Schools Can Support All Students - MindShift

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In order to check in and make sure that educators feel that they can do all they need to do within the hours of the work week, she advises that school leaders provide space for teachers to ask questions, ideate and reflect with their principal or school counselor. "We have a cultural expectation that people aren't working after hours. And if you are finding that you can't keep up with your job expectations in the 40-hour work week, you're talking to your supervisor about getting support in a non-shaming way," said Alison Putnam, a school leader at Centerpoint School in Vermont. Her school leaders prioritized getting rid of unnecessary, extra meetings and giving teachers more opportunities to connect with each other.

"We do a monthly wellness group where teachers from across the school get together in small groups to talk about our wellness, and how we're feeling at work. We talk about goals we have for ourselves and what is supportive of those goals," said Putnam.

Another way to support teachers' working conditions and workload is " tap in, tap out," a self care strategy from Fall-Hamilton Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee. In this technique, educators form a text message group to contact whoever is available to temporarily fill in for them whenever they need to take a moment to step out and regroup during class.

"It's just so simple, but it can be so powerful in acknowledging that you don't have to carry this stress by yourself," said Venet. "It's more than saying, 'We're a community.' It's actually finding a way to put a structure around that."

Trauma happens inside schools

It's not uncommon for educators to think of students as "bringing their trauma to school" as if it's packed in their backpacks somewhere between their bag lunch and homework folders.

"Too often, teachers perceive trauma as something that comes from 'outside of school,'" said Venet. "Much of the research and writing on trauma frames it as resulting from factors schools cannot control." When effectively applied, trauma-informed education means critically examining how oppression at schools causes trauma in students. Oppression can happen outside of schools as well as within schools, caused by peers in situations, individual teachers and curriculum.

"Trauma is a lens, not a label," advises Venet in her book, pushing teachers to look beyond labeling trauma-affected students to understanding how structures may cause trauma.

Schools are not equitable for trauma-affected students and numerous studies show that children experiencing trauma have greater difficulty learning . On top of that, student responses to trauma, such as disengagement or misbehavior, are often unknowingly disciplined.

Venet recommends a universal approach to trauma-informed education so that schools are centering students' humanity, whether their trauma is apparent or not. She advocates for making responsive, social-emotional supports accessible to all students with as few barriers as possible. That means making sure students know what is available to them when they are struggling whether it's having flyers on the wall, information on the school websites, or informed teachers that can point them in the right direction.

A universal approach ensures that all students, including students who are unwilling to ask or have cultivated coping mechanisms that allow them to go unnoticed, get support. High achievers affected by trauma are especially at risk for being overlooked, and adults often misinterpret their coping for resilience.

Cultivate relationships rooted in equity

"Take whatever timeline you have in your mind for how soon you're going to have that strong relationship and multiply it by two, three or four because it just takes people so much longer to build that trusting relationship," said Venet about cultivating connections with students.

She cautions that students' capacity to trust will be lower as a result of the instability and uncertainty of the pandemic. When children go through trauma, they have some mistrust in authority figures and in systems, because often during trauma, those people and systems weren't there for them.

"I think we have a lot of work to do to rebuild and prove that schools can be places of safety and community," she said.

To do this, Venet urges teachers to take a stance of unconditional positive regard for students, a concept developed by psychologist Carl Rogers, that emphasizes removing conditions - such as compliance or achievement - for accepting another person. In schools, Venet sees unconditional positive regard as communicating to the student, "I care about you. You have value. You don't have to do anything to prove it to me, and nothing's going to change my mind."

She encourages teachers to build positive relationships during everyday moments like how students are greeted when they enter class or when they make a mistake.

"Any opportunity you have to affirm the student's inherent worth is a moment for unconditional positive regard," she said.

Establishing good relationships can be a long process. And just because students are not openly responding to relationship-building efforts, it does not necessarily mean that the care and support they've received are unappreciated.

Make sure to note students' progress and focus on their strengths. "Recognize that even though you might not see a shift right away, it doesn't mean the shift isn't happening," said Venet. Additionally, it's helpful to remember what is developmentally appropriate for students, so don't take it personally when a highschooler rolls their eyes or a kindergartener has trouble following directions.

Trauma-informed education is not going to look the same for every educator. In the same way that Venet encourages teachers to pay attention to what is going right when working with students, teachers can expand upon what they do well when it comes to their own practice.

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'Trauma Is A Lens, Not A Label': How Schools Can Support All Students - MindShift

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In order to check in and make sure that educators feel that they can do all they need to do within the hours of the work week, she advises that school leaders provide space for teachers to ask questions, ideate and reflect with their principal or school counselor.

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Free Guide: Supporting Student & Educator Mental Health in 2021

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Free Guide: Supporting Student & Educator Mental Health in 2021

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Free Guide: Supporting Student & Educator Mental Health in 2021

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K-12 educators have a direct line to students in need of mental health support. To help, GoGuardian has collaborated with school counselors, mental health advocates, and experts in suicidology to create a collection of resources and tools to use in your schools. Download our free guide, Supporting S…

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A highlight, success, or something positive that happened.

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A highlight, success, or something positive that happened.

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The Movement for Children's Mental Health - On Our Sleeves

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The Movement for Children's Mental Health - On Our Sleeves

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Social media has benefits and risks to children's mental health. You can help children by starting conversations around social media, helping them navigate it and educating them on how to stay safe online with our resources.

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The Movement for Children's Mental Health

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On Our Sleeves is the national movement for children's mental health. Our mission is to give free expert-created resources to all U.S. communities so everyone can understand and promote mental health for children.

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New Pear Deck Templates: A Student Self-Care Recipe — Pear Deck

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New Pear Deck Templates: A Student Self-Care Recipe — Pear Deck

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This week's guest blog post was written by Michael E. Creekmore, Jr. LPC. Michael is currently a Professional School Counselor for 4th and 5th grades, and has been a Licensed Professional Counselor for 16 years. To help students develop a strategy for self-care and a greater understanding of what that term means, we've collaborated with Michael to create a set of Pear Deck templates for building a student self-care recipe.

The 2020-2021 school year has been like something out of a suspense - no, no, a drama - no, more like a horror movie. From an educator perspective, the relentless debate regarding in-person versus virtual school has been exhausting! The debates, conversations, and decisions regarding which format to choose are overwhelming for every educator, parent, and adult with vested interest. Ironically, these conversations and debates occur around students but rarely with students. For a moment, let's reimagine this from a student perspective:

You're a bright-eyed, energetic student. You have been home since March 2020. At first, it was a bonus Spring Break. You figured you would get an extra week off but nothing more. Fast forward to a year later, you are still learning virtually, trying to foster estranged relationships, trying to muster enough motivation to complete assignments and receive passing grades. You are also experiencing anxiety, escalating fears, and unparalleled angst because there is a pandemic wreaking worldwide havoc. Just when you feel your spirits are at an all-time low and you've worn the same t-shirt and lounge pants for the hundredth time, the light at the end of the tunnel comes into focus. Hope is near! Vaccines are administered to educators, ushering in a return to traditional in-person school.

After a year, everything is finally returning to normal. Gone are the anxiety, fears, and angst, right?

Not so fast. School buildings are different now. If you transitioned to elementary, middle, or high school in the past year, you have never seen the inside of your school before. Where are your classes? How are you supposed to find your way around without being late to class? It's like the first day of school all over again. Educators and other adults have been vaccinated, but you haven't. Does this mean you will contract COVID-19 from a classmate? Will you have to wear a mask all day? What about recess? PE? Lunch? Prom? Graduation? Wait a minute. It's standardized testing time. How are you supposed to be ready to take a standardized test after virtual school for the past year?

The reality is that fears, anxieties, and angst will still exist post-COVID-19, and social-emotional learning (SEL) is the key to helping manage these emotions, for both students and educators. Healthy self-care stems from SEL competency and self-management.

Here's how we can help students build those skills:

Students may wonder, what exactly is self-care? It's been talked about a lot and seems to have many definitions. In short, self-care is an intentional act one takes in effort to promote their own mental, physical and emotional health. Although many experts and professionals talk about self-care and how essential it is for adults, students can benefit as well. Self-care may not be the answer to all of life's questions, but it most certainly can help students (and us!) manage those difficult times when life becomes hard and overwhelming.

As ceremonial events and celebratory milestones near, uncertainty grows. Some may wonder, what does self-care have to do with this? Well, it depends on your recipe - yep, your self-care recipe!

In a lot of families, there is someone who cooks exceptionally well. The ingredients are proportionately distributed throughout the dish, the seasoning is perfect, and the taste is exquisite. To those that love the dish, it's delicious, but not everyone will agree.

With self-care, you're the amazing chef, cooking the perfect dish just for you! Of course, you'll need some main ingredients - relaxation, sleep, and exercise - but you will undoubtedly add different ingredients to your finished dish. The moment that recipe loses its amazing taste, consider changing the ingredients. Don't worry about someone else's critique of your recipe. What tastes good to you may not taste good to someone else, and that's OK, as long as your recipe works for you and is:

1. Addressing emotional management

2. Improving physical health

3. Improving mental health

When you think of self-care, you may wonder what makes one plan better, more effective. The three target areas above serve as a fundamental compass when creating your recipe. Throughout your life, there will be times when you feel physically exhausted; you'll need to sit down and rest. Sometimes social situations, friendships, or the state of society will upset you and cause you emotional distress; you'll need to step away to catch your breath, to put your phone down, to disconnect. Of course, by now you realize life can be tough; you can feel great today and terrible tomorrow. If you want to shake that terrible feeling away but you can't - if it sticks with you, causes you discomfort, makes life harder - those thoughts and feelings may be indicative of worsening mental health. By targeting those three specific areas, your self-care recipe adopts a holistic approach to mending your mind, body and soul.

A Self-Care Recipe for Students

Emotional Management
Reducing our amount of social media consumption can improve our emotional state. It's harder to become upset or vicariously traumatized if we don't watch the videos. Sometimes we simply have to stop scrolling. Our mood is often influenced by what we see and hear, and interactions we have with others. During those times when we're feeling a little down, something as simple as listening to some upbeat music may help put a little "pep in our step." We can also try to surround ourselves with people who have a positive effect on our emotional wellness. For example: we all have friends that may require more time, attention, and energy, but when those friends constantly leave us feeling exhausted and with limited energy for anything else, it's time to re-evaluate that friendship. It is okay to prioritize yourself and say "no" sometimes, even to a friend.

Physical Health
Even though "working out" may not be one of your desired self-care recipe ingredients, consider this: exercising regularly has been scientifically proven to combat and decrease the likelihood of anxiety and depression. When we exercise, the body releases endorphins (chemicals) that make our bodies feel energetic and serve as a natural mood boost. Here's a list of some endorphin-producing activities:
Walking, hiking, jogging, running, jump rope, jumping jacks, mountain climbers, jump squats, kickboxing, burpees, HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workouts, step aerobics, yoga, and pilates, just to name a few.
Mental Health
This school year has served as one of the most challenging times in many of our lives. We've all done hard things this year, but our students have had to do hard things at a younger age. Trying to navigate feelings associated with COVID-19, being traumatized by racial injustices, and feeling socially disconnected from friends takes a significant toll on your mental health. It's often recommended that you go to a doctor when you feel physically ill, right? Why shouldn't the same be said when we're not feeling well mentally? There is no shame in seeking help from a mental health professional to work through those feelings. Seeking help is actually a sign of strength and a wonderful display of self-awareness.

As students embark on the creation of their own self-care recipe, remember - creating the perfect recipe is a matter of trial and error. Someone's specific ingredients may change over time due to life circumstances and individual growth. Just don't forget the most important fact about self-care: it's a verb - it only works if you do it! Let's help students create a recipe just for them.

To help students develop a strategy for self-care and a greater understanding of what that term means, we've collaborated with Michael to create a set of Pear Deck templates for building a Student Self-Care Recipe.

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New Pear Deck Templates: A Student Self-Care Recipe - Pear Deck

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This week's guest blog post was written by Michael E. Creekmore, Jr. LPC . Michael is currently a Professional School Counselor for 4th and 5th grades, and has been a Licensed Professional Counselor for 16 years.

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Social and Emotional Learning and Mathematics | Inside Mathematics

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Social and Emotional Learning and Mathematics | Inside Mathematics

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Teaching involves developing the whole child, not only as good mathematicians but as good people-friends, colleagues, innovators, and citizens. Problem-solving is not only a quantitative challenge but a human one. We can engage students in deeply understanding what resolving problems entails and what it feels like, which is satisfying for children and adults alike.

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice specify that students solve real-world and mathematical problems by working effectively with peers; formulating, communicating and critiquing arguments; and persevering through difficulty. As students internalize these mathematical practices, they engage interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, also known as social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies.

Here, you'll find an explicit unpacking of the connections among the mathematical practices and SEL competencies, as well as supports for integrating them in your classroom instruction. These resources were created by panels of experts in mathematics education and in social and emotional learning, along with teams of educators serving as co-developers.

Integrating Social and Emotional Learning and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics: Making the Case lays out the rationale for considering the strong connections among the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice and key social and emotional learning competencies.

Integrating Social and Emotional Learning and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics: Describing an Ideal Classroom provides a brief historical perspective on the culture of mathematics classrooms and describes the shift required by the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice with regard to your classroom culture and collaboration with colleagues.

Practitioner Spotlight/ Appendix to "Describing an Ideal Classroom" Table 2: Provides commentary with video clips on teacher Cathy Humphreys's lesson that describes the ways in which her students demonstrate social and emotional learning competencies as they engage with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice.

A Tool for SEL Evaluation: A tool that can be used as an additional lens through which to evaluate materials in support of strong student learning. The purpose of the tool is to determine how well your mathematics instructional materials support students' understanding and application of widely accepted social and emotional learning competencies.

Using Social and Emotional Learning to Develop Mathematically Proficient Students: Instructional Guides: Each of these guides focuses on one of a series of problem solving activities developed by the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS) that call for students to engage in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice.

The instructional guides, which surface key social and emotional learning competencies needed for the mathematical task, are designed to support you as you monitor and encourage student engagement in competencies called for by the practices. Each instructional guide provides facilitation suggestions that promote students' social and emotional learning competencies and support students' engagement in the Standards for Mathematical Practice. (These MARS tasks can be found in the performance assessment tasks section of this site.)

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Social and Emotional Learning and Mathematics | Inside Mathematics

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Teaching involves developing the whole child, not only as good mathematicians but as good people-friends, colleagues, innovators, and citizens. Problem-solving is not only a quantitative challenge but a human one. We can engage students in deeply understanding what resolving problems entails and what it feels like, which is satisfying for children and adults alike.

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Trauma Informed Teaching | Dr. Meredith Fox | TEDxFieldstoneDriveED - YouTube

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Trauma Informed Teaching | Dr. Meredith Fox | TEDxFieldstoneDriveED - YouTube

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Trauma Informed Teaching | Dr. Meredith Fox | TEDxFieldstoneDriveED

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Angry?! How Naming and Understanding the Different Kinds of Anger Can Help | KQED

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So I went to therapy. I kept cognitive behavioral therapy worksheets. I took deep breaths, counted to 10 and walked out of rooms. And I even meditated at night.

These strategies helped me manage the anger, but they never really decreased it. It was like keeping a feral horse in a barn. I was contained, but not really domesticated.

Then, six months ago, I was talking with Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychologist at Northeastern University. Right at the end of the hour-long interview, she tossed out this suggestion: "You could increase your emotional granularity."

My emotional what?

"Go learn more emotion words and emotion concepts from your culture and other cultures," she added.

Over the past 30 years, Feldman Barrett has found evidence that anger isn't one emotion but rather a whole family of emotions. And learning to identify different members of the family is a powerful tool for regulating your anger, studies have shown.

Or better yet, as I found, go and make up your own anger categories and start using them.
What is anger?
There's a common theory about anger. You'll find it in text books, scientific papers, news reports - even here at NPR. And some scientists support the theory, says Feldman Barrett.

The idea is that anger is one of several "basic emotions" that are universal, Feldman Barrett says. It's almost like a reflex - hard-wired in the brain. When something unjust or unfair happens to you, "your blood pressure often goes up. Your heart rate will go up. Maybe you'll breathe heavily or you'll have a reddening of your skin," she says. "Then you'll have an urge ... to punch or yell at someone. That's the stereotype of what anger is," Feldman Barrett says.

But it's not the full story.
Anger around the world
What you feel when you're angry depends on the situation, what your past experiences are and how your culture has taught you to respond, she says.

As a result, there is actually enormous variation in the types of anger in the U.S., like exuberant anger when you're getting pumped up to compete in sports, or sad anger when your spouse or boss doesn't appreciate you.

When you look at other cultures, the variation explodes.

Germans have a word that roughly means "a face in need of a slap,"or backpfeifengesicht. "It's like you're so furious with someone that you look at their face, and it's as if their face is urging you to punch them," Feldman Barrett says. "It's a great emotion."

Ancient Greeks differentiated between a short-term anger that doesn't stick around (ὀργή or orge ) with a long-lasting anger that's permanent (μῆνις or menin).

Mandarin Chinese has a specific word for anger directed toward yourself, 悔恨 or huǐhèn. It's literally a combination of regret and hate, says linguist Yao Yao at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. "You regret something you did so much, that you're angry at yourself," she says.

Thais have, at least, seven degrees of anger, says linguist Yuphaphann Hoonchamlong at the University of Hawaii. "We don't walk around saying 'I'm angry.' That's too broad," she says. "We may start with 'I'm displeased' and 'I'm dissatisfied' and then increase the intensity," she says.

