Social Emotional Learning

The Pegasus Springs Education Collective has established five broad categories from which we will not only create our own monthly content, but also curate online posts and articles in order to bring the latest news and information to our community. Occasionally, we will provide information pertaining to one of the broad, overall categories, while in some months, we will narrow the focus to a more specific subtopic within one of the categories. Here are our five content categories, along with a sampling of the subtopics included within each:

• Student Success & Wellbeing: Social emotional learning, behavioral and mental health, educational equity, cultural proficiency and responsiveness, safe and supportive learning environments, trauma-sensitive schools, multi-tiered system of supports.
• Leadership & Culture: Teacher and student leadership, administrative practices, student extracurricular opportunities, school culture and climate, ongoing professional learning, teamwork and staff collaboration, collective efficacy.
• Learning & Teaching: Student engagement, curriculum, instruction, assessment, academic subject areas, classroom management, interventions, school data, student achievement.
• Parents & Community: Parenting and caregiving, community partnership, child development.
• Education Issues & News: Legislation, special education regulations, civil rights, accountability.

Our focus for June is Student Success & Wellbeing. While this big topic is always a priority throughout the school year, it is also important to remember that as we transition to long school breaks, it can sometimes be an especially challenging time for some students—particularly for those who rely on the supportive environments their school is able to provide them on a consistent basis. As the school year comes to an end, we thought it might be a good time to reflect upon this critical topic. We talked to three educators for this month’s feature, and we’re pleased to share an excerpt of their insights below.

Erin Walsh (EW) is a speaker and consultant on topics related to brain development and raising resilient young people in the digital age. She is also an educator for the Higher Education Consortium of Urban Affairs where she teaches undergraduate students a program called “Making Media, Making Change.”

Marlene Lifshin (ML) is a social worker at the A.W. Coolidge Middle School in Reading, MA, and she is a faculty advisor for the school’s “A World of Difference” club, an ADL program that prepares middle and high school students to work with their peers to confront bias and create inclusive environments in their schools and communities.

Sara Burd (SB) is the Director of Social Emotional Learning and School Counseling for the Arlington Public Schools in Arlington, MA and an adjunct professor at Lesley University where she teaches for LIfTS—the Lesley Institute for Trauma Studies. She is a licensed School Guidance Counselor, School Adjustment Counselor/Social Worker, and Registered Drama Therapist.

PSEC: Student Success & Wellbeing is certainly a large topic, encompassing several important components that can all have a tremendous impact on students’ academic success—and of course even on their overall health and safety. Let’s look at a few different aspects of this big topic and discuss what they mean to you, or why you feel they are so important. First, there is a major focus now on Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in education, but it is not really a new concept. What does this renewed focus mean to you, and why do you think it’s important to attend to SEL in schooling?

SB: The renewed focus in SEL is coming at us from a variety of entry points. We have business leaders in shock at the lack of resilience and persistence their entry level employees display in the workplace. We have higher-ed institutions noticing a lack of inter and intrapersonal skills in their students. We have an increase of mental health symptoms being experienced by students at all ages and across all ranges of abilities and economic status. We have a global society that is unlike anything we have encountered before and we have been submerged in a technological flood we don’t yet fully understand and are paying for our hyper “connectedness” in every way. I fully believe that fostering SEL skills and building safe and supportive schools and communities are the only ways our students will be able to learn not only academically but also personally. The data is irrefutable; SEL is necessary for all of us, not just our students.

PSEC: There is also an emphasis on creating trauma-sensitive schools and on providing safe and supportive learning environments for all students. What does this mean to you, and why do you think this is essential for students?

