Educators Thrown Social-Emotional Pandemic Lifeline

Twenty-one thousand people who work in Connecticut schools are looking for help navigating the social and emotional impacts of a pandemic — and are getting a hand from a new New Haven-based effort.

The teachers, paraprofessionals, mental health professionals, custodians, and cafeteria workers have signed up for a new course on socio-emotional learning from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

On Wednesday evening, a group of educators and researchers met on Zoom to discuss the effects of the course.

“Anxiety levels are eight times higher than what they were two to three years ago,” said Marc Brackett, founder and director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Brackett and his team have created past programs such as the RULER Approach. ​“We asked ourselves, how can we help?”

The online course, called Social and Emotional Learning in Times of Uncertainty and Stress: Research-Based Strategies, piloted two weeks ago. It aims to help teachers with both students’ feelings of anxiousness and their own, which have risen with the pandemic. There are ten hour-long chunks, with one chunk meant to be completed each week.

With funding from the Dalio Foundation, the course is free.

“All 50,000 Connecticut teachers and others involved in the education system, from counselors to janitors, can access this resource”, said Nikki Elbertson, who also works at the center.

“Part of the course encourages teachers to step back and examine their feelings. Are they stressed?” said Brackett. ​“When teachers are more anxious, they create a stressful classroom environment.”

Later sections of the course encourage teachers to not make snap judgement about students’ actions and how to better identify students’ emotions, said Brackett.

“We also want to be mindful that expressing emotions is seen differently for students of color,” said Brackett. ​“We’ve also included a section on cultural sensitivity.”

Positive results

Fran Amara, the principal of Northwestern Middle School in Winsted, has begun to take the course. He said he found the idea of approaching situations as ​“an emotional scientist rather than a judge” helpful.

“A student in eighth grade had connectivity issues at home, so we gave her a hotspot,” Amara said. ​“But she was still behind. Today when she came to talk, I could see her cues even with a mask. Something else was going on.”

When Amara and a guidance counselor asked the student how she was going, she started to break down. ​“She felt overwhelmed and unable to handle everything going on,” said Amara. ​“We could have judged the issue, mistaking it to be about connectivity or academics. But we needed to look at the root cause objectively, like a scientist. Clearly, there are emotions she needs help working through to succeed.”

When asked if socio-emotional learning strategies helped reduce punishments, the educators emphatically agreed.

“Recently, I was doing a model lesson for a classroom,” said Carrie Ramanauskas, the social emotional learning coordinator for Bridgeport Public Schools. ​“One student privately messaged me, saying he was having problems at home and could not turn his camera on. He promised to respond to all questions I asked in the chat to prove he was paying attention.”

Bridgeport Public Schools, Ramanauskas said, require students to turn their cameras on during class.

“If I assumed the student was doing something wrong, he could have lost credit,” she said. ​“But by trying to understand what was actually going on – namely, that he had a personal problem – we could work out a positive, not punitive, solution.” 

“We just don’t know what our students are feeling, or going through at home,” added Artur Sousa, a music educator in Hamden. ​“One part [of the new course] is a blueprint for empathy building. When students disagree, we sit them down with a mediator and ask them to discuss how they felt. Understanding each other’s emotions helps reduce tension.” 

Long-Term Benefits

Socio-emotional learning, whether through this course or past initiatives such as the RULER Approach, has led to noticeable shifts

“Two years ago, a student came to kindergarten with a temper. We’ve been working with her to understand and deal with her emotions,” said Melissa Barbuto, the principal of Strong Elementary School in Southington. ​“Even with the challenges of online learning, there haven’t been any incidents this year.”

That’s a crucial idea of the course, according to Brackett. ​“We want teachers to know that student behavior doesn’t always mean what we think it does.”

Indeed, helping students understand and deal with their emotions is a prerequisite for academics.

“Another one of our students is very afraid of getting Covid-19, so she opted for total online learning,” said Amara. ​“She thought she saw kids looking sick in the Google Meeting, which increased her nerves.” Amara met with the student individually, talking to her about strategies to deal with her nerves in the classroom. Tomorrow, she’s coming in-person for picture day.

“We realized that her anxiousness impacted her ability to focus in class,” said Ansara. ​“We had to help guide her through those feelings, because otherwise it becomes difficult to succeed.”

Barbuto summed it up: ​“We need to teach students how to regulate their emotions, just like any other subject.”