And India is a treasure trove of angers.

"There's a common form of anger which means like 'when eggplant hits the hot oil,' " says Abhijeet Paul, who teaches South Asian literature at Middlebury College.

"You suddenly become, like, really angry at hearing something shocking or learning something that you really, really dislike," Paul says.

Indians also differentiate between political anger, which you have for the ruling class or "boss man," and personal angers, which you have for a friend, family or neighbor. You would never mix the two and express political anger in a personal relationship, Paul says.

"There's also a very interesting anger that is a loving anger," Paul says. You express this emotion toward a spouse when your spouse has angered you but you can't help them, only love them, he says. "It's a mixed bag of love, grief, sorrow and anger."
Personalize anger to help regulate it
So in many ways, anger is like wine. There are these major varieties - such as chardonnay and pinot noir - but each vintage has its own unique combination of aromas, flavors and potency. The more practice you have at detecting - and naming - these nuances, the better you understand wine.

And if you learn to detect all the various flavors and nuances of anger and label them, you can start to handle your anger better, says psychologist Maria Gendron at Yale University.

"There's definitely emerging evidence that just the act of putting a label on your feelings is a really powerful tool for regulation," Gendron says. It can keep the anger from overwhelming you. It can offer clues about what to do in response to the anger. And sometimes, it can make the anger go away.

The idea is to take a statement that's broad and general, such as, "I'm so angry," and make it more precise. Take the Thai: "I'm displeased," or the German "Backpfeifengesicht!"

Psychologists call this strategy emotional granularity. Studies show that the more emotional granularity a person has, the less likely they are to shout or hit someone who has hurt them. They are also less like to binge drink when stressed. On the other hand, people diagnosed with major depressive disorder are more likely to have low emotional granularity compared to healthy adults.

"There's a whole arm of research showing how functional it is to have finely tuned categories for our experiences," Gendron says.

Emotional granularity is like watching HDTV versus regular TV. It lets you see your anger with higher resolution, Gendron says. "It gives you more information about what that anger means, whether you value that experience and choices about what to do next," she says.

This last part is key: Being granular with you anger helps you figure out what's the best way to handle the situation - or whether you should do anything at all.

For instance, if you are feeling a quick burst of anger, which you know will fade rapidly, then maybe doing nothing is the best strategy.

And you don't have to limit yourself to the labels that already exist, Gendron says. Be creative. Analyze what's causing your various angers, give them specific names and start using the terms with family and coworkers.

"If you're making a practice in your family of coming up with words and then using them together, that actually can regulate physiology," she says. "That can resolve the kind of ambiguity about the situation."

Personally, I found this strategy the most helpful. I started paying attention to what typically triggers my anger at work and at home. And I found three major types, which I named.

Illogical anger: This emotions happens when somebody at work makes a decision that seems completely illogical. Once I labeled this anger and started tracking what happens afterwards, I quickly realized that trying to convince an illogical person of logic is often futile - and a waste of time.

Hurry-up anger: This is the anger I feel when someone else is not doing something fast enough - yes, I'm talking about the driver of the gray Prius at the stoplight this morning or the 3-year-old who will not put her shoes on fast enough. Once I labeled it, I realized that cars, people and toddlers eventually move. Huffing and puffing doesn't make it faster.

Disonophous anger: This is my favorite anger. And has the biggest impact on my life.

I wanted to figure out how to decrease yelling at our house. So I started paying attention to what often occurred right before the screaming began. It was super obvious: The dog was barking and the toddler was screaming. Basically two loud sounds simultaneously.

So my husband and I made up disonophous anger from the Latin for "two sounds."

Now when my husband says, "I have disonophous anger, Michaeleen ..." we know exactly what to do: Put the dog on the porch and pick up the baby.

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Angry?! How Naming and Understanding the Different Kinds of Anger Can Help | KQED

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So I went to therapy. I kept cognitive behavioral therapy worksheets. I took deep breaths, counted to 10 and walked out of rooms. And I even meditated at night. These strategies helped me manage the anger, but they never really decreased it. It was like keeping a feral horse in a barn.

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Why We Can't Have Social and Emotional Learning Without Equity (Opinion)

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Why We Can't Have Social and Emotional Learning Without Equity (Opinion)

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As the head of research for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), I was encouraged to see a recent brief from the Aspen Institute Education and Society Program that articulates the ways in which social, emotional, and academic development can (and must) address racial inequities in education. Racial/ethnic, class, and gender inequities are vexing problems that hamper individual student learning as well as our collective efforts to achieve the democratic ideals of U.S. society.

While CASEL has a long-standing commitment to issues of equity, we recognize that there is significant work to be done if social and emotional learning is going to realize its potential to promote the optimal development of all students, including diverse groups of students.

Like other big and amorphous terms that become popular--such as social and emotional learning--"equity" can take on multiple meanings. I look at it mainly as a fundamental concern with fairness and justice. What is right and appropriate in any context for any particular group of people? How are valued goods and resources distributed and utilized? In the context of education, how are high-quality educational experiences provided to all students as they need it and when they need it, regardless of demographics, location, or circumstance?

Social and emotional learning and equity both address how to provide high-quality instruction for all students, regardless of background. Through the CASEL Equity Work Group--which brings together equity and social and emotional learning experts within our 25-state Collaborating States Initiative and the 20-district Collaborating Districts Initiative--we're looking at what I call "equity elaborations."

Among our priorities, we are examining CASEL's five core SEL competencies and highlighting where and how issues of and implications for equity could be made more evident. For example, self-awareness, one of the five competencies, applies to all students regardless of racial, ethnic, class, regional, or gender differences. It includes finding and affirming one's identity, helping students answer the question "Who am I?"

Equity elaborations help make the conversations more nuanced, so that teachers base their instruction on who's standing in front of them. For example, it may be meaningful for rural students and their families to have a social studies unit that explores alternative industries that can replace disappearing farm or manufacturing jobs. Urban students and families might benefit from and be more interested in instruction that examines how to develop urban farming projects.

On social awareness, another core competency, an equity focus means being more aware of cultural demands in particular settings. Superficially, it could be teaching multicultural education through fun, festivals, and food. But on a deeper structural level, it is understanding that American culture tends to put a premium on independence and acquiring things. "The more I have--whether it's grades, knowledge, or money--the more worthy I am." It's a zero-sum game.

But Native American, African-American, and Latino cultures tend to place value on being more communal, where social interdependence is more important. Teachers can build that understanding into their teaching. Cooperative learning and restorative justice approaches are possible ways to leverage this cultural orientation into an asset.

We are especially encouraged by the promise of project-based learning, which provides fertile ground for further developing social and emotional competencies with an equity frame. Projects are guided by youth, based on their own experiences, with the teacher as a facilitator and co-learner. As a result, students are more engaged and collaborative. And issues of identity, justice, and fairness inevitably come up.

To further explore educational opportunities such as these, the Equity Work Group is conducting a landscape scan that will allow us to critically examine and leverage advances in SEL research and practice to revise our framework and various tools to ensure that equity is central to everything we do. We will work with interested partners to examine the influences and impacts of our revisions on learning contexts and outcomes for all students and the adults who support them.

We look forward to continued work with current partners and forging new collaborations in support of social, emotional and academic development of all children, youth, and adults, especially those from historically under-served groups and communities.
Robert Jagers is Vice President of Research at CASEL and a member of the Aspen Institute National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development's Council of Distinguished Scientists.

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Why We Can't Have Social and Emotional Learning Without Equity (Opinion)

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As the head of research for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), I was encouraged to see a recent brief from the Aspen Institute Education and Society Program that articulates the ways in which social, emotional, and academic development can (and must) address racial inequities in education.

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Using a Strengths-Based Approach with ELs: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress | Colorín Colorado

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Using a Strengths-Based Approach with ELs: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress | Colorín Colorado

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Using a strengths-based approach allows educators to draw upon students' internal strengths and capacities, and it can be a particularly powerful practice for English learners who have experienced trauma, violence, or chronic stress. In this article adapted from Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence, and Chronic Stress (ASCD, 2017), ELL experts Debbie Zacarian, Lourdes Álvarez-Ortiz, and Judie Haynes offer some concrete strategies for shifting to a strengths-based approach in the classroom, as well as numerous student examples.

Overview

Who are the nation's students experiencing trauma, violence and chronic stress?

One in every two of the total student population in the U.S. come to our schools having experienced or still experiencing some type of trauma, violence, or chronic stress - many of them at a very young age. This startling statistic presents a challenge to all of us as educators - especially since the available professional literature focuses almost solely on the therapeutic aspects for providing counseling supports and services to students who have experienced one or more of the following:

Physical, sexual, or verbal abuse;

Physical and emotional neglect;

A parents who is an alcoholic (or addicted to other drugs);

Witnessing a mother who experiences abuse;

A family member in jail;

Loss of a parent due to death or abandonment, including abandonment by parental divorce; or

Mental illness or a depressed suicidal person in the home

Source: (Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health, 2011/2012).
What make these realities particularly relevant are the distinct circumstances of many English learners who experience violence, trauma, and chronic stress. Consider the following:

In 2015, U.S. Department of State reported that 69,930 refugees were admitted to the United States, with the largest groups coming from African, South Asian, Asian, and Latin American countries.

4.1 million children born in the United States have at least one parent who is undocumented (American Psychological Association, 2016).

Many of the nation's children of undocumented immigrants experience high levels of chronic stress from fear of deportation, living in extreme poverty, and being isolated from peers (Yoshikawa, 2011).

60 percent of English learners' families had incomes that were 185 percent below poverty level (Grantmakers in Education Report, April 2013).

In addition, very little professional literature has been written about teaching this particular population and doing so from a strengths-based perspective.

Why use a strengths-based approach?

The absence of any formal training in this area, understandably, has led many educators to feel quite unprepared to teach and work with the epic numbers of students, including English learners, who experience trauma, violence and chronic stress. Further, many teachers believe that some students' experiences are so extreme that there is little hope for them, despite all of their efforts and good intentions. This perception often puts limits and restrictions on them in terms of how they teach and interact with students as well as how they work with families. In a real sense, it has almost forced many teachers to look at students and their families as "broken" instead of as individuals who already possess inherent strengths and who can make great contributions to their classrooms, their communities, and the world. Indeed, for too long, teachers have found themselves using language to name their perceptions in terms of what they believe are impossible situations for students living with trauma, violence, and chronic stress.

Student vignette: Javier

Here is an example from Chris Homiak, a middle school English and mathematics teacher of English learners in Kansas City, Missouri. He tells us about Javier, a 7 th grade student.

Javier is a 7th grade student who joined our class after being out of school for six months. He is a n English learner whose home language is Spanish. Prior to enrolling in our school, he had recently moved across the country and was in transition, living in homeless shelters with his large family. At first, Javier answered questions very quietly, and his eyes often looked toward the floor or quickly around the room. Also, he often got out of his seat without permission and walked in a small circle near his desk.

In this example, it would be easy to pinpoint the adverse conditions and behaviors that would make Javier's ability to learn and our ability to teach him to be very difficult. However, it is important to take it a step further and look beyond "what is lacking" to find "what is already there". To accomplish this, we need to begin with a shift in mindset from what we believe is not happening and impossible to what is happening and possible. To do this we must take time to:

Identify students' existing strengths.

Honor, value, and acknowledge these strengths.

Help students become aware of their strengths.

Build instructional programming that boosts social ties and networks by drawing from students' strengths.

Let's take a look at Javier's story. What strengths can you see in Javier? At first glance, getting out of his seat without permission may seem to be an unacceptable behavior and, indeed, difficult to view as an asset. But adopting an asset-based perspective requires us to find evidence "in what students do; in what they don't; and in their intentions, hopes, successes, and even failures" ( Grove and Glasser, 2007). In this example, Javier didn't disrupt class by yelling or screaming, or by going to other students to talk to them. He contained himself in a small area, trying not to disrupt the class. This is the behavior we focus on, and the one that we want to acknowledge and reflect back to him to make it visible and transparent. Among Javier's assets is his ability to understand what he needs to turn his classroom environment into a favorable learning experience for him. In this case, it is an environment that will allow him the opportunity to engage in movement like standing, stretching, and moving his body. (Think of yourself during those long professional development trainings!) It is also evidence of Javier's good judgment, consideration, and respect for other people's spaces and time for learning because his behavior was contained and not disruptive. The goal is for Javier to see his strengths, value his own self-worth, create a personal account of his strengths, and begin to operate by drawing from it.

Let's look at what Chris Homiak did to identify Javier's strengths and what this understanding led to:
Observing him during independent work time, I saw that he had a deep capacity for abstract thinking and that he was strong in algebra. I shared my observation by saying: "Javier, you are such a strong problem-solver and algebra-thinker! I noticed that you can see patterns and break down the parts until you solve the problem." As his trusting relationships grew in our small group, I pushed him to explain his answers in more detail and to explore alternative ways for solving the same problem. Initially, he wanted to share his answers first and fast; I supported him to wait for others to catch up, and to see if he could help find their mistakes. I often turned to him to provide constructive feedback or error correction, handing over the document camera or whiteboard for him to play the teacher role.
It is greatly helpful to take time to identify students' strengths and teach by drawing from this understanding.

What strategies support a strengths-based approach?

In this article, we discuss some strategies for using a strengths-based approach in our classroom practice so that English learners, like Javier, and all students living with trauma, violence and chronic stress experience a real sense of being safe, valued, capable of learning, and worthy contributory members of their classroom communities. We consider these four essential experiences to be the basis for creating a strengths-based classroom that is inclusive and responsive to all students, and particularly to those living with trauma, violence and chronic stress.

Take time to build positive, asset-based student-teacher relationships

Working with students living with trauma, violence, or chronic stress requires us to be empathetic educators who care about our students and seek to support them. Nevertheless, we must take it a step further and strive to be asset-based teachers as well. That is, seeking, reflecting back, and honoring the many inherent attributes, values, and qualities our students (and families) possess. But it doesn't stop there. We must support them in drawing from these strengths and capacities to develop the skills, competencies, and confidence to be active learners, independent and critical thinkers, and contributory members of their learning community.

Gather as much information as we can about our students.

Use this background information to build and strengthen our relationships with students by personalizing our interactions using the strengths and assets that we continuously identify.

In Javier's story, his teacher was able to cultivate a positive relationship by helping Javier see his intrinsic assets and strengths and by capitalizing on them to engage Javier in learning. He observed Javier's curiosity and eagerness to solve problems and drew from these qualities to cultivate self-monitoring and leadership skills.

Use consistent positive, asset-based language when communicating with students.

There are many strategies that we can use to identify students' strengths and assets and build trusting relationships with them based on these, including:

An example, that can be adapted with support in a students' home language, is a high school teacher who asks students to complete questions on an index card during their first day of school. The front of the card asks them to write their name and nickname. The back asks the following, "What activities, such as sports, music, and work, are you involved or would like to be involved outside of our high school?" He meets first with individual students who leave the activity question blank and supports them in joining an after-school club, obtaining work, and/or engaging in an activity of their interest. He also takes time to visit students after school where they are participating in a sport or are at work. His sole goal is to help them see that they belong to a classroom community and that they are valued and capable individuals who have many personal strengths and assets worthy of recognition.

An example is a teacher who greets a student with personalized messages such as "Good morning, Lilliana, great to see you after that tough basketball game last night. I heard you were very determined on the court" shows that he understands what is important to the student, and at the same time, he's naming the attribute she is demonstrating (determination) which is one of her strengths. Or, in the case of Javier, his teacher took the opportunity to observe him during independent work and noticed that he had a solid capacity for abstract thinking and that he was strong in algebra. The way he reflected back these personal assets to Javier was by saying, "Javier, you're such a strong problem solver and algebra thinker! I noticed that you can see patterns and break down the parts until you solve the problem." This type of positive energy and language is one of the biggest assets that those of us that work with English learners and all students living with trauma, violence and chronic stress can bring to the classroom.

Create a physical environment that encourages students' sharing, participation and ownership of their physical classroom space.

Co-create (with students) an environment that facilitates their empowerment and voice and reinforces the skills necessary to be successful in a global society that demands constant communication, collaboration, teamwork, and innovation.

Foster unconditional acceptance, a sense of being safe, and of feeling valued and capable of learning.

Construct a physical environment that is conducive for communication and cooperation

Learning spaces have the ability to positively or negatively affect students' learning and morale. From the selection and arrangement of desks, tables and chairs, to the attention we pay to what we place on the classroom walls, every detail counts toward our efforts to keeping students engaged and maximizing their cooperation and creativity. To do this, we have to consider how to:

Students living with traumatic situations, including those who may be English learners, are likely to experience loss of control and sense of powerlessness to various degrees. As such, regaining control is crucial to coping with traumatic stressors ( Perry & Szalavitz, 2006). In the classroom, this translates to implementing practices that value and encourage all students' participation in decisions that matter to them.

For example, some groups of students may wish to work at their desks in the corner of a room, others may prefer to work on the floor, and others may want to stand at the white board. What's key is co-creating a space where students have a voice in arranging their desks, tables, and chairs and displaying (e.g., on classroom walls or tablemats) their shared ideas, opinions, and concepts to demonstrate a shared ownership of learning.

Classroom environments that promote this type of empowerment do so by building the confidence and capacity of English learners and all students to speak up, to present and address issues of their concern, to make changes, and to take risks. Students are more likely to encounter success in this process when adults become partners and provide active support.