EW: Repair and healing happen in the context of networks of supportive relationships. Why must schools respond? We know that trauma can lead to a cascade of challenges for students inside and outside of the classroom and that traumatic events interfere with students’ ability to learn. There is no “outsourcing” dealing with trauma to others if schools want to be a place where every child can learn and thrive. Without understanding how trauma works, schools risk re-traumatizing students when educators misinterpret challenging behaviors. The shift in the field from “What is wrong with this child?!” to “What is going on inside this child?” is so profound and important if we are going to correctly identify what children need to learn and what tools will help us get there. It’s also worth noting that trauma sensitive schools aren’t just good for children who have experienced or are experiencing significant adversity, but are universal protective factors for all students. Everyone is set up for meaningful and engaged learning when a school understands the impact of stress on the brain, prioritizes warm and caring relationships, and builds in opportunities across the building to help students practice emotional regulation skills.

PSEC: How do issues of educational equity represent important challenges for schools and educators to address—and how do issues of equity potentially impact student success?

ML: To effectively address issues of equity, it’s important for each of us to first have a good understanding of our own experiences, biases, and identities. It’s also important for leaders to first acknowledge the difficulties that can be present with this process and the challenges that educators face in their classrooms. When leaders listen and gain perspective, they tend to model the norms necessary to open up dialogue and to create an environment safe and comfortable enough to discuss the challenges associated with equity. And such efforts are not limited to just staff. It’s also important of course to include students’ input in this process. Once the appropriate environment and norms have been established, exploring and addressing all the various factors that can impact educational equity can become an ongoing process that an entire school community engages in continuously.

PSEC: This topic also includes issues of cultural competence and responsiveness, in order to connect with all students and to create learning experiences that are bias-free and actively draw upon students’ diverse backgrounds, identities, strengths, and challenges. How do you feel these issues are important to student success?

ML: An effective school creates a learning community where all members can feel safe and heard, because it truly values diversity, accepts differences, and respects different perspectives. Attending to the development of cultural proficiency is a key part of this, as it ensures that everyone not only possesses an understanding of other cultures, experiences, or personal identities—but also an understanding and awareness of how our own identities and experiences tend to shape our current perspectives, biases, or practices. This can be important reflective work for a community to do in order to ensure success for everyone. Schools can also indicate that their commitment to these issues goes beyond mere lip service by fully embracing and valuing student organizations within the school that support diversity and help enhance cultural understanding. By integrating these organizations’ missions into the core values of the school and by consistently prioritizing their efforts, this commitment can permeate throughout the school and shape the overall culture and climate.

PSEC: What final thought or piece of advice would you want to share about SEL or this overall topic of Student Success & Wellbeing?

EW: While we can try to tackle these things alone, students will benefit when an entire building is dedicated to the work. Educators teach in systems and students learn in networks of relationships. It will take all of us to bring these themes to the center of our work. It is also a reminder that this work can be difficult and can’t be solved in one session or one program — it’s about sustained work over time.

SB: When I was growing up, I needed to go into our basement and access the Encyclopedia Britannica or use the card catalogue at the library to find an answer. Our students now ask their device and have a plethora of answers and sources. School has rapidly moved away from information gathering to application of information, and we have to keep pace with these shifting needs. Our charge is no longer to ensure our students can read or write a 20-page report with APA format. Our charge is to help students learn who they are in this world and how they want to be with themselves and with others. That is an impossible feat if we never teach the SEL skills of self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, healthy relationships and responsible decision making.

ML: SEL efforts best succeed when integrated universally within a school’s Tier One practices for all students. By utilizing their mental health staff to help achieve this approach, schools also not only succeed in establishing some effective proactive and preventative measures, but also can “normalize” efforts associated with a student’s wellbeing and eliminate any stigma sometimes associated with addressing issues that can seriously impact the emotional or behavioral health of kids. I believe it’s important to remember that SEL cannot be done in isolation in order to be effective. It can’t be seen as simply another separate initiative—for example, done solely during counseling or in student advisory sessions. SEL really needs to be woven throughout the entire fabric of the school and curriculum. For students to make real progress, they need to be able to practice and internalize the skills in all settings and across all curriculum.

