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After yesterday's meeting, I left thinking about how I can make my students feel better in class. 

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After yesterday's meeting, I left thinking about how I can make my students feel better in class. 

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I'm new here, so maybe it wasn't for me - but I didn't know what the different acronyms of all the organizations were, and what the functions of the various job titles were. (I didn't know Kate Lippman was a 9th grade social worker, and I teach 9th graders exclusively). I've kind of picked up on some of this, but I was hoping for some more procedural info - here's who to call and what to do if you have the following situations. And diagnosis info - "Here's what to look out for - here's what we are seeing" Again, maybe everyone knows that, and there needs to be a special orientation for newbies. Demonstrating mindfulness exercises is fine, and turn and talk with your neighbors is fine for a 1/2 day workshop, but it took too much time out of what was essentially a 1/2 hour presentation.

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The handout s informative--and a lot to assimilate. Perhaps the team could send a suggested weekly "mental health focus," a small goal that teachers could practice that week: a meditative moment with positive reinforcement/gratitude for students' hard work; one-on-one check-ins with students of concern or those that could use a little personal attention; etc. The team could also solicit ideas on a google form.

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Teacher mental health and student mental health go hand in hand

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Teacher mental health and student mental health go hand in hand

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Smaller class sizes would both calm teachers down enough to allow us to model mental health, while also giving us the space to get to know students individually and connect them to help when needed.  With so many students, even when teachers want to connect with students personally, it's challenging to make time for that.  It's also hard to help students work on anxiety and depression when teachers are struggling with it themselves.  I think a community-wide approach would be stronger and would also allow for the bigger societal shifts to impact the individual well being of students.

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We need to shift our educational paradigm in order to do this work

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We need to shift our educational paradigm in order to do this work

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Thanks for the mindfulness exercises and the tool kit of ideas. I enjoy starting meetings with breathing in general (and Liz has such a soothing voice!). I think that in order for us to be more present with our kids and responsive to their needs we need more taken off our plates. We cannot be an elite/academic/college prep-focused school AND a school that educates and supports the whole child working within our current model. We need smaller class sizes or student loads, more one-on-time with kids, and real, meaningful family engagement (through student-teacher conferences, learning exhibitions, etc). Without these structural changes, sharing data with us that shows such high numbers of our students experiencing anxiety and depression simply adds to our own stress and anxiety :(

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I think students are thirsty for more awareness and dialogue around this stuff - more than one student responded in their "Day of Dialogue" reflections that we need similar dialogue around mental health stuff.  I would love for "tech health" to be a part of this too - echoing what people have said below about the role screens and social media can play in our students' (and our own) stress.

C.S. Lewis wrote about "the laziness of grief," and I know this personally - grief and depression can make you feel like you're walking through jello. A couple of times this year, when I've asked students what they think is getting in their way of getting the work done, they've answered, "I'm just lazy." This is BS. No one WANTS to fail, and in the right conditions everyone wants to learn.  When kids aren't feeling motivated to do the work, there could be a lot of factors at play, including but not limited to mental health challenges, executive functioning challenges, and social drama interference.  But them telling themselves "just stop being lazy" - or worse, US telling or implying this - is not a helpful response.

So I'm working on striking the judgement of "lazy" out of my mind when I interact with struggling students. I too love the mantra, "don't get furious, get curious."

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More. Mindfulness. For teachers = better for students

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More. Mindfulness. For teachers = better for students

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Thank you! We have to keep being reminded of all of this. Loved the guided meditation. My lingering questions: who is on point and when? When does it move from teacher realm into counselor/dean/social worker realm and then who is the point person? (I know we are working on this in a separate group.) We love to make lists of actions that should ideally be done (and this is important to do), but exactly who is going to do them? Saying "widen the circle" is helpful and right, but who gets looped in first, and who takes it from there?  When we don't identify who does what (except for, of course, the teacher) , it feels to me like teachers are expected to do an ever-growing number of things for an ever-growing number of depressed and traumatized students while their class sizes are staying the same or getting larger.  Hiring Kate Lippmann is definitely a step in the right direction. (Yay.)  Let's just clarify how the flow from teacher to support works...
Thanks for the meeting!

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Love that we are a community that values working together and collaborating to help our students. It DOES take a village. Wishing class sizes were smaller so we could notice things sooner. Wondering if more non-academic support and contact with teachers can help isolated kids feel they can reach out and connect. I'm thinking more advisory time, small clusters with one teacher and a few students.

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Many students without IEPs are suffering from anxiety and depression and often times their guidance counselor maybe aware of the student’s mental health history. How can guidance/social workers discretely and thoughtfully share this info with teachers so we can better support students in our classes?

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I second the value of hearing “don’t get furious, get curious”. I’ll carry that with me.
I too wonder about screen time and the lack of personal face to face relationships with peers. There’s an Atlantic article on this somewhere...

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Fairly sure that screens play a role in this too- wondering what ideas people have for helping kids have more unplugged time. I also want to emphasize how sleep deprived many students are- which is a function of stress/ mental illness but also can also cause or certainly aggravate it.

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a great topic to focus on -thank you - Interesting reflection overheard from students:  Mindfulness activities are nice, but the real stress relief would come from less HW.  The HW is more stressful than assessments, for sure, according to these students.

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a great topic to focus on -thank you - Interesting reflection overheard from students:  Mindfulness activities are nice, but the real stress relief would come from less HW.  The HW is more stressful than assessments, for sure, according to these students.

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Don't worry alone was also a really good take away - thanks!

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Don't worry alone was also a really good take away - thanks!

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Don’t get furious get curious was a FABULOUS take away, thank you!

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Lets add the METCO program to the bottom of the triangle under the category of support programs

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Lets add the METCO program to the bottom of the triangle under the category of support programs

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The data clearly shows that we need to do something. I feel like we did this same full faculty meeting a year or two ago. Reading off of power point slides is a killer. What could we is that would be more interactive