Use predictable classroom routines and practices

What time does school actually start and should they arrive?

What should students do if there is a delayed opening or closing of school (e.g., a delay due to inclement weather)

If there is a delay, should students go directly into the school or wait on the playground?

Where should students go if they arrive at school late?

Where do they put their coats and backpacks when they enter their classroom? Where does their homework go?

What should they be doing while they are waiting for the rest of the class to arrive?

Who will be my teacher and what's his/her name?

Using routines and practices that are consistent and predictable have been found to be essential when working with students living with trauma, violence, and chronic stress ( Blaustein, 2013).

Start class

Start the lessons

Sequence the lessons

Transition students from one task to the next during the lesson

End the lessons

Support students during non-instructional time

The following questions help to form the routine responses that students need at the beginning of the school year or when a new student enrolls in our schools:

Welcome students positively by letting them know that they are welcomed and valuable members of our classroom community.

Engage students in a sharing activity about special news such as the arrival of a new sibling, an event, and/or occasion such as a birthday or a school event or sports, performance, or curricular activity. Create routines for this sharing activity to help it to be a predictable social activity.

Provide information about the day or class' schedule so that students know what to expect during the school day or class period.

Conduct a short academic or social learning experience. For example, during one meeting, a teacher asked for a student volunteer to share with his/her peers the process that students should follow when leaving from and returning to the classroom for small group instruction. His teaching goal was to support his students in making transitions and empower students in making good choices.

Support students to transition from the opening meeting to the next classroom activity by noticing and acknowledging those who show readiness.

According to Blaustein (2013), using the same routines and rituals in our classroom activities allows students living with trauma, violence and chronic stress to downshift from a fearful state where unpredictability takes control, to a calmer and more positive one where events happen in a predictable manner. These include the ways in which we:

Here are some suggestions:

Listening skills

Empathy

Social and emotional language that is needed to express their feelings to their peers and others

Attention to their own and their peers' values, assets, and strengths

Mediating their own emotions

Resolving conflict in a productive way.

Apprentice students in social and emotional communicative skills

While paired and groupwork are important methods in any classroom, an important means to support the method working more successfully is the level of trust that we create with and among all of our students. Classroom settings are ideal places for students to acquire the social and emotional communication skills that they need to work cooperatively. All students need this type of instruction so that everyone feels safe, competent, valued, and a sense of belonging. Our instruction must involve supporting students in the development and use of the following:

Design pair and group work with plans that explicitly and intentionally support students in the development and strengthening of these skills. Look for opportunities within these groups to recognize the many ways in which students, overtly or covertly, demonstrate their personal assets. Some examples of the type of language/communication that is helpful to acknowledge students' efforts and help them acknowledge others is the following:

Asset-Based Language to Describe Students' Qualities

Focusing on student strengths: Sample feedback

That is excellent use of logic.

You are being wise. That is a great quality that is coming across in your responses.

That was a very insightful thought you just shared.

That was a solid educated guess. That is an important skill.

I appreciate your willingness to collaborate.

You seem to be getting the picture after showing so much hard work analyzing this idea!

That was a great deduction you just made to figure out a possible answer. Well done!

You are showing great curiosity, which is a great way to learn.

The way you put these two ideas together shows how you are using great analytic skills in your problem solving.

I can see how much you are enjoying sharing and defending your unique ideas.

I really like how you are showing respect to your partner by listening carefully to what he is saying.

You are using your great mind to figure out an answer. Well done!

Student attributes, strengths, and values

Many English language learners who have experienced or are experiencing trauma, violence, or chronic stress are demonstrators of great tenacity and determination. Despite the many horrendous and traumatic experiences that many have experienced, living through civil strife, natural disasters, war, extreme poverty and more, they still find the energy to show up in our schools and classrooms every day. This energy reflects one of the many attributes, strengths, and values that they possess. How many other intrinsic qualities and values hidden under adversity can you identify in the students and families you serve? Although not an exhaustive one, this list can help you identify them.

Adapted from Glasser, 2011, p. 64-65.

Final Thoughts

Adopting a strengths-based approach allows us to draw from our students' internal strengths and capacities. It also supports the academic and social-emotional growth of all students - including English learners like Javier.

The strategies and the ideas found in this article are a small sampling from our book Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress. It is our hope that by using these our classrooms can be transformed into safe, productive, and positive places where all students can see their many strengths and unlimited human potential.

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Using a Strengths-Based Approach with ELs: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence and Chronic Stress

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Using a strengths-based approach allows educators to draw upon students' internal strengths and capacities, and it can be a particularly powerful practice for English learners who have experienced trauma, violence, or chronic stress.

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Himelstein was lucky that he got into trouble during middle school and was able to get back on track for high school. He was also lucky to be born into an affluent, white, two-parent home in Berkeley, California. His time in juvenile hall showed him what other kids his age were up against.

"A lot of the kids I work with it's a real uphill battle when they come into the system at [ages] 15 to 16 because they just have so many high school credits to catch up on that it becomes overwhelming," Himelstein said. "It's so easy for them to get in the mindset that 'school isn't for me' and turn that into a core belief."

When Himelstein explains mindfulness to young people he likes to use a metaphor coined by Larry Rosenberg the dog-mind versus the lion-mind. If a human waves a bone in front of a dog, the dog will track that bone and chase it when it's thrown. But wave a bone in front of a lion's face and that lion might eat the human behind the bone.

"The dog can't see beyond the bone. If I control the bone, I control the dog's reality," Himelstein said. But the lion sees a broader picture. He sees the human behind the bone. "That ability to see the larger picture gives the lion more autonomy, more choices."

Himelstein then directs students to think of the bone as anger or anxiety. Reacting with the mind of a lion allows a person to say, "I'm angry right now," and that little bit of metacognitive space between the person and the thought allows them to choose how to respond.

"It's much easier said than done, but that's what mindfulness is," Himelstein said. "It's noticing what's happening in the present moment with a non-reactive mind." When he's presenting to youths, he asks them: Who's the king of the jungle? The lion. And who doesn't want to be the king of their inner jungle?

Himelstein has found that teens gravitate to this metaphor because it makes the concept less abstract. They can see how mindfulness will be useful to them and how it could give them an edge. Additionally, the metaphor becomes a language thread Himelstein can return to over and over again. "Lion-mind" is a shorthand for that ability to choose a reaction.
TRAUMA SENSITIVE MINDFULNESS
"A trauma-informed lens is, 'this behavior may be a result of some sort of trauma.' Or even better, 'this may be a way for them to protect themselves,' " Himelstein said. There are some common issues he sees when trauma interacts with mindfulness.

Students don't take the activity seriously

Students are triggered by silence because it feels like a storm is brewing, so they don't want to be quiet

Students feel too many requests are made of them without the requisite trust being built up

Students exhibit avoidance behavior

Himelstein says building an authentic relationship is key to accessing the trust required to make mindfulness effective. For some kids, chaos is part of trauma so when adults are unpredictable they can't be trusted. That's why being a "predictable adult" is a good way to be authentic with kids.

Himelstein also offers these guidelines for teachers using mindfulness:

Don't force it

Don't focus on the logistics like sitting with eyes closed

Somatic awareness, like counting breaths, could be a good place to start. "There's different types of awareness. Sometimes we're really aware of what's going on in the mind and sometimes we're more aware of what's going on in the body," Himelstein said.

Think about the child's window of tolerance and whether he is already triggered or not. "It's good to strike when the iron is cold in a lot of these cases," Himelstein said.

Build relationships

When Himelstein works with teachers, he's conscientious of how different the classroom setting is from a therapeutic one. While teachers aren't trained therapists, students gravitate towards a trusted teacher and want to share with them. On top of that, teachers are keenly aware of their duty to cover required content.

"They do have the hardest job out of all the direct service folks because they have all this stuff the've got to get through," Himelstein said.

He likes to affirm with teachers right off-the-bat that the public school setting with 30-40 kids in a classroom is already not trauma-informed. It's a very difficult context in which to build relationships, and the architecture, policies and procedures that can make schools feel institutional only make it harder. That's why often Himelstein sees mindfulness first-and-foremost as a self-care technique for teachers. If teachers can successfully use their mindfulness practice to create metacognitive distance, they can take their ego out of interactions with kids.

"Classroom management skills that are based in trauma informed principles, which means learning how to redirect, learning how to confront people with a non-aggressive pose, not taking it personally, all of that overlaps to help form a relationship," Himelstein said.

If teachers can see the trauma-informed approach as a way to better build relationships, he thinks it may feel less daunting. Once those relationships are formed and students trust their teachers, it's more likely that mindfulness will be an effective tool for them.

Many teachers already see relationship building as a core part of their effectiveness, but one practice Himelstein recommends may be less intuitive in the rush to deliver information to students: active listening. "That's a super simple concept, but it goes a long way, especially in an educational setting because kids are used to not just being presented to, but talked down to," Himelstein said.
SELF CARE
Cultivating a trauma-informed classroom is much harder when educators themselves are burnt out. Building relationships, not reacting defensively to student behavior and taking time to listen to students can feel nearly impossible if the adult is barely making it through the day. Classrooms can be stressful places for teachers and even someone who has been practicing mindfulness for a long time may have difficulty calling upon that knowledge when triggered -- just like kids.

That's why a core part of a trauma-informed classroom is a healthy teacher. There are several categories of self-care, according to Himelstein:

1. Regular cultivation of relaxation response (3Rs): things like watching TV, going into nature, getting a massage.

2. Effortful training: These are things like more sustained meditation or exercise where the payoff comes over a longer time period.

3. Creativity: something that gives purpose and adds vibrancy to life. Writing, reading, painting or other passions are examples.

4. Advocacy: everything from learning to say "No" (set boundaries), to working at a higher level to impact policy or structural change.

Ultimately, Himelstein wants teachers to be aware of how students who have experienced trauma might be experiencing mindfulness in the classroom so they can respond in more empathetic ways. And, recognizing that sometimes teaching is traumatic and the practice may be more for the adults than the kids.

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Why Mindfulness And Trauma-Informed Teaching Don't Always Go Together | KQED

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Himelstein was lucky that he got into trouble during middle school and was able to get back on track for high school. He was also lucky to be born into an affluent, white, two-parent home in Berkeley, California. His time in juvenile hall showed him what other kids his age were up against.

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You can give your best only when you are at your best. This 10-day series provides you with free and for-purchase mental health resources for educators.

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Use the emotion wheel to teach kids how to identify and deal with their emotions. This kid-friendly wheel of emotions is based on Zones of Regulation.

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Check-In / Check-Out: Providing a Daily Support System for Students - YouTube

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Check-In / Check-Out: Providing a Daily Support System for Students - YouTube

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Check-In / Check-Out: Providing a Daily Support System for Students

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Fall-Hamilton Elementary: Transitioning to Trauma-Informed Practices to Support Learning - YouTube

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Fall-Hamilton Elementary: Transitioning to Trauma-Informed Practices to Support Learning - YouTube

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Fall-Hamilton Elementary: Transitioning to Trauma-Informed Practices to Support Learning

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Hope, Happiness And Social Connection: Hidden Benefits Of Regular Exercise | KQED

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And they aren't activity-specific and they don't require you to be a superathlete. Whether you run, swim, dance, bike, lift weights, do yoga or participate in team sports - it doesn't matter, McGonigal says - moderate physical activity does far more than make us physically stronger and healthier.

Here are five of the ways movement can help you enjoy life.
1) Activate pleasure
During exercise, McGonigal explains, our brains release neurotransmitters, in particular dopamine and endocannabinoids, that can generate a natural high similar to that of cannabis, or marijuana.

"Many of the effects of cannabis are consistent with descriptions of exercise-induced highs, including the sudden disappearance of worries or stress, a reduction in pain, the slowing of time and a heightening of the senses," she writes.

And while exercise activates the same channels of the brain's reward system that addictive drugs do, she explains, it does so "in a way that has the complete opposite effect on your capacity to enjoy life."

Exactly how it all works isn't fully understood.

"But the basic idea is that your brain will have a more robust response to everyday pleasures," she says, "whether it's your child smiling at you, or the taste of food or your enjoyment of looking at something beautiful - and that's the exact opposite effect of addiction."
2) Become a "more social version of yourself"
In a chapter on the collective joy of exercise, McGonigal explains how endorphins - another type of neurotransmitters released during sustained physical activity - help bond us to others. It's a connection, she writes, that "can be experienced anytime and anywhere people gather to move in unison," be it during the flow of yoga class, during the synchronicity of team rowing, while running with friends or while practicing tai chi with others.

And it also helps explain why those with whom we participate on teams or share fitness friendships often feel like family, she says. Endorphins help strengthen ties to individuals we're not related to, which helps us build extended families and important social networks that help stave off loneliness and social isolation.

Of course, humans can build bonds through sedentary activities as well, McGonigal says.

"But there's something about getting your heart rate up a little bit and using your muscles that creates that brain state that makes you more willing to trust others - that enhances the pleasure you get from interacting with others that often makes you this more social version of yourself," she says.
3) Help with depression
In a section on "green exercise," McGonigal discusses the positive shifts in mood and outlook reported by those who exercise in nature.

"It actually alters what's happening in your brain in a way that looks really similar to meditation," she says. "People report feeling connected to all of life ... and they feel more hopeful about life itself."

Indeed, an Austrian study McGonigal cites found that among people who had previously attempted suicide, the addition of mountain hiking to their standard medical treatment reduced suicidal thinking and hopelessness.

McGonigal says she heard many similar stories among those she interviewed for the book: "So many people who struggle with anxiety, grief or depression find a kind of relief in being active in nature that they don't find any other way."
4) Reveal hidden strength
Even for those who don't struggle with mental or physical illness, adopting a regular exercise routine can provide powerful transformation. McGonigal shares stories of several women who overcame limiting beliefs through exercise to reveal new, more powerful selves.

"If there is a voice in your head saying, 'You're too old, too awkward, too big, too broken, too weak,' physical sensations from movement can provide a compelling counterargument," McGonigal writes. "Even deeply held beliefs about ourselves can be challenged by direct, physical experiences, as new sensations overtake old memories and stories."
5) A boost for the brain
McGonigal offers insights drawn from research into ultraendurance athletes and how they survive mentally and physically grueling events designed to last six or more hours.

When researchers at the Berlin-based Center for Space Medicine and Extreme Environments measured the blood of ultraendurance athletes, they found high levels a family of proteins called myokines, known to help the body burn fat as fuel, to act as natural antidepressants and to provide a possible shield against cognitive decline.

But as she reports, you don't need to be a superathlete to experience the benefits of myokines. McGonigal cites a 2018 study that identified 35 of these proteins released by the quadriceps muscles during just one hour of bike riding.

Emerging research, she says, suggests that when exercised, your muscles become "basically a pharmacy for your physical and mental health."

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And they aren't activity-specific and they don't require you to be a superathlete. Whether you run, swim, dance, bike, lift weights, do yoga or participate in team sports - it doesn't matter, McGonigal says - moderate physical activity does far more than make us physically stronger and healthier.

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Coping with Change and Uncertainty - Educational Leadership

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December 2020/January 2021 | Volume 78 | Number 4
Mental Health for Educators Pages 22-26

Phyllis L. Fagell

Nearly halfway through an unpredictable school year, educators may find the ambiguity of their working lives as distressing as the tangible losses they're experiencing because of the pandemic. In a 2016 study, researchers at University College London found that participants who were told they had a small chance of getting a painful electric shock felt more anxious than those who knew they would be shocked. And in a systematic literature review, sociologists in Germany found that job insecurity can exact as big a toll on mental health as unemployment (Kim & von dem Knesebeck, 2015). Perhaps not surprisingly, a new study published in JAMA revealed that the prevalence of depression symptoms in U.S. adults has tripled since the pandemic began (Ettman et al., 2020).

Educators, in particular, are struggling to maintain an even keel. "We can take guidelines and operationalize a plan, but the greatest variable is [that we are all] human"-unpredictable by nature, says Sarah Sirgo, director of learning, achievement, and administration for Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. As schools return to hybrid or in-person instruction, for instance, districts can mandate that students wear masks, but they can't guarantee perfect compliance. And while leaders can implement safety precautions, they can't eliminate all danger or predict how individual teachers will cope with the stress and fear. "One of the biggest challenges is how different people will respond and react to the unknown," adds Jae Lee, principal of Carderock Elementary School in Montgomery County.

As a school counselor, I am aware that everyone from parents to educators to children is feeling the stress of uncertainty. Many parents worry that their child has regressed, withdrawn, or disengaged from school. Educators have rapidly acquired new instructional delivery methods, and some are balancing both in-person and remote instruction. Even teachers with decades of experience feel like they're back in year one, and educators across the country are on the receiving end of a steady stream of demoralizing criticism. Meanwhile, emotions are contagious, and children are absorbing all the ambient anxiety.

Amid all this, how can we regain a sense of control? Based on my research and experience, I have identified six ways that educators can cope and be a reassuring source of strength for students when the only constant right now is change and uncertainty.

1. Reframe your personal narrative.

"The linear life is dead," says Bruce Feiler, author of Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age (Penguin Press, 2020). His data show that people go through three to five "lifequakes," massive life changes with aftershocks that can last five years or more. Everyone hits bumps in the road, he explained to me, but this is the first time the entire planet is experiencing a lifequake simultaneously.