Thank you so much, Erin, Sara, and Marlene! You can find their full interviews here. How do you incorporate SEL initiatives into the frameworks of your own school? We’d love to hear in the comments below.

My mother had a consistent and clear response to me and my two siblings when we complained of being bored: “If you’re bored, I’ll give you something better to do.” We quickly figured out we were better off finding something to do ourselves than ending up with chores.

I didn’t necessarily repeat this strategy verbatim when I became a parent many years later. I came to understand that sometimes the wail of “I’m bored!” was code for another need including loneliness or sadness – feelings that beg a different response than the job jar.

But the lesson that my mother modeled for me – don’t rush to entertain your children in the face of boredom – was a powerful one.

It turns out that in our haste to find boredom busters for our children, we actually rob the brain of essential downtime and opportunities for creative thinking associated with the wandering mind. While we connect boredom with inactivity, the brain is often far from quiet.

Instead of being afraid of boredom, embrace its many brain benefits, such as…

Recharging.

Being constantly barraged with external stimulation is exhausting for the brain. Downtime allows our children to recover from this “cognitive overload” and to recharge executive functioning skills. This isn’t to say that our children should sit on the couch and stare at the wall all day, but 10 minutes of daydreaming and doing nothing is sometimes just what they need to be ready for what comes next. Heck, your brain could benefit from a little boredom too. Next time you are tempted to scroll through your social media feed in line at the grocery store, give yourself permission to just stare at the wall and let your mind wander.

Imagination and creativity.

The latest research shows that our brain doesn’t go into low gear when we aren’t actively engaged. Instead, the activity shifts to the imagination and creativity parts of the brain. Have you ever come up with a great idea in the shower? Thank your brain for wandering towards a creative solution.

Goal setting.

It might seem counterintuitive that while your mind is wandering, your brain is busily considering future directions and goals. It turns out though that mind wandering is generally quite future focused and can actually help children with choices about what to do next.

Altruism.

Some researchers believe that when we are bored, we work to seek out meaning elsewhere. A group in Ireland found that people were more likely to seek out prosocial behaviors to help regain a sense of meaning in their lives. So, an occasional dose of boredom might be just what your child needs.

Of course, organized activities like sports, theater, arts, and music provide great benefits to kids, and chronic boredom can lead to a host of other challenges. But every once in a while, consider letting your child sit with nothing to do – it may be just what their brain needs to be more inspired by what comes next.

How To Respond to Calls of ‘I’m bored!’

• Avoid rushing in with a prepackaged solution, organized activity, or app.
• Ask questions to get to the bottom of the feeling. Try “What do you mean when you say that?” Parenting coach Christine Carter reminds us that sometimes children use “bored” as code for lonely or sad. This is all the more reason not to rush in with a solution. Instead, you might pivot to a conversation about those feelings or simply invite your child to work alongside you for a bit.
• Create space and time for children to come up with their own ideas for what to do next. This may mean having some materials around to prime the creative pump (for little kids this could be as simple as paint and cardboard). What they do next is up to them.
• Prompt a dialogue if your child seems truly stuck in coming up with their own ideas after a while. For example, “Who is your favorite Pokemon again? What is their power?”
• And remember, nurturing free play throughout the year will help your child learn how to make their own fun.

About the Authors

Erin Walsh, M.A., is a dynamic, knowledgeable speaker who has addressed a wide range of audiences on topics related to brain development and raising resilient young people in the digital age. Erin was instrumental to the development of the MediaWise movement and enjoyed working with her father, Dr. David Walsh, for 10 years at the National Institute on Media and the Family before creating Mind Positive Parenting together in 2010 and then Spark & Stitch Institute in 2019.

David Walsh, Ph.D., is an award winning psychologist, best-selling author, and international speaker. In 1995, he founded the internationally renowned National Institute on Media and the Family, which he led until 2010. In 2011 he founded Mind Positive Parenting to translate cutting edge brain science to everyday practice for parents, teachers and other professionals.

