A Journey Through Time - The Virtual Social Studies Methods Experience: 🔑 Kindness is Key🔑 - Why Social-Emotional Literacy is Essential in Today's Classrooms

Stop #5: Kindness Is Key🔑

Why Social-Emotional Literacy is Essential in Today's Classrooms

Empathy. Kindness. Compassion. These three terms are ones that we have heard our whole lives and yet to many, the implementation of these skills may seem foreign and impossible. Have you ever had a student call you a name while making fun of your personality, or appearance? Unfortunately, when asked to reflect on our own life experiences, many of us will be able to think back to a time when we were personally impacted by other people's poor behavior. Whether we are five or ninety-five, these memories become engrained in our brains and immediately transport us back to moments of sadness, insecurity, and fear. It is important to recognize that I am not saying this to bring you down or remind you of the darkest moments in your life, but instead to invoke an emotion that inspires us all to make a change. For the longest time, when an individual showcased a lack of compassion they were quickly labeled as mean and given the title of "bully". We marked them as people that we did not want to know, socialize with, or even attempt to understand. That said, in recent years we have begun to understand that this poor social behavior is actually rooted in a lack of education. Although many are fortunate enough to grow up in a situation where kindness, empathy, and other basic social skills are instilled into their behavior from a young age, this is not always the case. In fact, there is a large margin of children that lash out and behave irrationally because they do not know any better. They were not told how to act in social settings and may not understand that their words can make an impact on others. That said, it is undeniable that we have made great strides in the past few years at working to improve the education of our youth on social-emotional literacy. As many of us know from our school lives, hundreds of anti-bullying programs are being brought to schools around the world every year, but in my mind, it is still not enough. In an NPR podcast created on the importance of social learning, the educators make the claim that teaching a child social skills is integral to their success in life. In fact, studies prove that early intervention on this matter, helps children to stay out of trouble well into their adult life. Just like reading, writing, and mathematics, social-emotional literacy is integral to a child's education. In fact, in the NPR podcast referenced above, we saw a group of kindergarten students already taking time out of their day to learn about friendship and kindness. Through a program entitled PATHS, or Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, Matthew Henson Elementary School, along with about 1,500 other schools around the country, decided to make social-emotional learning a priority. This is accomplished by integrating two, fifteen to thirty-minute lessons a week into their academic schedule. These lessons are centered on themes like self-control, treating others with respect, and sharing. Although all of these skills may feel like second nature to us, Mr. O'Donnell shares that for many of his students from troubled backgrounds, this is not the case. In fact, prior to these interactive lessons, many did not have the vocabulary to express even their most basic sentiments. This lack of expression ultimately leads to pent-up emotions and large, often preventable, outbursts in the classroom. Another program worth mentioning is FastTrack. Similar to PATHS, this program is designed to implement the principles of social-emotional learning into the classroom at a very young age. The FastTrack program was actually developed by a psychologist at Duke University who found research suggesting that kids who act up a lot at home and in school are more likely to have mental health problems and commit crimes years later. Although this may be a difficult concept to stomach, the thing that you should take away from this discussion is that this dark trajectory can, in many cases, be changed through PATH lessons, counseling, and educating both the children and their families on the importance of social-emotional intelligence. That said, you do not just have to take my word for it. In fact, in a study involving 900 at risk five-year-olds, it was concluded that the half of the population that received social-emotional education and therapy, by age 25, had not only done better in school but also had lower rates of arrest and fewer mental health and substance abuse problems later in life. If you are anything like me, your response to this information was drastic for two primary reasons. First, I was overcome with joy as the research made it clear that there is a real, accurate, and tangible way to turn things around for our at-risk youth. As a teacher, it is our desire to make a difference and this article essentially provided us with a map for accomplishing this goal. After my joy had dissipated, I became reflective and inquisitive. If this program is so effective, why have I not heard of it more? Why is it not an integral part of every child's education? Why is it not a countrywide requirement? Upon further research, I learned that these programs are rather expensive with FastTrack costing around $50,000 per student for a ten-year period and PATH costing around 600 dollars for initial implementation with a 100 dollar yearly fee for continued use. Although it is undeniable that these are very expensive price tags, it comes down to us comparing the cost with the benefits. As a society, we spend lots of money on remedial services and incarceration, so this upfront charge may help to improve each of these budgets down the line. Although the dollars and cents of any program must always be considered, in my mind, it is also important to question whether we can put a price on a child's overall success in life? If there is a tangible way to make a difference, as a society, I feel that we owe it to our students to do everything in our power to make a change... but that is just my perspective. What do you think?