Given the current pandemic, it's easy to sink into pessimism, question others' judgment, or focus on what we've lost, but it's far more productive to alter our mindset and recognize that peaks can't exist without valleys. When we let go of preconceived ideas about what life should look like, we have an easier time self-regulating our emotions.

Rewrite the narrative, casting yourself as the hero-as someone who discovers their strength because of the pandemic. As you frame your story internally, focus on the skills you're acquiring, such as flexibility and self-compassion. Boosting resilience may represent the upside to the pandemic, Feiler points out. "I believe-as scary and sad as it is-we're going to make a lot of calluses and forge a lot of transition-management skills."

2. Prune and preserve relationships.

In times of stress, we have fewer reserves. Uncertainty feeds anxiety, fear, and anger-emotions that hinder the ability to read social cues and adopt someone else's perspective. We are also more susceptible to others' negativity. To sustain stamina, curate your social network. Limit interactions with friends and colleagues who drain or deplete you and protect relationships with the people you've come to trust and who are engaged in this crisis with you.

This can be challenging in times of stress, when people are not at their peak and may be more easily provoked. Following a series of negative interactions with frustrated parents, for example, a trusted administrator may exhibit less patience with a teacher. To limit misunderstandings, know your own triggers, whether that's ruminating about an outcome you can't alter, spending hours with someone who complains incessantly, skipping your morning run, or "doomscrolling" through grim newsfeeds.

Recognize that social distancing can also heighten sensitivity. "One of the reasons why this is hard for everyone-hard for me-is that before, we were getting all this positive energy from daily interactions and reaffirming relationships," notes Lee. He recently had to reassure a staff member who called him and said, "Hey, Jae, I want to make sure you're not mad at me."

Even when educators are physically together, it's harder to accurately interpret someone's tone through a mask. We need facial expressions to decipher emotions in ordinary times, let alone in the middle of a pandemic. "Our nervous systems get activated when we feel threatened, and we can't access our prefrontal capacity as well," explains psychologist Tina Bryson, coauthor of The Whole-Brain Child (Bantam, 2012). Before you react with a strong emotion, take a deep breath and consider whether you're likely to elicit the desired outcome. Lashing out in anger or placing blame tends to be divisive and counterproductive. As the pandemic has illustrated, we're stronger when we work together.

"I hope we all can show a little grace and resist the inclination to be swept up in alarm," notes Sirgo. As one of the officials leading the design and recovery work in her district-as well as a working parent-she knows that everyone is experiencing angst and frustration. "When I think about extending grace, the following things come to mind," she told me. We must

seek to understand and ask questions before reaching conclusions; assume positive intention and the supposition that people are trying to make things work and giving it their best; use language and messages, particularly in email, to communicate in ways that are clear and kind; and be deliberate about recognizing our own stress and anxiety and not placing that on others with frustration and short-tempered reactions.

3. Build community and foster collegiality.

Kingswood College, a K-12 school in Victoria, Australia, is several months ahead (pandemic-wise) of schools in the United States. The school made an initial shift to remote learning, then transitioned to socially distanced, face-to-face instruction, and then-when COVID-19 infection rates began to rise again-returned to distance learning. Adam Somes, head of Kingswood's middle school, told me that staff members continue to take the disruptions in stride, a "rare feat" he attributes to "communication, connection, and community."

Administrators at his school are transparent and honest and have a "we can do this" attitude, he explains. They consistently underscore the importance of optimism, resilience, and being nimble. The entire community-staff and their families, students, and caregivers-participates in online wellness activities such as fitness bingo. The leadership team also reaches out weekly to each staff member to check on their welfare.

Bellview Elementary School in Pensacola, Florida, is taking a similarly intentional approach this year. The school's staff recently turned over by 30 percent, in part because of challenges specific to COVID-19, says Nathan Maynard, coauthor of Hacking School Discipline (Times 10 Publications, 2019). Maynard has been working with Bellview's principal to improve school culture during the pandemic, he told me over the phone, by incorporating more relationship-building strategies among colleagues. For example, he says, "Staff are doing virtual and in-person check-in circles to support each other, to integrate new staff, and to proactively address any issues that might arise."

Schools can also use a "tap in/tap out" system like the one at Fall-Hamilton Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee (Berger, 2018). The principal there adopted the approach to encourage teachers to call on their peers when they need to take a short break or step back from a tense situation. Instead of losing their cool, they can leave the classroom and take a breath while a designated colleague steps in. Educators in virtual environments could design a similar system: They could partner with a teacher who has a different schedule and exchange phone numbers and links to one another's virtual classes.

4. Be specific when naming emotions.

When we're able to label emotions with specificity, we can take steps to manage them. If you simply feel overwhelmed, you might get stuck. But if you know that you're exhausted from worrying all night, or that you're resentful that you're too busy helping others to find time to exercise, you can work to prioritize better sleep and self-care habits.

Once you've pinpointed the feeling or concern, ask yourself, "Does worrying about this help me or get in my way?" Make an effort to extinguish defeatist self-talk. If you're telling yourself "I'm miserable," try reframing that as "I'm sad now." If you're thinking "This is too much for me," try saying, "I can handle tough stuff."

There are four types of grief, and nearly everyone is experiencing two or three of them right now, says psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair, author of The Big Disconnect (Harper, 2014). In a recent conversation, she explained to me that there is ambiguous grief, "which is free-floating-the loss of summer, the pervasive sense that we've lost so much." The opposite of ambiguous grief is acute grief. "That could be not being able to pay rent or a partner getting furloughed." A third type is anticipatory grief. "What will school be like? How many hours will I be expected to be in a Zoom classroom? How will I manage distance learning with my own children? Will I get in trouble or lose my job if kids don't show up?"

Many individuals are also experiencing moral outrage grief -the fourth type-which is a sadness for what's happening in the country and the world right now. As she explains, "You ask people, "How are you?" and there's this hesitancy [in their response]."

Educators can't vanquish such grief, but as with any emotion, they can "name it to tame it." In other words, they can develop a game plan, whether they reach out to a friend, take a mental health day, or see a therapist.

5. Exercise agency.

It's easy to feel powerless in the face of a pandemic, so focus on what you can do to improve your situation. That could mean reaching out to human resources to inquire about leave or child-care options, contacting an employee assistance program about teletherapy resources, incorporating movement or relaxation practices into your day, or signing up for school or district-sponsored professional development or psychoeducational programs. For example, Christina Connolly, the Montgomery County district's director of psychological services, recently worked with colleagues to create "Waymaking," a set of videos for staff and families covering everything from stress management to the impact of racism on mental health.

If you're working in a school building, you can take steps to mitigate risk, such as wearing a mask and washing your hands. "It's important to remember that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted via the respiratory tract and largely through lengthy person-to-person interactions," says Tim Lahey, infectious diseases physician and professor of medicine at the University of Vermont Medical Center. "That means you can rank teacher-student interactions along a gradient of risk. A quick pat on the shoulder or tousle of the hair by a teacher standing briefly by the student's side is extremely low risk," he told me, while "interacting face-to-face or close-up for longer periods of time raises the ante."

You can also strive to establish healthy boundaries, such as setting personal policies around when your workday begins and ends, when you turn off the computer, and when you stop returning emails.

6. If you can't fix it, aim for acceptance.

There are many facets of the pandemic that are out of everyone's control. You can't unilaterally determine whether your school-or your child's school-operates virtually or in person. You can't guarantee you'll reach every student, and you can't eradicate tough emotions. In fact, you might feel worse if you try to push your pain away. As Carl Jung famously said, "What you resist persists."

Acceptance doesn't mean that you like the current reality; it just means you stop fighting it. It can take awhile to reach this point, but if you stop trying to fix things you can't change, you can then devote your energy to coping with disappointment and unmet expectations. You might even be able to identify a silver lining-or at least some shades of gray. For instance, virtual learning has given principals an opportunity to focus more on instruction, Sirgo says. "Think about the things that can often be distractions that principals no longer have to do-office referrals, lunch and recess, sub coverage, in-person evening events," she explains. As her district moved through the initial stages of planning a return, "principals found ways to look at the fall diagnostic data, talk with teachers about what they were seeing instructionally, and lead more directed conversations with staff about student learning and well-being."

If acceptance is too lofty a goal, try projecting into the distant future. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley found that when people can imagine how they'll interpret an upsetting event many years later, they experience less anxiety, sadness, hurt, and anger (Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk, 2015). This type of "temporal distancing" can help educators internalize the idea that distressing experiences aren't permanent. You don't want to make rash, long-term decisions because of your passing negative emotions.

Weary But Unwavering

It's not easy to accept uncertainty with patience, let alone tranquility, and it may be difficult to remember why you chose this profession in the midst of so much turmoil, change, insecurity, and self-doubt. And yet, while educators didn't choose to work with children through a screen or from a distance, they are choosing to work tirelessly to reassure, connect, help, and teach. "I'd be lying if I said I am not weary right now," says Tara Christie Kinsey, head of The Hewitt School in New York City. "But when I consider why and for whom I do what I do, I remember what a blessing it is to be an educator, what an honor it is to serve, and what an opportunity we have to shape our world for the better. One child at a time."

References

Berger, T. (2018, February 5). An inside look at trauma-informed practices. Edutopia.

Bruehlman-Senecal, E., & Ayduk, O. (2015). This too shall pass: Temporal distance and the regulation of emotional distress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(2), 356-375.

Ettman, C. K., Abdalla, S. M., Cohen, G. H., Sampson, L., Vivier, P. M., & Galea, S. (2020). Prevalence of depression symptoms in U.S. adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. JAMA Network Open, 3(9).

Kim, T. J., & von dem Knesebeck, O. (2015). Is an insecure job better for health than having no job at all? A systematic review of studies investigating the health-related risks of both job insecurity and unemployment. BMC Public Health, 15, 985.

University College London. (2016, March 29). Uncertainty can cause more stress than inevitable pain: Knowing that there is a small chance of getting a painful electric shock can lead to significantly more stress than knowing that you will definitely be shocked. ScienceDaily.

Endnote

Watch the Montgomery County district's "Waymaking" video series at https://sites.google.com/mcpsmd.net/shriver-counseling/mental-health-supports.

Phyllis L. Fagell ( https://phyllisfagell.com/) is the school counselor at Sheridan School in Washington, D.C., and a therapist at the Chrysalis Group. She is the author of Middle School Matters (Hachette Books, 2019) and a regular columnist for the AMLE Magazine and Kappan. Follow her on Twitter.

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December 2020/January 2021 | Volume 78 | Number 4 Mental Health for Educators Pages 22-26 Phyllis L. Fagell Nearly halfway through an unpredictable school year, educators may find the ambiguity of their working lives as distressing as the tangible losses they're experiencing because of the pandemic.

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Self-Regulation Skills in Children | Understood - For learning and thinking differences

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Self-Regulation Skills in Children | Understood - For learning and thinking differences

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Self-regulation allows kids to manage their emotions, behavior, and body movement when faced with tough situations.

Self-regulation isn't the same thing as self-control.

Kids with ADHD and sensory processing issues often struggle with self-regulation.

Does your child often act impulsively in an emotional situation? Some kids do that a lot, but after the fact they're able to say what they should have done instead. Some kids regularly get overexcited and have a hard time winding down. Parents and other caregivers may wonder why these children don't just say that they're overwhelmed before having a meltdown.

Here's what you need to know about trouble with self-regulation.

Self-regulation is a different sort of skill. It allows kids to manage their emotions, behavior, and body movement when they're faced with a situation that's tough to handle. And it allows them to do that while still staying focused and paying attention.

How self-regulation works

You can think of self-regulation in terms of how a thermostat works. A thermostat is set to kick on or off to keep a room at a certain desired temperature - a "set point." To do that, it needs to keep track of temperature changes, compare them to the set point, and "know" whether to heat or cool the room to get back to the desired temperature.

When it comes to self-regulation, your child also has a "set point." It's when your child is able to manage emotions and behavior in appropriate ways.

To maintain that level of control, kids need to keep track of changes in their situation or environment. They need to assess how they're feeling and reacting, compared to their set point. And they have to know what adjustments to make in order to get back to that point.

Self-regulation and sensory processing issues

Kids with sensory processing issues have trouble handling information that comes in through one or more of their senses. That includes the five traditional senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. It also includes three lesser-known senses. These are interoception, proprioception, and the vestibular sense.

The source of the problem is the body's nervous system. The nervous system has trouble regulating itself. So when kids are in situations that cause sensory overload, they can't self-regulate. Their emotions and behaviors go unchecked, even when they're aware of the things that are overwhelming them.

Consider this example. Before going to the store, Natalie counts her money and realizes she finally has enough to buy the hot toy all the kids want. When she gets to the store, she's already overexcited.

Self-regulation, ADHD, and executive functioning issues

Kids with ADHD also often struggle with flexible thinking. That means they have trouble shifting gears from one situation to another and coming up with ways to approach it.

Consider the same example of the toy. This time when Natalie gets to the store, the toy she's been saving for is out of stock. The store has reordered it and it will arrive next week.

Despite knowing the toy will be there next week, Natalie has a meltdown because this is not the situation she expected. She's so disappointed it's not available now that she isn't able to keep her emotions under control.

Once she calms down, she's able to think more flexibly. She realizes there are other solutions. She can see that she still has the money and will be able to get the toy later.

Helping your child with self-regulation

No matter what's behind your child's trouble with self-regulation, there are ways you can help. The first step is helping your child recognize when the information coming in is a problem. That could be information coming in through the senses or through internal thoughts.

Here's a breakdown of what self-regulation would require in the toy scenario.

1. Self-awareness: For a child with sensory issues, this means knowing that the crowded toy display may create emotional stress. For a child with ADHD, it means knowing it's possible that plans may need to be adjusted. Talking those things through ahead of time can help. So can teaching your child to tell you when the input is too much.

2. Impulse control: Kids with ADHD may know there are other solutions, but it's still hard to restrain the impulse to get loudly upset. Kids feel more in control of emotions and reactions when they have developed coping skills.

3. Goal-setting: In both cases, it was hard to keep in mind the goal of having the toy. Work on setting and meeting small goals in order to start being able to keep bigger goals in mind.

Sensory overload and trouble with executive function can make it hard for kids to self-regulate.

Self-regulation skills develop gradually, and there are ways to help your child improve.

Working on self-awareness, impulse control, and goal-setting can help your child learn to self-regulate.

About the Author

About the Author

worked as a classroom teacher and as an early intervention specialist for 10 years. She is the author of Amanda Morin The Everything Parent's Guide to Special Education. Two of her children have learning differences.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Ellen Braaten, PhD is the director of LEAP at Massachusetts General Hospital.

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Trouble with self-regulation: What you need to know

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Self-regulation allows kids to manage their emotions, behavior, and body movement when faced with tough situations. Self-regulation isn't the same thing as self-control. Kids with ADHD and sensory processing issues often struggle with self-regulation. Does your child often act impulsively in an emotional situation?

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5 Ways To Build Positive Relationships With Students

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5 Ways To Build Positive Relationships With Students

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You've probably heard me say (or read), " mental health first, school second." It's something I truly believe. It's so important to address the mental health needs of young people before focusing on academics. If students are suffering from trauma or their basic needs are not being met, they will not learn. You can start by building relationships with all students in your classroom. Here are 5 ways to build positive relationships with students to promote good mental health.
Disclaimer: This article may contain commission or affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Mornings (well, all day, really) can be busy for teachers. I get it! However, taking a few minutes each morning to stand outside your classroom door and say good morning to your students can make a difference. Maybe you give them a high-five, a handshake, or even just a simple, "hello, good morning!" It may be the first time a student has been greeted in a positive matter (or at all) that day. Be the person that lets them know their day is going to be great, and you've taken the first step to building positive relationships for the day, week and year.

It's really tempting to get straight into academic mode with lectures, lessons, and projects, but it only takes a couple of minutes to allow your students to share what is going on in their own lives. Whether they have a sporting or other extracurricular event that evening, a family celebration, or something they are struggling with, having a moment at the start of each day (or class period for secondary teachers), can make a difference in building positive relationships with your students.

Believe it or not, your students want to know about you. When you share some of your own personal victories, struggles, hobbies, and about your family, it goes a long way in building relationships! You don't have to get too personal, but even just sharing what you like to do for fun, some facts about your spouse or kids if you have them, and the reasons you love to teach can help your students understand and get to know you better.

Giving students options when it comes to product or process of learning can help build trust between teacher and student. Sometimes, there are requirements by your board or legislation that can't be amended, but if a student can demonstrate their learning in a different way, why not let them? Allow your students to explore different options and methods of showing what they know in the classroom. Share some of these differentiated learning methods and styles with your students.

Oh, the dreaded teachers' lounge. It's really easy to start complaining about students (" Don't Call Me That Kid!") when you get with your colleagues. Keep in mind that negative attitudes can spread just as fast as positive ones. Let go of your preconceived notions or what you hear about a child from your colleagues, and give them a chance to earn your trust and build that relationship.

These 5 ways to build relationships with your students to promote good mental health start with positive attitudes from teachers. Don't give up on your students. Start with respect and understanding. Your students may have stories that you don't yet know. Let them share them with you, so you can help them be the best they can be!

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5 Ways To Build Positive Relationships With Students

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You've probably heard me say (or read), " mental health first, school second." It's something I truly believe. It's so important to address the mental health needs of young people before focusing on academics. If students are suffering from trauma or their basic needs are not being met, they will not learn.