I can remember very clearly the need to please that I had as a little girl. As an adult, I’ve read reports that explain how “good girls” come to develop this motivation and desire for approval, and how that childhood mindset impacts them as adults.

That’s why the message of a new book—Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder—resonates with me. The author is Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, and she’s  speaking directly to teenage girls—and women—about the importance of shaking the mindset that it’s bad to make mistakes, to not be perfect.

Particularly with the high-pressure lens of social media, girls today can have a hard time ignoring what can seem a requirement to live up to an ideal of perfection. Not always encouraged to take risks, sometimes even trying a new subject or sport in school is avoided.

I was enrolled by my dad in both basketball and softball programs as a young girl, but still vividly recall being gripped by fear at the thought of messing up and letting people down. I was too paralyzed to be comfortable even trying, so Dad gave in and I very contentedly gave up.

Saujani and many others agree that while unintentional, girls are taught to avoid failure and risk—to play it safe and get straight As. They are often steered by parents and teachers towards subjects and activities where their success is most likely.

“Boys, on the other hand, absorb a very different message,” Saujani writes in her book. “They are taught to explore, play rough, swing high, climb to the top of the monkey bars—and fall down trying. They are encouraged to try new things, tinker with gadgets and tools, and get right back in the game if they take a hit.”

This disparity plays into one debate taking place this Valentine’s Day, as one school cancelled the annual Father Daughter dance that has taken place for decades.

Teaching girls that being brave—being willing to accept mistakes or failures and learn from them rather than be embarrassed by them—seems such an obvious thing. Yet, we may be behind the curve in our collective message to girls and young women when it comes to resilience.

Saujani appeared on Good Morning America to promote the book, and she offered teen girls in the audience some suggestions on how to begin the process of being brave and moving beyond a self-limiting mindset. Her call to action is to “practice imperfection”.

It sounds odd but just may be on point for learning early in life to be brave.

About the Author

Tammy is Director of Communications for the Pegasus Springs organizations and a communications and public relations consultant. She’s an award winning journalist and blogger, a contributor to the book ‘Easy to Love but Hard to Raise: Real Parents, Challenging Kids, True Stories’ and mom to two young adults and two fur-babies. 

Not too long ago, I had the honor of participating in a Challenge Day—a full day with hundreds of middle school students exploring ways to be fully seen, respected and understood.

The Challenge Day Be the Change Movement was founded by Rich and Yvonne Dutra-St. John, who have spent their careers working with young people. They have created an experience for students that is truly a gift and that has the potential to be life-changing.

In their work to help schools and communities build supportive and inclusive environments, Rich and Yvonne are guided by this reminder: “If we settle for tolerance, we have failed. Our goal is love.”

Social-emotional skills are as critical for our next generation as the skills taught in STEM classes. Ensuring everyone can be their authentic selves and be accepted by others is central to meeting the challenges of our future.

Experiences like the Challenge Day I was fortunate to take part in will indeed “change the world,” words Oprah used to describe what this important program can do if we all get on board with its message.

There’s a video on the Challenge Day website that explains more about the program and its mission. It isn’t difficult to see the power and impact the experience has on students. Everyone should see it. You can also learn more about Challenge Day activities on their Facebook page and help share the Be the Change message among your social network.

And in the spirit of the movement, all of us—teachers, parents and youth providers and advocates of all kinds—should strive to be a catalyst for supporting the young people in our  worlds to be fully seen, respected, and understood. It’s what the future needs.

About the Author:

Lorraine is co-founder of the Pegasus Springs organizations and President of the Pegasus Springs Foundation. She has provided leadership and mentoring to teams around the world, and she is a recipient of STEM Connector’s “Top 100 Corporate Women in STEM.” As a global executive in the aerospace and security industry, she has been a role model for women in STEM and a champion of diversity and inclusion.