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Reunite, Renew and Thrive: SEL Roadmap for Reopening School

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Reunite, Renew and Thrive: SEL Roadmap for Reopening School

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As educators across the country prepared to welcome students and adults back to school in Fall 2020, they faced the layered impact of school closures, the COVID-19 pandemic, and racial inequities exacerbated by the pandemic and amplified by the nationwide mobilization for racial justice. The return to school this year will be unlike any other in our history. This moment called on all members of our school communities to deepen our social and emotional competencies and create equitable learning environments where all students and adults process, heal, and thrive.

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Reunite, Renew, and Thrive: Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Roadmap for Reopening School - CASEL

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As educators across the country prepared to welcome students and adults back to school in Fall 2020, they faced the layered impact of school closures, the COVID-19 pandemic, and racial inequities exacerbated by the pandemic and amplified by the nationwide mobilization for racial justice.

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Building Relationships With Students: What Brain Science Says | Understood - For learning and thinking differences

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Building Relationships With Students: What Brain Science Says | Understood - For learning and thinking differences

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Students' brains are hard at work every moment of the day, learning skills and connecting new information with old. Those same brains are also constantly processing information when it comes to their relationship with you, their teacher.

Positive student relationships are fundamental to success. When students feel supported, they're more likely to engage in learning and have better academic outcomes. Plus, when students have positive interactions with teachers, they have fewer behavioral problems. These relationships are more important - and more challenging - than ever in uncertain times, like during the coronavirus pandemic.

Neuroscience can help us understand what's happening in students' brains when they feel safe and understood. Here are four reasons why positive teacher-student relationships are important - and how you can build those relationships.

1. Positive relationships build motivation.

This creates a cycle. You provide positive feedback. The student's brain releases dopamine. The student feels good and is motivated to feel that way again. With this increased motivation, students spend more time and attention working on a skill. They build those skills. You give more praise - sparking the release of more dopamine. And the cycle starts all over again.

On the flip side, when students don't receive positive feedback, they're less likely to enter the positive cycle of motivation and learning.

How to do it: To build a positive relationship, you need to have more positive interactions than negative ones. More specifically, researchers recommend having five positive interactions for every one negative interaction. Positive interactions could include greeting students by name at the start of class, giving praise for working hard, or asking about a student's pet.

Students who learn and think differently often have more negative interactions than positive ones. For example, students with ADHD may receive constant reminders from teachers to be on time and stay on task.

This doesn't mean that you should never provide students with corrective feedback and reminders. But make sure the positive interactions outweigh the negative ones. The more you get to know your students, the more you'll recognize when they need praise or encouragement, and when they're open to constructive feedback. You can keep a tally of how many reminders you give a student to complete an assignment. Try to find five times as many positive things to comment on and tally up as well.

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2. Positive relationships create safe spaces for learning.

Think about how this applies to your own life. If you have a supportive principal who has established psychological safety in your school, you might be more likely to challenge yourself and try new ideas in your classroom. But if school leaders consistently give critical feedback, you might not feel psychologically safe enough to try something new. It's the same for students.

Building psychological safety is harder with some students than others. Think of the last time you saw a student seeming to overreact. This behavior may result from trauma or chronic stress in the student's life (such as having a learning or thinking difference or growing up as part of a marginalized group). This can cause them to feel threatened in situations that other students find harmless. The brain learns that the environment is not safe and remains on alert to potential danger.

For these students, when something is perceived as a threat, a region of the brain called the amygdala sets off an alarm. The amygdala is known for its role in detecting threats in the environment. Its job is to keep us safe and alive. Think of an animal that must decide whether to run or freeze when it sees a predator.

The amygdala triggers the release of cortisol (also called the stress hormone) and epinephrine (also called adrenaline). This sends extra energy throughout the body. The muscles tense up and the heartbeat quickens, preparing for fight or flight. When the threat detection system in the brain is highly activated, learning cannot happen. This is the opposite of psychological safety.

In students, this might look like:

Avoiding assignments

Putting their head down

Yelling or making negative comments

Walking out of the classroom or leaving a live video lesson

Acting out physically or aggressively

While building psychological safety may be even more difficult with these students, it is especially important for them. That's because oxytocin also helps keep the amygdala's threat detection system quiet. Over time, when students are surrounded by people they trust, their threat detection system is less likely to activate, and they're better able to learn.

For students who are at risk for a fight-or-flight reaction, your approach will need to differ slightly. Use strategies like when-then sentences so they can know exactly what positive outcome to expect when they complete a task, while giving students the power of choice. Expect that they may overreact sometimes, and provide the space and time needed to calm down. By remaining calm, you're not only reminding yourself to react to their behavior as a form of communication and respond appropriately. You're also building psychological safety and trust.

3. Positive relationships build new pathways for learning.

As you teach the new information, new neural pathways connect the old information with the new. If students don't understand the context or aren't able to link the new information to anything they currently know, they'll have a hard time understanding the lesson.

Ask students to share what they know about a topic. Every student has a different set of background knowledge. For example, if you know a student is a talented artist, you can leverage their knowledge of different kinds of paintbrushes to explain friction. Or you can make an analogy about the relationship between the characters in a student's favorite book and the domestic strife in the Civil War.

4. Positive relationships improve student behavior.

Neuroscience research has started to uncover why this imitation happens - and how it can be used to encourage positive behaviors. Studies have shown that when people observe an action being performed, it activates some of the same neural pathways that would be active if they actually performed the action. This is called the mirror-neuron system.

Essentially, our brains are practicing the action that we're seeing, even though our bodies don't move. Studies show that when people see an action first, they are able to perform the action more quickly than if they had not seen the action.

How to do it: Start by thinking through what behaviors and social skills you're modeling for your students. For example, you likely already model social skills like turn-taking, cooperation, and empathy on a daily basis. You can take it a step further and explain the behaviors you're modeling. The next time you're feeling frustrated, tell your students how you're feeling. Talk about how you deal with frustration, such as taking a few deep breaths.

For younger students, use pre-correcting and prompting as a classroom management strategy. It allows you to explicitly tell, show, and remind students how to approach tasks or situations.

Young children are even more likely than adults to imitate the behaviors they see. That's because they're still learning social skills and appropriate behavior. Plus, the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that allows us to choose where to direct our attention and to regulate our behaviors and emotions) isn't fully developed until we're in our 20s. Childhood is a prime time to model behavior and social skills for students.

From the series: Back-to-School for Educators: Start With Relationships

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About the Author

About the Author

Trynia Kaufman, MS is the senior manager of editorial research at Understood. She is a former educator and presents nationwide at education conferences.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Jerome Schultz, PhD is a clinical neuropsychologist and lecturer in the Harvard Medical School Department of Child Psychiatry.

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Building positive relationships with students: What brain science says

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Students' brains are hard at work every moment of the day, learning skills and connecting new information with old. Those same brains are also constantly processing information when it comes to their relationship with you, their teacher. Positive student relationships are fundamental to success.

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Flourish By Design | Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Flourish By Design | Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Educators often talk about "student well-being," but we rarely define the term. We know we want for our students than just academic achievement, but most of us struggle to articulate a vision for what that more looks like, and how to work toward it.

Martin Seligman, director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, explored the concept of well-being in his 2011 book Flourish. He introduced five elements of well-being - positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment - and found that teachers who attend to those elements can improve student outcomes.

But as our goals for students become more sophisticated, so too do the demands on teachers. Surely, developing students' well-being requires a different level of skill and expertise than teaching history or math. In fact, it might require teachers to think more about their own well-being.

If we want to develop our students in new ways, we as teachers must be willing to develop ourselves in new ways.

If a teacher hasn't experienced powerful collaboration with his colleagues, how equipped is he to facilitate collaborative learning among his students? Will students find meaning in their classroom experience if their teacher struggles to see the bigger picture of her teaching? If a teacher can't relate to the joy of accomplishing a challenging task, how will he help his students understand the rewards of perseverance?

In short, can students flourish if their teachers aren't?

If we want to develop our students in new ways, we as teachers must be willing to develop ourselves in new ways. Consequently, teachers owe it to themselves, as well as to their students, to focus on their personal well-being.

What might a teacher's focus on well-being look like?
Positive Emotion
According to Seligman, reflecting on experiences that go well is a powerful lever to create positive emotion. Unfortunately, some staff lounges are notorious for doing the opposite - full of negative comments and horror stories. While venting may feel cathartic, engaging in routines that focus on negative experiences is not likely to help in the long run. Sharing positive teaching stories might seem counter-cultural at first. But cultures can change.
Engagement
Engagement is the result of challenging work, not mundane tasks. Seligman argues that we are most engaged when we are able to leverage our best strengths toward our challenges. Whether through creativity, humor, or social-intelligence, teachers must find ways to fully leverage their strengths as they face the demands of teaching. We must recognize the circumstances when we feel most absorbed in our work. What strengths are we leveraging, and how can we bring those strengths to other aspects of our teaching?

We must recognize the circumstances when we feel most absorbed in our work. What strengths are we leveraging, and how can we bring those strengths to other aspects of our teaching?
Relationships
The reality is, most teachers have few opportunities to collaborate with their peers - and that's a significant barrier to promoting teacher well-being. School leaders and teachers themselves must prioritize creating time and space to build relationships. When teachers experience the powerful impact of these relationships on their own practice and sense of well-being, they may gain a deeper appreciation for the potential of collaborative learning in their classrooms.
Meaning
Seligman describes meaning as a connection to something you believe is bigger than yourself. Most teachers yearn for that sense of meaning, but it can be challenging to find it amid the daily requirements of curriculum and schedules. Teachers should constantly consider the long term impact of their work and think about the types of people they hope their students will become. An inspiring and hopeful vision for the future can drive a teacher's day-to-day work far more effectively than a narrow focus on the needs of today.
Accomplishment
Teachers can feel they're living in a Groundhog Day kind of world - the characters are different, but the plot is the same from year to year. After the initial excitement, many teachers settle into comfort and routines. But some of us settle in a bit too deep. To gain a true sense of accomplishment, a teacher has to work at the edge of her abilities. Taking risks and changing practice can be difficult, but accomplishing something challenging and new is far more rewarding that repeating something old.

Increasingly, we want our schools to be places where students not only achieve academically, but thrive as individuals. But this emphasis on student well-being places complex demands on teachers. By tending to their own growth and development, teachers can be better equipped to provide similarly powerful experiences for their students.

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Educators often talk about "student well-being," but we rarely define the term. We know we want more for our students than just academic achievement, but most of us struggle to articulate a vision for what that more looks like, and how to work toward it.

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Our workplaces can be hazardous to our wellbeing. Strict demands, never-ending changes, and unfair policies are just a few things that contribute to burnout.

But stressful work environments don't always lead to burnout. Whenever I read a report that says something like 42% of a company's employees suffer from burnout, I find myself asking, What about the other 58%? What are they doing to protect themselves? What can we learn from them?

As a qualitative researcher and executive coach, I have interviewed and coached hundreds of people - police chiefs, nurses, doctors, business leaders, teachers, and others - who find themselves constantly battling burnout. I've learned three important things from my clients: that we are all triggered by stressors differently, our perceptions of stressors vary, and how we react to stress is also strikingly dissimilar. In other words, some people appear to be resistant to burnout. And for the many who are at risk of falling into what I call self-sabotage traps, there are behaviors that can help us dig ourselves out.

First, to determine if you're at risk for burnout, take a close look at your patterns, also known as defensive routines. Are you sleeping less? Feeling more irritable? Losing your ability to focus? Drinking alcohol to distract yourself from your stress? These are all indicators that burnout may be sneaking up on you.

Then, check to see if you've fallen into one or more of these common self-sabotage traps, and use these countermeasures to protect yourself. You'll see that the tactics to stay out of burnout involve two critical emotional intelligence skills. First, self-awareness will help you take a close look at your defensive routines. Then, self-management will help you to begin changing your habits away from destructive behaviors toward more productive ones.

Self-Sabotage Traps

The overly adaptable trap.

Being adaptable and embracing change can be good for you and your career - that is, until you overextend yourself. This is a common trap for so-called people-pleasers, who are driven by the urge to appeal to others or to fulfill what they perceive to be others' expectations of them.

Ask yourself, "Is my extreme adaptability coming from a desire to please other people?" If the answer is "yes," be aware that compliance comes at a cost. Your flexibility may be a superpower in some instances, but it becomes a liability if you sacrifice your own well-being simply to please others.

If you have a habit of saying "yes" to every new request because you like to make others happy, try saying "no" more often (easier said than done, I know). Start with low-stakes projects. Try to set better boundaries to protect your recharge time and be clear with both yourself and your manager about when you are and are not willing to work overtime.

The perfectionist trap.

"Perfection is the enemy of progress." This is a quote often attributed to Winston Churchill. Perfection may well be the enemy of our wellness, too. Setting high standards for ourselves is an important part of success. Problems start to surface, however, when those standards become increasingly unattainable or when we expect too much of ourselves in all parts of our lives. We become doubly trapped when we start to believe that others around us are perfect and that we need to be, too (see the imposter syndrome trap below).

If you find yourself in the perfectionist trap, ask yourself, " How can I get things done without the heavy burden of it having to be perfect? " Try being kind and forgiving to yourself. It's a natural reaction to be hard on ourselves when we realize that we're getting in our own way on the path to wellness. Forget the self-blame; it's only going to make you feel worse.

The imposter syndrome trap.

Starting a new role, getting a promotion, or taking on a new project can trigger the all-too-common feelings that accompany imposter syndrome. We put extra pressure on ourselves when we make comparisons to others or when we feel underqualified for our job. When paired with the perfectionist trap, people suffering from imposter syndrome run a substantially higher risk of overworking (see the next trap: over-engagement).

Breaking free from this trap starts with recognizing your feelings of inadequacy and reframing your self-talk. To strengthen yourself in the fight against burnout, make self-compassion - not debilitating self-criticism - a habit.

The over-engagement trap.

Even people who love their jobs are at risk of burning out. We pour ourselves into work that makes us feel engaged and happy and slowly begin to sacrifice time spent on things that recharge us, such as time with family, exercise, and almost always, sleep.

To free yourself of this trap, first consider whether you are pushing yourself too hard. Try setting clear boundaries around when you work so you can enjoy the benefits of pursuing a passion outside of work.

The "I can't do anything about it" trap.

Research psychologists have shown that individuals tend to cope with stressors in two different ways. "Problem-focused" coping helps us deal with stressors over which we believe we have control. These include the amount of extra work we willingly take on, deadlines we can change or negotiate, and other work-related problems that are "figure-out-able." When we believe that we have little or no control over a stressor, we typically engage in "emotion-focused" coping. We use this most often when we are over-burdened with work, deadlines, and other pressures that, despite our best attempts, are inflexible or are otherwise out of our hands. People who spend a lot of time in emotion-focused coping (i.e., dealing with our emotions when we believe we can't control something) face a significantly higher risk of burnout.

If you find yourself stuck in this trap, challenge your belief about which aspects of your reality you do or do not control. Think about the specific things causing you stress and ask yourself, "Is this deadline as rigid as I think it is?" Then, "What steps can I take to negotiate this deadline?" Any steps you take to feel more in control will help you feel less burned out.

Even when work fulfills us and aligns with our personal sense of purpose, falling into these traps can contribute to stress and burnout. Study after study shows that mindfulness practices can help us combat stress. Yet, most of us are guilty of letting our busy lives get in the way of being as mindful as we can or should be. Pay close attention to whether your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are amplifying your stress and/or compromising your sense of control over your work-life integration.

Certainly, organizations must continue to examine and fix their major causes of burnout. And leaders must listen to and acknowledge their teams' distress and take meaningful steps to alleviate that suffering. But in the meantime, we can use these strategies to learn to be resilient in the face of burnout.

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Our workplaces can be hazardous to our wellbeing. Strict demands, never-ending changes, and unfair policies are just a few things that contribute to burnout. But stressful work environments don't always lead to burnout. Whenever I read a report that says something like 42% of a company's employees suffer from burnout, I find myself asking, What about the other 58%?

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Targeting Feedback to Support Self-Regulation

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Targeting Feedback to Support Self-Regulation

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December 2013 | Volume 55 | Number 12
Pages 3-3

Sarah McKibben

If you've flipped to an episode of Sesame Street lately, you might have noticed something strange happening to Cookie Monster. The frenetic furry beast is actually-gasp-trying to tame his cookie-fueled impulses. It's part of an effort to introduce young minds to the concepts of self-control, patience, focus, and other skills essential to academic success. In fact, PBS's brainchild is devoting its entire 44th season to building self-regulation skills in its viewers.

Not to be confused with compliance, self-regulation is essentially the ability to manage your emotions and behaviors, and it is considered to be foundational to school readiness. In their new book, Self-Regulated Learning for Academic Success (ASCD, 2013), Carrie Germeroth and Crystal Day-Hess explain that when a student has difficulty with self-regulation, it often "translates into poor work habits, trouble concentrating, low motivation, and behavioral problems."

Fortunately, self-regulation can be modeled and taught. Germeroth and Day-Hess believe that one way teachers can support self-regulation is by providing appropriate praise and feedback. They offer the following advice, which is targeted to specific grade levels but can be applied across the continuum:

Praise the Effort Invested (PreK to Kindergarten)

When we praise students by saying, "You did so well on that assignment! You must be really smart!" we set them up to feel "stupid" any time they don't do well-or to avoid challenge for fear that failure will mean they're no longer "smart."

By contrast, praise for effort focuses students on the benefits of hard work. When a child learns to associate task outcomes with the effort invested, he's more likely to attribute failure to a lack of effort and to adopt new strategies and work harder until he succeeds.

Provide sincere praise. Your praise should include specific information about what the student did well, and you should give it only when warranted.

Attribute performance to factors within the students' control. When students succeed, be sure to call out something they did to achieve the positive outcome-their effort, for example, or the strategies they used. Avoid linking success to intelligence or luck.

Promote autonomy. Make sure your students have the tools necessary to do each task, and assure them that you will help them learn what they need to complete the task on their own.

Eliminate activities or practices that compare students with one another. Comparisons can not only lower the self-esteem of anyone who is not a "top" student, but also create a competitive learning environment where outcomes seem more important than the learning process.

Set attainable standards and expectations. Provide the appropriate levels of challenge and support, so that students have opportunities to experience success.

Empower Students to Track Their Own Progress (Elementary)

Collecting, selecting, organizing, and reflecting on a portfolio of work actively engages students in self-regulated learning. In the early elementary grades, portfolios may include drawings, journal entries, or emergent writing pieces; in upper elementary, the portfolio should include tests or reports.

Provide students with a self-reflection guide. Self-reflection guide questions might include prompts such as "Why is this my best piece?," "What learning does this piece reflect?," or "This was challenging for me because ... " (Bower & Rolheiser, 2000). Students whose verbal skills may impede the reflection process can draw and label pictures.

Focus Feedback on Processes, Not Outcomes (Middle and High School)

Verbal and written feedback should focus students on what they can do to improve their work and give them a sense of control over their academic success (Zumbrunn et al., 2011).

Monitor students' use of learning strategies and provide specific feedback. It's not enough to help students learn and know when to use various learning strategies; you must also teach them to monitor the success of the strategies and make changes next time, if necessary.

Source: Adapted from Self-Regulated Learning for Academic Success, by C. Germeroth and C. Day-Hess, 2013, Alexandria, VA: ASCD. © 2013 by ASCD.

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Targeting Feedback to Support Self-Regulation

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December 2013 | Volume 55 | Number 12 Pages 3-3 Sarah McKibben If you've flipped to an episode of Sesame Street lately, you might have noticed something strange happening to Cookie Monster. The frenetic furry beast is actually-gasp-trying to tame his cookie-fueled impulses.

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Ed Leadership Issue
December 1, 2020 | Volume 78 | Number 4

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ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

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School Districts' Most Pressing Social-Emotional Learning Needs - Market Brief

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School Districts' Most Pressing Social-Emotional Learning Needs - Market Brief

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District leaders quickly came to recognize the need to address students' myriad social-emotional learning challenges during the chaos of the COVID era, almost from the time in-person classes were halted in the spring.

A newly published EdWeek Market Brief special report sheds light on the specific social-emotional learning needs districts face during the ongoing upheaval-and the help they want from the private sector.

The report includes a nationally representative survey of 700 district administrators and school principals. One of the questions put to them was: "In which areas do you believe you will need support from SEL programs/product providers as your school district moves to reopen?"

The biggest district needs squarely reflect the COVID era: 60 percent of those surveyed said that creating a positive learning environment amid social-distancing is a priority.

The second-largest number of district and school officials, 57 percent, said easing the concerns of parents and families is a top need.

That finding also reinforces the needs of the moment. Because many school districts have been forced or chosen to conduct learning remotely, parents have become de-facto at-home teachers' aides, shadowing their children during lessons and trying to keep them focused.

The nationally representative survey was conducted in July. The full report is available to EdWeek Market Brief members.

Other areas where district and school leaders said they'd needed SEL support during reopening are supporting students with mental health challenges (55 percent), creating safe opportunities for students to interact with each other (53 percent), and engaging students amid a reliance on online learning (51 percent).

The special report delves into a variety of other questions about the expectations that districts are setting for the SEL programs and products offered by companies:

What are thespecific qualities and features that district and school leaders want delivered within SEL products and programs?

To what extent are districts purchasing SEL resources developed by external vendors, as opposed to developing those resources in-house?

How much are districts anticipating spending on SEL over the next year-and what are the key sources of funding they're tapping to do so?

How are districts conducting up-front assessments of students' social-emotional learning needs?

Which district and school decision-makers have the greatest influence on buying SEL products and services?

What kinds of professional development, and PD delivery methods, are most needed by teachers?

Where do K-12 officials believe SEL should be embedded in the curriculum, and where are they doing it now?

Ryan Voegtlin, the director of student services in the Anne Arundel school district in Maryland, who spoke to EdWeek Market Brief for the report, said that the pandemic has lent new urgency to finding creative and targeted ways to help students.

Students and teachers feel squeezed not only by the pressures heaped on them by COVID, but by the social unrest felt in communities across the country.

"Our question has been, how do we transition them back into schools and make them feel safe?," Voegtlin said. "How do you create a positive learning environment when everyone's wearing masks and social distancing?"

EdWeek Market Brief will be delving into social-emotional learning topics during a panel at next month's EdWeek Market Brief Summit, a virtual event that will feature district officials, business leaders, and policy experts from across the country.

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School Districts' Most Pressing Social-Emotional Learning Needs - Market Brief

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District leaders quickly came to recognize the need to address students' myriad social-emotional learning challenges during the chaos of the COVID era, almost from the time in-person classes were halted in the spring. A newly published EdWeek Market Brief special report sheds light on the specific social-emotional learning needs districts face during the ongoing upheaval-and the help they want from the private sector.

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Connecting Social and Emotional Learning to Academic Outcomes | Edutopia

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

Skills that students develop in social and emotional learning-empathy, collaboration, and so on-are closely connected to standards in many academic subjects.

Allison Shelley / The Verbatim Agency for American Education

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is sometimes perceived as being just one more thing heaped on educators' plates, but it's truly valuable-in small, frequent doses, it helps bring about many valued outcomes.

Let's take a look at four subjects-visual and performing arts, social studies, health, and English language arts-to see how SEL skills are connected to desired outcomes in these subjects.

Visual and Performing Arts (VPA)

The standards for VPA define four artistic processes: creating; performing, presenting, and producing; responding; and connecting. As students create art, they need to understand their own feelings, and be organized enough to engage in the creative process. Presentation requires students to consider the point of view of potential audiences, and have the emotional control and resilience to deal with high-pressure situations and with setbacks. Responding and connecting involve accepting feedback constructively, as well as being able to give insightful feedback to others in constructive ways. These are all SEL skills that are implicit in VPA success.

Instructional implications: Help students understand the process of how the art they are studying was created. What were the artists' purposes? What was their context? Who supported them? What challenges did they encounter? How did they respond? Encourage students to brainstorm different approaches before starting projects. Have them consider how different artists might approach the same project. Teach them to analyze what it is about artistic creations that elicits specific emotions in them, as well as to look at the flow of emotions in such things as musical compositions, theater, dance works, and the like.

Social Studies

The National Council for the Social Studies notes that "the primary purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world." Understanding the public good and working toward collaborative solutions requires perspective taking and empathy; making informed and reasoned decisions in a civic context requires students to have systematic instruction in decision-making strategies that include constructive and persistent responses to obstacles.

Civic involvement will take place in groups and requires skills in working with others. Without sound SEL competencies, the emotional and intellectual challenges of civic engagement are far more likely to be frustrating than attractive. Those who wish to help students have constructive engagement with peers now and throughout their adult lives should focus strongly and intentionally on students' SEL skills.

Instructional implications: Reaching the goals of social studies requires numerous SEL competencies that can be built into daily instruction: listening to others' opinions while managing one's emotions; respectful debate that includes multiple perspectives; empathic understanding of social issues; and group participation skills for working on committees and meaningful involvement in student government.

Health

We're all born with certain attributes that relate to our health and in life situations that give us access to more or fewer health resources. Yet regardless of the extent to which those attributes and situations provide challenge or potential, health is related to choices that people make. These decisions occur at multiple levels, such as societal decisions about health insurance, pricing of prescription drugs, and availability of care; family choices about how to use resources for nutritious food or rent or heat; and individual choices about smoking and use of drugs or alcohol, exercise, sleep, and eating habits. It's also important to know how advertising, media, and peer pressure influence health decisions. Having strong SEL competencies in ethical decision-making and problem-solving skills and knowing our own feelings are vital for optimizing health, and students gain from learning to make good choices with regard to all aspects of their health.

Instructional implications: Teach students a consistent strategy across all health issues that gets them in the habit of thinking about consequences of actions to themselves and others, short term and long term. It's also essential for students to learn how to manage emotions of uncertainty and to delay gratification. SEL programs teaching explicit problem-solving strategies and emotion regulation will be synergistic with health instruction.

English Language Arts

The ELA Common Core State Standards ask students to read fiction and also nonfiction texts that provide facts and background knowledge in areas such as science and social studies. Students should be challenged and asked questions that push them to refer back to what they've read. This stresses critical thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills that are required for success in college, career, and life.

In discussing new research on text complexity and its practical implications, the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association note: "While the complexity of reading demands for college, career, and citizenship have held steady or risen over the past half century, the complexity of texts students are exposed to has steadily decreased in that same interval." The solution: "increasing the complexity of texts students read as a key element in improving reading comprehension."

The report does not acknowledge the emotional consequences of students suddenly being confronted with complex texts. Teachers can help by teaching students to manage emotions of frustration and anxiety and to problem-solve how to find meaning among strings of words that initially make little or no sense.

Instructional implications: SEL abilities are implicit in the problem-solving process of decoding and extracting meaning from text, as well as mastering the emotional challenges of sticking with words and passages one does not understand, rather than giving up or being satisfied with a superficial grasp of material. Instead of saying a student is a poor reader, or doesn't understand science or math, observe more carefully how the student interacts with text. It will often be SEL skills that need to be strengthened so that reading comprehension, especially with complex texts, can improve.

The same analyses can be applied to any other subject area, from PE to math to vocational education topics. Educational standards often implicitly assume that students have SEL competencies, leading to misattribution of achievement difficulties as subject area deficiencies. While the latter exist, academic improvement across the curriculum would be aided vastly by systematic instruction in SEL.

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Skills that students develop in social and emotional learning-empathy, collaboration, and so on-are closely connected to standards in many academic subjects. Allison Shelley / The Verbatim Agency for American Education Social and emotional learning (SEL) is sometimes perceived as being just one more thing heaped on educators' plates, but it's truly valuable-in small, frequent doses, it helps bring about many valued outcomes.

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Supporting Learning and Well-Being During the Coronavirus Crisis | Greater Good In Education

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Supporting Learning and Well-Being During the Coronavirus Crisis | Greater Good In Education

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We send our heartfelt support to you and your loved ones-including your students-during this extraordinary moment in time.

It's no surprise that teachers across the globe are rising to the occasion and educating their students, whether connecting online, sharing activity packets, recording read-alouds, or inventing other creative teaching methods-while taking care of their own loved ones and trying to stay healthy.

Because that's what teachers do-and we acknowledge you with gratitude and awe.

In support of your efforts, we have compiled Greater Good in Education practices and other resources that offer ways to address student and adult anxiety in this time of uncertainty, and that cultivate our human connection through kindness, compassion, and other prosocial qualities. If there is something you need or that you think will benefit others, please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

As educators we know that classrooms in the future may look back at this time and wonder what it was like to live through this. May the memories brought forward be filled with those moments where we took care of each other-and may those moments become not just memories, but our new reality.

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Supporting Learning and Well-Being During the Coronavirus Crisis | Greater Good In Education

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We send our heartfelt support to you and your loved ones-including your students-during this extraordinary moment in time. It's no surprise that teachers across the globe are rising to the occasion and educating their students, whether connecting online, sharing activity packets, recording read-alouds, or inventing other creative teaching methods-while taking care of their own loved ones and trying to stay healthy.

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Articles by Vicki Zakrzewski | HuffPost, Greater Good: The Science of The Meaningful Life Journalist | Muck Rack

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Articles by Vicki Zakrzewski | HuffPost, Greater Good: The Science of The Meaningful Life Journalist | Muck Rack

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greatergood.berkeley.edu - As we emerge from this unprecedented year in education, perhaps our most salient learning will be the need to place the social and emotional well-being of our students and teachers at the center of education. But we shouldn't have to wait until the next crisis to learn how to do this. We need to proactively address the inequities in our schools and the burnout educators are facing. And we can do that not only in today's classrooms, but in the way we educate the teachers of tomorrow.

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greatergood.berkeley.edu - As we emerge from this unprecedented year in education, perhaps our most salient learning will be the need to place the social and emotional well-being of our students and teachers at the center of education. But we shouldn't have to wait until the next crisis to learn how to do this.

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Thanksgiving is the perfect holiday to help students cultivate an "attitude of gratitude." And what's more, research shows that it's really good for both them and their teachers!

Among other benefits, gratitude helps kids feel better about school and makes educators feel less emotionally exhausted.

Need some ideas on how to bring gratitude into the classroom? Here are some easy-to-implement activities, many of which can be adapted to fit any grade level.

Classroom Gratitude Book. Create a gratitude book to send home with a different child each week. Ask each student's family to add a page of pictures and descriptions of what they're grateful for. At the end of the year, be sure to celebrate your completed classroom gratitude book!

Gratitude Photos. Have each student write what they are thankful for on a large piece of paper and then take a picture of the child holding up their paper. Frame the photo and send it home as a holiday gift.

Gratitude Collage or Bulletin Board. Have children cut out pictures of things they're grateful for and then use the pictures to create their own collage or to decorate a classroom gratitude bulletin board.

Gratitude Paper Chain. Have children write what they're thankful for on strips of paper and use the strips to make a gratitude chain to hang up in the classroom.

Gratitude Pairs. Hold a "Special Friends Day" one or two days before Thanksgiving. Ask each student to invite a special person to class for a 45-minute period, such as a grandparent, nanny, neighbor, parent from another classroom, or family friend. Have each pair write and/or draw something they're thankful for and post it on a bulletin board. Note: Scheduling this activity close to the holiday increases the likelihood of out-of-towners being able to attend.

Gratitude Spies. Play the "Spying for Gratitude" game. At the beginning of the day, have each child choose the name of another student out of a hat without revealing the name. Each student spends the day "spying" on their chosen person and then shares one thing that they are grateful for about that person during an end-of-the-day circle.

Gratitude Quilt. Give each child a 5"x5" blank piece of paper on which to draw something they are thankful for. Mount each square on a 6"x6" colored piece of paper and then piece the squares together to create a classroom gratitude quilt.

Gratitude Graph. Have each child write one thing that they are grateful for on a sticky note and then plot it on a classroom gratitude graph. Categories might include people, things, places, actions, animals, etc.

Gratitude Circle. Begin or end the day sitting in a circle with each person sharing one thing that they are grateful for and why. Note: Younger students will need a lot of modeling to explain why they're grateful for something.

Gratitude Journals. Have each student create a gratitude journal or decorate the cover of a pre-made one. Once a week, have students write three things they're grateful for and why. Be sure to limit this activity to once a week, otherwise, according to research, the activity loses its impact.

Gratitude Surprise Sticky Notes. Give each student one or more sticky notes to write something they're grateful for about another person in the school community. Then have the students "deliver" the sticky notes by placing them where the person will see it, e.g., a locker, a phone, a cleaning cart.

Gratitude Letters for the Community. Write letters of gratitude and deliver them to people in the greater school community, e.g., janitor, food staff, school administration. Expand this exercise to include the local community, such as police, fire station, bank, grocery store, hospital, electricians, etc.

Gratitude Quotes. Give students their own gratitude quote (here's a great list of quotes) and have them reflect upon and write about what their quote means to them.

Gratitude Discussions. Use gratitude researchers Jeffrey Froh and Giacomo Bono's gratitude curriculum to deepen students' understanding of gratitude. Have students think of something they're grateful for and then re-frame it as a gift. Then ask students to 1) notice that someone saw they had a need and acted upon it; 2) appreciate the cost incurred by the person extending the gift; and 3) recognize the personal value of the gift they received.

Gratitude Research and Action. Share and discuss with your students the research that shows the tremendous benefits of practicing gratitude. Here's a list of findings from the Greater Good gratitude webpage. Ask students to come up with ways they might incorporate more gratitude into their lives. After hearing about the research on gratitude from their teacher, one group of 8th graders from a high-needs school took it upon themselves to form "The Breakfast Club"-a secret club dedicated to performing kind acts for the school staff. After several months of clandestinely delivering Starbucks coffees (donated by Starbucks), pizzas, and other fun treats, the Breakfast Club members revealed their identities at a school assembly-and were hailed with loud roars and cheers!

Many thanks to Head-of-School Steve de Beer and all the teachers at Friends' School in Boulder, Colorado, and social-emotional learning expert Kim Schonert-Reichl at the University of British Columbia for sharing their ideas with me!

Have a favorite gratitude classroom activity you'd like to share? Please leave a comment below or on the Greater Good Facebook page.

Wishing everyone a gratitude- and joy-filled Thanksgiving!

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Looking for some ways to bring gratitude into the classroom this Thanksgiving season? Here are some ideas to get you started.

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When I was a teacher, I met each week with my grade-level cohort of educators to share ideas, plan curriculum units, and solve problems. At least that's what we were supposed to do.

Because of some long-held grudge, two of the teachers in the group sat there shooting daggers at each other-which made the weekly meetings very uncomfortable and not as productive as they should have been. It made me think that these teachers needed the school's adopted social-emotional learning (SEL) program more than the kids.

However, before learning to regulate emotions and create positive relationships to prevent future conflict, as many SEL programs teach, my colleagues needed to start with the past. They needed to start with forgiveness. Unfortunately, pointing fingers, not forgiveness, was the norm in our school. It didn't even cross their minds to try forgiving each other.

The benefits of forgiveness at the individual level have been well-documented by research. Forgiving wrongdoings reduces our anxiety, depression, stress, and anger levels, and increases our energy, optimism, and compassion. At the organizational level, forgiveness improves employee productivity and retention and also increases morale and trust among workers.

But researchers have also found that many people-particularly in organizations, as opposed to families or couples-either don't know how to forgive or believe that forgiveness doesn't belong in the workplace. That's why leaders need to both model forgiveness and make it an essential part of the organizational culture. In other words, they need to create a "forgiveness climate."

What is a forgiving organizational climate?

Scientists who study forgiveness in organizations point out that conflict is inevitable in the workplace. Working closely with people on a daily basis gives us many opportunities to hurt or offend another person-whether we mean to or not. And yet rather than deal with the hurts directly, we sometimes choose to avoid the person, become defensive, or, as what often happened at my school, start backstabbing each other.

But it doesn't have to be that way. A "forgiving climate" is defined as "the shared perception that empathic, benevolent responses to conflict from victims and offenders are rewarded, supported, and expected."

In other words, employees and managers are expected to deal with transgressions with understanding, kindness, and forgiveness regardless if they were victims or offenders. And the rest of the organization supports and rewards them for doing so.

At the individual level, working in a forgiving climate can lead to greater creativity, peace of mind, and self-assurance. Relationships with co-workers and managers become collaborative, respectful, and trusting. Teamwork generates a sense of fun and belonging and team members eagerly learn from one another. The organization as a whole focuses on service and meaningful work. Values are put into action.

To me, working in a school climate like that sounds like heaven on earth and makes me very willing to learn to forgive and be forgiven. But for many people, forgiveness can seem weak or scary. Leaders may think that they will lose control or that forgiving a behavior means that it will happen again.

However, researchers who study forgiveness are quick to point out that forgiveness is anything but weak. Instead it takes tremendous discipline and strength, often because it requires us to let go of long-held beliefs and behaviors. Never an easy thing to do.

Also, forgiving does not mean excusing, condoning, minimizing, denying, or forgetting the behavior. Even though they choose to forgive, leaders may still need to take action to deal with the behavior and its consequences.

For school leaders who would like to build a forgiving school climate, here are some research-based suggestions:

1. Make care a priority. Creating a caring school community is good for everyone-and makes forgiveness more likely. A study of four public school districts found that a caring school climate not only made the school staff more likely to see their colleagues as forgiving, it also made them more willing to forgive each other.

And showing that you are a caring leader who apologizes for his or her mistakes will make your staff more likely to forgive you when you do mess up. Researchers found that employees who viewed their supervisor as caring were more likely to see their boss' apology as sincere, and, as a result, forgive him or her.

Show your school staff that you care about them by getting to know them as individuals. Make time to talk informally and regularly express gratitude. For more ideas on how to create a caring school culture, see "Do We Care for Our Teachers?"

2. Develop your own capacity for forgiveness and then model it as a leader. Even though researchers suggest that forgiveness is intrinsic to humans, for many of us, forgiving another person or even ourselves can still be a very long and difficult process. That's okay. Researchers also say that forgiveness is a skill that can be learned.

One of the best ways to help your school staff learn to forgive is to model it yourself. Researchers suggest that when people observe forgiveness-in-action, they get a boost of positive emotions. This leads to stronger relationships and fosters prosocial behavior, including forgiveness. If you'd like to know more about the forgiveness process, I highly recommend checking out Fred Luskin's nine steps to forgiveness.

3. Treat school staff fairly. In other words, do things like give credit where it's due, don't give all the tough kids to the new teacher, and disperse materials and resources evenly. One study found that when an unfair incident occurred in an organization that employees considered to be fair, those workers whose natural tendency was to focus on others easily forgave. And those employees who were more self-centered were less likely to consider revenge.

If you're unsure whether the school staff considers the school to be a fair place to work, ask them and then take definitive steps to make changes as needed. For more ideas along these lines, see "How to Create a Positive School Climate."

A forgiving school culture may take time to build, but it will pay dividends in the long run. Rather than sitting in a meeting stewing, teachers will appreciate the strengths that they and others have to offer. They'll also focus more on the task in front of them and the possibilities that may ensue.

In other words, the past becomes for them a distant memory.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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When I was a teacher, I met each week with my grade-level cohort of educators to share ideas, plan curriculum units, and solve problems. At least that's what we were supposed to do. Because of some long-held grudge, two of the teachers in the group sat there shooting daggers at each other-which made the weekly meetings very uncomfortable and not as productive as they should have been.

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Helping Students Cope with the Pandemic - Educational Leadership

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October 2020 | Volume 78 | Number 2
Trauma-Sensitive Schools Pages 76-77

Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey

How educators respond to children's fears now will influence the long-term effects.

At family gatherings, young adults often tell stories about events from their childhood. If you were an adult during the childhood of a family member now in their 20's, it can be surprising to hear what is memorable for that person and how they perceived events. Your recollection might be very different from what stood out for young adults you know in their earliest years.

We recently talked with friends with young children about how their kids might process the COVID-19 pandemic decades from now. What will their memories be about fear, masks, and the loss of loved ones?

Trauma That's Nearly Universal

Much is known about the deleterious effects of trauma on the learning lives of children and youth. The adverse childhood experience scale is a well-known instrument for assessing students placed at risk because of acute or chronic traumatic events, such as being the victim of abuse, witnessing domestic abuse in the home, and losing a caregiver. These events are specific to an individual. But educators must now speculate about the universal trauma of a pandemic, which has touched the lives of every person on the planet.

The long-term effects of this crisis won't be known for years. However, educators have students in front of us now who may be experiencing pandemic-induced trauma. We believe that to some extent, the stories these young people tell as adults about living through the COVID-19 pandemic will be influenced by how we respond now.

The video portion of this column is divided into two parts and shows two teachers working with their students to proactively address the trauma of the pandemic. The first video portrays a teacher using the approach of acknowledging fear and reframing kids' concerns in honest ways. The second shows a high school teacher modeling how to manage anxiety through calming activities.

Acknowledging and Reframing Fears

Children rely on adults as a barometer to measure their responses to events. A caregiver who is frightened of dogs and reacts with fear upon the sight of them signals to the young child present that she should be afraid of dogs, too. Children learn how to regulate their emotions by watching how others, especially those they trust, behave. Teachers are caregivers, too. Our emotions telegraph to students how they should feel. For example, a teacher who regularly shies away from mathematics ("I'm not a math person") alerts some students to the possibility that they aren't "math people" either.

A fear of dogs or math may be irrational. But there is much to be legitimately fearful of when it comes to a health pandemic. Our students have been exposed to unknown doses of frightening news stories and social media posts; they have been exposed to family discussions about the economic, physical, and psychological toll of the pandemic. Educators have been subjected to such thorny discussions, too, and we don't have the answers to all students' questions, as much as we would like to. But our classrooms, whether face-to-face or at a distance, should be a safe space for children to ask questions and express their fears.

Daily emotional check-ins are essential right now and need to be at the forefront of our teaching practices. When students can count on a time each day when they can talk about their feelings, it allows them to bracket their emotions. It gives them a rest from simmering anxieties. Daily emotional check-ins should include acknowledgement of your feelings, too. Don't unburden yourself on your students-that isn't healthy for you or them. But take these opportunities to reframe their experiences and yours. During a discussion about physical distancing, a teacher of young children might say, "I miss being able to go to a friend's house to visit. Right now, we don't do that because we care for each other, and I want my friend to be safe. I'm glad I get to talk to her on the phone every day."

A teacher of older students might say, "You have many people in your lives, including me, who care about you, your safety, and your feelings. There's a difference between being careful and being afraid. I want you to be careful. But if you're feeling afraid, please talk with me about how you're feeling."

PreK educator Joe Marsella teaches 3- and 4-year-olds (with and without disabilities) at Dingeman Elementary in San Diego. He understands that wearing a face mask can be a fear-inducing prospect for some children, so he wants to acknowledge and normalize the experience. In the first part of the video, Mr. Marsella introduces a puppet who explains why she is wearing a mask. He introduced this mask-wearing puppet, Mrs. Bixby, when he converted to distance learning with his students last spring, and he's planning to continue to use the puppet to reassure his preschoolers this school year.

Model Calming Activities

Students enter virtual and physical classrooms with thoughts about things other than what they'll be learning. Those experiencing anxiety and distress are especially vulnerable to intrusive thoughts. It's safe to assume that most students are currently experiencing anxiety or interfering thoughts; to combat this psychic noise, we can teach techniques that center their attention.

Depending on students' age level, these routines might involve consideration of things to be grateful for (making gratitude lists) or beginning the class with an insightful, positive quote accompanied by a deep breathing exercise. Another technique is to teach students how to do a mental body scan, a visualization technique sometimes used to notice and release any tensions a person feels by focusing attention on each part of the body. In the second part of the accompanying video, Health Sciences High School English teacher Elleisha Elzien guides her students in this technique at the beginning of a virtual class meeting to help them mentally set aside worries-or reduce the size of any worries.

As many others who have led people in a calming technique like this can testify, the benefit goes both ways. Teachers relax at the same time as their students.

Ready for This

There's no way to predict with certainty what our students will recall and retell, 20 years from now, about these months when the pandemic is rearranging our lives. But we're confident that their teachers will figure into some of those stories. Students look to us for guidance about academic content, but also about dealing with life's challenges. This is a big one, to be sure. But we're up to the challenge.

Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey are professors in the Department of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and teacher leaders at Health Sciences High and Middle College. They are ASCD authors, most recently of All Learning Is Social and Emotional (ASCD, 2019), and their work inspired ASCD's FIT Teaching® program.

KEYWORDS

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Helping Students Cope with the Pandemic - Educational Leadership

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October 2020 | Volume 78 | Number 2 Trauma-Sensitive Schools Pages 76-77 Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey How educators respond to children's fears now will influence the long-term effects. At family gatherings, young adults often tell stories about events from their childhood.

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What Are Habits of Mind? – The Institute for Habits of Mind

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What Are Habits of Mind? – The Institute for Habits of Mind

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What Are Habits of Mind? - The Institute for Habits of Mind

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For Teachers Ever find yourself doubting whether you are creative? Many people assume that creativity is a rare commodity that someone is either born with or not and that it is reserved for the elite among us: artists, writers, and composers, or the likes of Miles Davis, Steve Jobs, or Frida Kahlo.

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Establishing a three-way relationship in service of deeper learning - ASCD Inservice

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Establishing a three-way relationship in service of deeper learning - ASCD Inservice

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By Bena Kallick and Giselle O. Martin-Kniep
" I, Thou, and It - a three-way relationship in which "I and Thou" are the people (often a teacher and child, though not always) and "It" is the content that compels both."

- David Hawkins, The Informed Vision, 2003

Complexity and uncertainty are here to stay. In the midst of a pandemic, global climate disruptions and raging wildfires, an upcoming presidential election, and significant social unrest as protests continue for racial justice, we recognize the importance of diving beneath the surface of our classroom content. In our current climate, fact can blur with fiction, science can blur with wishes, and journalism can blur with persuasive arguments. Deeper learning insists that we develop the critical and creative skills that help us to search for what is true, listen to one another with understanding and empathy, and unpack problems when confronted by complex and ambiguous situations.

Exposure to challenging content by itself does not ensure deeper learning. Deeper learning requires a psychologically safe environment that is open to diverse perspectives and respectful of interdependent thinking. We need classroom environments that help students to manage the cognitive dissonance stemming from content that challenges their assumptions and beliefs.

Based on the work that we have been doing with teachers over many years, we have learned that meaningful relationships grounded in deeper learning use three components: 1) a trusting learning environment; 2) assessment interactions that enable students to attend to themselves as unique learners; and 3) content integrity.

Develop trust so the learner feels a sense of safety and credibility.

Trusting relationships among all people in the learning community are key to developing psychological safety. These relationships include structured processes for students to exercise voice and choice individually and when working with others. Trust and agency develop gradually through practice and with opportunities for student self-discovery and inquiry around worthy content.
Design a whole-class survey to know the students and help them know each other.
A positive class culture is one in which students know themselves as well as others better. When students have access to the results of the survey, they can think intentionally about what supports them and their peers as learners, what they want to read or learn, how they want to structure their studying, and how they can process and demonstrate their learning. They can build connections between their lives, academic interests, and aspirations for their future. Ultimately, this leads teachers to group and regroup students based on different responses.
Some academically oriented questions might be:

What are you looking forward to learning this year?

What is the easiest part about school for you? What is the hardest part?

What are some of your preferred choices for how, where, and when you like to study?

When you are having a tough time, what do you usually do?

When you envision leaving this class at the end of the year, what are 3-4 goals you hope to achieve?

Some personally oriented questions might be:

What name do you want people to call you?

Who would you like me to call when I have good news about you to share?

What are you good at outside of school? What are some of your interests?

What would you like your friends to say about you?

What would you like me to know about you?

If you could study anything of your choice, what do you want to know more about?

Introduce yourself in ways that invite students to share who they are.
Amanda Christian, a high school geometry teacher we interviewed at Humble ISD in Texas, said she used flip grid to introduce herself and model how she wanted her students to introduce themselves. She talked about some of her experience during the isolation at home: her fears, her discoveries, what she found time to do that she had not done. She described what she loves about geometry and why she wanted to teach the subject. Finally, she talked about some of her expectations for the year. She then asked each student in her class to introduce themselves to her and to one another. This set the stage for a learning environment that promised to be thoughtful, sensitive, personal, and academically challenging.

2. Ensure that students own assessment for the purpose of learning.

Tap into what they already know.

Because every student arrives at a learning experience with a unique array of background knowledge, understandings, biases, and attitudes, students can benefit from diagnostic or baseline assessments that help them uncover what they know and can do. These diagnostics can be as simple as one or two questions, short quizzes, problems that resemble the problems students are expected to solve, or graphic organizers that ask students to identify what they know and what they want know about a subject. Students can use their own diagnostic data to recognize what they know, set goals, and begin to document their learning journey.
Teach students to self-monitor and adjust.
Formative assessment is a practice that is especially impactful when students are at the helm and can assess their understanding and skill attainment to determine their progress and what they need to improve. Molly Fuller, a 2nd grade teacher in Penfield Public Schools in New York, uses a learning targets wheel for her students to target their rate, accuracy, punctuation, and expression of their sentence fluency. In this wheel, the main target (goal) is in the middle and the subgoals-rate, accuracy, punctuation, and expression-are in the middle. Students have a copy of the wheel and color the pie piece on their wheel when they can provide evidence that they have met the learning target.
Use assessments that promote self-understanding and student choice.

Use explicit criteria to promote self-assessment and improvement.
Offering options for how to demonstrate learning promotes agency. When those choices include deciding on a problem to investigate or an author to study, students become more invested in their learning (Martin-Kniep and Picone-Zocchia, 2009). Stephen Johnson, a 9th grade science teacher in West Irondequoit School District in New York, encourages students to use mind maps to make sense of what they are learning. As a culminating assessment, students produce a map to illustrate their understanding and make connections to previously learned concepts. The mind maps look as different as each student's thinking might be.

Teachers can increase student agency and success when they ensure that students understand what is expected from them and have the information they need to monitor and improve their progress. Strategies for doing this include inviting students to assess their own and each other's work against criteria they have co-developed, asking students to translate the standards into their works, and helping them annotate and sort work against different levels of quality.

Scott Wright, a 6th grade teacher in North Syracuse Central School District, developed a self-assessment checklist for the literacy standards. He asks the students to use each standard as a goal statement and score themselves on how well they are doing. He includes the Habits of Mind as an integral piece of the responses.

For example, the standard might be: Find and use text evidence to support (write/talk/think) analysis of what the text says directly as well as inferences ("So What," "Now What") you can make from the text.

Students can score and show evidence for these "I can" statements:

I can collect data and then reflect on my thinking.

I can think and communicate with clarity and precision by using ...

3. Maintain content integrity.

Content integrity begins with teachers assuming that they have some agency and responsibility over the decisions about what students should learn. That agency is evident when they ask themselves to reflect on what they believe are the most important outcomes that students should attain and use that reflection to carefully review the content and other standards they will include in their curriculum design. While knowledge continues to accrue every day, some knowledge, skills, and dispositions are more essential than others.

Content integrity is dependent on:

Establishing clear and specific purposes for learning

Stimulating student curiosity and wondering about larger issues and questions that will matter to the students

Engaging students in addressing real world problems

Explicitly teaching students processes to meet the challenges of life beyond school

References
Although teachers may have a required set of standards and curriculum, they need to focus on larger outcomes that will prepare students with the essential skills for problem-solving, innovating, and designing possibilities that address future challenges (McTighe 2019). The clarity that stems from a commitment to such outcomes promotes students' capacity to take a critical and discerning stance when confronted with complex issues that require distinguishing fact from opinion or separating emotional wishes from science.

Costa, A. & Kallick, B. (2008). Learning and leading with habits of mind. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Martin-Kniep, G. O., & Picone-Zocchia, J. (2009). Changing the way you teach, improving the way students learn. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
About the authors
McTighe, J. and Curtis, G. (2019). Leading modern learning, 2nd. ed. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Bena Kallick (@benakallick) is the co-director of the Institute for Habits of Mind and program director for Eduplanet21, a company dedicated to online professional learning and curriculum development based on the Understanding by Design framework.

Giselle O. Martin-Kniep (@GiselleLCI) is the president of Learner-Centered Initiatives and the founder of Communities for Learning: Leading Lasting Change, two different organizations that promote sustained school improvement.

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Establishing a three-way relationship in service of deeper learning - ASCD Inservice

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By Bena Kallick and Giselle O. Martin-Kniep " I, Thou, and It - a three-way relationship in which "I and Thou" are the people (often a teacher and child, though not always) and "It" is the content that compels both." - David Hawkins, The Informed Vision, 2003 Complexity and uncertainty are here to stay.

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Four strategies for supporting student leadership in a healthy re-opening - ASCD Inservice

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Four strategies for supporting student leadership in a healthy re-opening - ASCD Inservice

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By Jill Vialet
People often assume that play is the opposite of work, that it takes away from learning, and that it creates an environment that is lacking the "seriousness" that redressing academic inequities demands. The Playworks School Re-Opening Workbook, which is available for free, aims to correct these misunderstandings. Play in school can help create a safe, empowering environment for every kid, whether school is taking place in person, online, or both.

Centering play in instruction - and in our plans for reopening - presents an opportunity to cultivate greater student agency. This moment may feel too risky to rely on a more decentralized approach for making decisions, but allowing students to participate in the translation of Covid-19 constraints into new rules, and empowering them to be a part of determining how these rules will be supported, represents a singular opportunity to create a learning environment that is designed to succeed.
Map the school
Mapping space to play is going to be even more critical as schools approach physical distancing recommendations this year. As you are thinking about the return to school, we suggest that you embark on a pretty ambitious mapping exercise, including indoors, outdoors, and any remote space that you may use. Including students in the mapping process is particularly important because it will help you to understand how the "counter-spaces" - hallways, the schoolyard, the cafeteria, bathrooms, etc. contribute to the student experience. These are areas where students typically have more autonomy, and the regulations you create for them may have a disproportionate impact on how students feel at school.

Once you are in-person, asking students to measure the space using their own bodies as opposed to a measuring tape creates an excellent way to introduce different math and problem-solving skills. Having students work in small groups - working collaboratively while observing physical distancing requirements - can provide a chance for them to practice with the new rules while engaged in a project that invites them to be a part of solving challenges that these requirements present.

It's also worth considering the parent/family experience of your space. If other adults are not being allowed onto the school grounds, including them in the mapping exercise - if only as an audience for a student-led Zoom presentation - can serve to create a sense of belonging despite the physical limitations.
Assumption storming
Assumption storming is a design technique that is essentially a brainstorm session in which you list out the assumptions for your project. It represents an important opportunity to consider all the ways your school has historically operated - all the assumptions about how school works - and to consider how some previously non-negotiables might now be reconsidered.

One opportunity for sparking creativity around Covid-19 compliance might include first having your students list out all the assumptions they have around complying with the physical distancing requirements and then "flipping" them - stating the opposite as an assumption. For example, assumptions might include "The youngest students are incapable of staying 6 feet apart," "Teachers are going to have to spend a significant amount of time ensuring compliance with the social distancing rules," and "Students aren't going to want to wear masks." Flipped, the assumptions are "The youngest students are going to be the best at social distancing," "Teachers won't be the primary people ensuring compliance with the social distancing rules," and "Students are going to be excited to wear masks." While the initial "flipping" doesn't get directly to the heart of how these changes might occur, it does create an important mindset shift that can help with generating innovative solutions, while providing a foundation for students to share how they are feeling including what worries them.
Rituals
Rituals are a form of play that enable teams to get in sync emotionally and mentally. Just as physically mapping the space allows for a better understanding of space as a design lever, rituals allow for the mapping of time, intentionally creating experiences that help you achieve your goals.

Many schools already have rituals that they don't think of as rituals - from setting up classrooms before school starts to morning circles. This year represents an important opportunity to make some conscious decisions about how you are going to set up, meet and adapt to change. Having students lead class rituals, and design new ones especially if you are operating remotely or in a hybrid structure, represents an important opportunity to promote greater understanding.

Given the greater probability of students being exposed to trauma in this moment, rituals represent an important chance to create opportunities for choice and voice that can help to mitigate the associated behavior challenges.
Create a Classroom Charter
At the heart of this whole conversation is the question of how we translate what is required in this moment into rules. One of the things that has been made abundantly clear in all our years of running Playworks is the importance of how things feel. Paying attention to that, above all else, has been our single best predictor of success.

To this end, instead of creating typical classroom rules that are teacher-directed, we recommend creating a Classroom Charter. The Charter is an agreement that is based in feelings. The Yale RULER program process starts with the question "How do we want to feel at school?" followed by "How will we make sure to feel these feelings?" Engaging students in this kind of a discussion while simultaneously wrestling with masks, physical distancing, and handwashing, can set students up to feel more engaged with the process, and to have a greater sense of both purpose and understanding.

By reimagining this moment as an opportunity to center student leadership and trying these four strategies, you'll create a safer and more engaging school environment for every kid to play, learn, and grow.
About the author
Jill Vialet is the founder of Playworks and the author of Recess Rules. Follow her on Twitter @jillvialet.

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Four strategies for supporting student leadership in a healthy reopening - ASCD Inservice

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By Jill Vialet People often assume that play is the opposite of work, that it takes away from learning, and that it creates an environment that is lacking the "seriousness" that redressing academic inequities demands. The Playworks School Re-Opening Workbook, which is available for free, aims to correct these misunderstandings.

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Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators | The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

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Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators | The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

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The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

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Proporciona a administradores escolares, maestros, personal de la escuela y padres interesados, información básica sobre el trabajo con niños traumatizados en el sistema escolar. Esta es la versión en español de Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators.

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Provides school administrators, teachers, staff, and concerned parents with basic information about working with traumatized children in the school system.

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New Social-Emotional Learning Templates — Pear Deck

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New Social-Emotional Learning Templates — Pear Deck

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The world of high-stakes testing has, as we know, taken the focus away from the softer skills that we know are so important.

If we sit down and really think about it, what we should be aiming for in our schools is to develop well-rounded, smart kids who have the wherewithal to get along with people and maintain meaningful relationships. (32) Lives of Passion, School of Hope. Rick Posner, PhD

The importance of these personal skills is getting more attention of late, and the numbers on school violence, depression, anxiety, and drug abuse indicate our urgency is warranted.

Helping students gain coping skills, resilience, emotional awareness, and empathy takes regular practice and reinforcement. The good news is, we can practice each day by incorporating questions that promote self-awareness into our regular lessons.

In the Pear Deck Slide Library, you can already find many templates that help students check in with themselves or consider another's point of view. Today, we are releasing a new set of templates focused specifically on Social Emotional Learning. Here are some examples:

Stress Check
In this template, students are asked to check in with themselves and consider their current stress level. This not only alerts the teacher to students who may be unable to focus, but it also helps students learn to assess their anxiety levels. As students become more aware of their emotional state, they can utilize coping strategies to help them navigate stressful times safely.

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New Social-Emotional Learning Templates - Pear Deck

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The world of high-stakes testing has, as we know, taken the focus away from the softer skills that we know are so important. If we sit down and really think about it, what we should be aiming for in our schools is to develop well-rounded, smart kids who have the wherewithal to get along with people and maintain meaningful relationships.

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THE BIOLOGY OF STRESS & THE SCIENCE OF HOPE "...AN ENGROSSING STUDY OF HOW ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES (OR ACES) CAN BE LINKED TO DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR AND MEDICAL DISEASES" -Matt Fagerholm ROGEREBERT.COM THE BIOLOGY OF STRESS & THE SCIENCE OF HOPE

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Trauma-Informed Schools – Resilient Futures

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Trauma-Informed Schools – Resilient Futures

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"Promoting trauma-informed school approaches has the greatest potential to positively impact all students, regardless of trauma history."

- National Association of School Psychologists

The Crisis
Unaddressed trauma is a public health crisis. Experiences of psychological trauma can impede cognitive, social, and emotional development, which can impair youth academic achievement, behavior, interpersonal skills, and general success in school.
The Solution

Implementing a culturally responsive, equity focused trauma-informed approach addresses the whole child in the areas of academic, social, emotional, and physical health, and in so doing improves the ability of the student to increase engagement in school. Trauma-informed approaches also focus on the adults in the school community supporting staff wellness. Every member of the school community benefits from implementing trauma-informed practices.

At Resilient Futures, we think about trauma through the lens of resilience. We define resilience as the capacity to grow and thrive, with strength and tenacity, in the face of trauma and oppression for both individuals and communities. Aligned with these beliefs, our mission is to foster equitable, safe and resilient communities for all youth. Resilient Futures has a proven history of providing training and consultation to school communities. Equity and social justice are central to our approach. We have a "faculty" of current classroom teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and experts in the fields of social justice and equity who are often available to co-facilitate trainings, sharing their lived experiences of implementing trauma-informed practices in their classrooms and schools.

A Whole-School Approach

Trauma-informed approaches are particularly suited to collaboration because they provide a common framework. Expanding on established practices within a school system, including culturally responsive education, equity, social emotional learning, restorative practices and engaged teaching build on existing systems and ensure sustainability. Through collaboration trauma-informed practices are not seen as an "add-on" but an integral part of a culture shift within the school community.

Site-Based Implementation

Resilient Futures implements the evidence-informed HEARTS (Healthy Environments and Response to Trauma in Schools) framework that is an equity focused, whole school approach to promote success and resilience for trauma-impacted youth that was developed in 2008 at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) by Joyce Dorado PhD and Miriam Martinez, PhD.

The HEARTS framework supports long-term systemic change by creating school-wide literacy of the impact of trauma on learning and emotional functioning while embedding universal supports that are preventative, collaborative, and intentional. Resilient Futures works in close collaboration with school and/or district leadership to build capacity of school personnel to successfully implement trauma-informed practices.

The full, site-based program includes foundational training for ALL school staff followed with a Resilient Futures consultant onsite to provide capacity-building consultation to successfully integrate trauma-informed practices into procedures, polices and pedagogy. The frequency of consultation depends upon needs and resources of a school. The Resilient Futures Executive Team has a proven history of implementing trauma-informed practices with a range of schools including early education, elementary, K-8, middle school and high schools over the past six years. Our experience helps schools move from theory to practice.

Resilient Futures is able to provide a range of services from full-scale implementation to staff trainings. Please contact us to help guide your transformation to becoming trauma-informed.

Training Institute

Resilient Futures utilizes an intensive training program based on a "Train the Trainer" Model toward creating organization capacity and sustainability with a primary goal of services coming from within the school community. Our intensive training establishes an interactive professional development collaboration to increase capacity and sustainability for integrating trauma-informed best practices.

Participation in the training requires a year commitment which includes a two day in person training followed by nine intensive training/consultation sessions held monthly. Participants will be expected to complete readings and other homework as assigned by the trainers. Monthly training sessions can be facilitated virtually to accommodate rural and out of state schools and districts. At the end of the training teams will be equipped to support HEARTS implementation in their schools.

KIND WORDS ABOUT RESILIENT FUTURES:

"Trauma-Informed HEARTS training is imperative in my opinion for all educators at every level of education." - Middle School Teacher

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National Association of School Psychologists Unaddressed trauma is a public health crisis. Experiences of psychological trauma can impede cognitive, social, and emotional development, which can impair youth academic achievement, behavior, interpersonal skills, and general success in school.

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Publications
Fact Sheet: CDC Reports:

CDC's technical package that identifies a number of strategies based on the best available evidence to help states and communities prevent and reduce child abuse and neglect.

Case Studies:
The state case studies provide detailed descriptions of how selected states have valued and used ACE data to inform their child abuse and neglect prevention efforts.
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWRs):
ACEs Questionnaires:
The questionnaires are not copyrighted, and there are no fees for their use. If you include the ACE Study questionnaires in your research, a copy of the subsequent article(s) is requested (send to dvpinquiries@cdc.gov).

The Family Health History and Health Appraisal questionnaires were used to collect information on child abuse and neglect, household challenges, and other socio-behavioral factors in the original CDC-Kaiser ACE Study.

Family Health History Questionnaire

Health Appraisal Questionnaire

The BRFSS ACE module was adapted from the original CDC-Kaiser ACE Study and is used to collect information on child abuse and neglect and household challenges. Please see the BRFSS Questionnaires website for the most up-to-date versions of the BRFSS ACE Modules.

Data Sources
CDC Data Sources:

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)
The BRFSS is an annual, state-based, random-digit-dial telephone survey that collects self-reported data from non-institutionalized U.S. adults regarding health conditions and risk factors. ACEs data have been included on state BRFSS surveys since 2009.

Multiple Cause of Death or Mortality File
This is a portal to the online data dissemination activities of theDivision of Vital Statistics, including both interactive online data access tools and downloadable public use data files. Data related to child abuse deaths can be queried using these tools.

National Health Interview Survey Injury Section (NHIS)
The NHIS has monitored the health of the nation since 1957. NHIS data on a broad range of health topics are collected through personal household interviews. Recent survey years include data on adverse experiences like neighborhood violence, parental incarceration, household mental illness or substance use, food insecurity, and poverty.

National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS)
NHAMCS collects data on the use and provision of ambulatory care services in hospital emergency and outpatient departments and ambulatory surgery locations. Some years include the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) reason for visit code, which can be used to look at child abuse and neglect.

National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS)
NHDS was a national probability survey designed to meet the need for information on characteristics of inpatients discharged from non-Federal short-stay hospitals in the United States. The dataset contains information on injury-related hospital stays; first and second diagnosis (ICD- 9CM including e-codes) codes can be used to look at child abuse and neglect.

National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS)
NVDRS links information about the "who, when, where, and how" from data on violent deaths and provides insights about "why" they occurred. Includes information on such variables as victim-perpetrator relationship, suspect information when available, mechanism, and toxicology. Some states have added a child abuse and neglect module.

Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS)
PRAMS collects state-specific, population-based data on maternal attitudes and experiences before, during, and shortly after pregnancy. Some states have added ACEs items.

Violence Against Children Survey (VACS)
VACS is a nationally representative survey of children 13-24, that measures physical, emotional, and sexual violence against girls and boys.

Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS)
YRBSS monitors health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death, disability, and social problems among 9th through 12th grade students in the United States. State and national datasets include self-reported data on past 12-month incidence of interpersonal violence victimization, dating violence, and sexual assault. Some local and state health departments have included ACEs questions.

Other Federal Data Sources:

National Longitudinal Survey of Young Adults
In 1986, a separate survey of all children born toNLSY79 female respondents began. In addition to all the mother's information from the NLSY79, the child survey includes assessments of each child as well as additional demographic and development information collected from either the mother or child. In 2012 and 2014, respondents were asked ACE-related questions, including items assessing mental illness and substance abuse in household, physical abuse, emotional neglect, and family conflict.

National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH)
NSCH provides data on multiple, intersecting aspects of children's lives including physical and mental health, access to quality health care, and the child's family, neighborhood, school, and social context. NSCH is funded and directed by theHealth Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB). NSCH measures household challenges, such as socioeconomic hardship, parental separation or divorce, substance abuse in the household, witnessing neighborhood violence, witnessing domestic violence, incarcerated parent, racial or ethnic discrimination, and death of a parent.

Non-Federal Data Sources:

General Resources
CDC Resources:

Child Development
CDC's Web page on child development includes information on developmental milestones, screening, and positive parenting.

Developmental Milestones
Interactive web resource developed by CDC's Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities to support parents and caregivers understand important child development milestones.

Essentials for Childhood
Framework proposes strategies that communities can consider to promote the types of relationships and environments that help children grow to be healthy and productive citizens so thatthey, in turn, can build stronger and safer families and communities for their children.

Essentials for Parenting Toddlers and Preschoolers
CDC's Web resource on strategies parents can use to help build a safe, stable, and nurturing relationship with their child. Includes information on common parenting challenges and solutions. Also available inSpanish.

Parent's Portal
A wealth of information from across all of CDC, covering everything from safety at home and the community to immunization schedules and developmental milestones.

CDC Trainings and Tools:

ACEs Trainings
These online trainings are designed to help users understand, recognize, and prevent ACEs from occurring in the first place. There is an introductory Training Module as well as modules with information for professionals working directly with and on behalf of kids and families.

ACE Study Infographic
Visual, interactive representation of data from the 1995-1997 CDC-Kaiser Permanente study on Adverse Childhood Experiences prevalence and relationship to health outcomes.

ACEs Snapshot
Interactive tool that provides insight into how ACEs can be prevented and how to minimize negative effects.

Connecting the Dots
A free, online training that helps users explore shared risk and protective factors across multiple forms of violence.

Making the Case: Engaging Businesses
A free online resource that explains how communities can work with the business sector to assure safe, stable, nurturing relationships, and environments for all children and families.

Principles of Prevention
Online training on how to apply key concepts of primary prevention, the public health approach, and the social-ecological model for violence prevention work.

For more free, online trainings, tools, and resources, see CDC's VetoViolence website.
Other Federal Resources: Tribal Resources:

ACEs are Preventable, Healthy Childhood is Possible

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Fact Sheet: CDC Reports: CDC's technical package that identifies a number of strategies based on the best available evidence to help states and communities prevent and reduce child abuse and neglect. Case Studies: The state case studies provide detailed descriptions of how selected states have valued and used ACE data to inform their child abuse and neglect prevention efforts.