S8 E 4 SEL Concerns
Reading teachers discuss the importance of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) in students. Podcast guest Erin Waters shares her teaching experiences, emphasizing the integral role SEL plays in shaping students as whole individuals beyond just academic achievements. The conversation covers the definition of SEL, its impacts on literacy development, and practical strategies for incorporating SEL into classroom routines. Erin also highlights coping mechanisms for anxiety and the importance of recognizing students' emotional states. They discuss the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on students' social-emotional development and the growing prevalence of anxiety among young learners. The episode concludes with practical advice and resources for teachers to support SEL in their classrooms, including the use of relevant books and building emotional resilience.
Episode 8.4 SEL Concerns with Erin Waters
00:00 Introduction to the Reading Teacher Lounge
00:42 Shannon's Green Chef Experience
01:40 Special Guest: Erin Waters on SEL
03:06 Defining SEL and Its Importance
06:03 Real-World SEL Classroom Experiences
11:41 Impact of Digital Age on SEL
16:18 Post-COVID SEL Challenges
21:43 Coping Mechanisms and Solutions
39:16 Final Thoughts and Resources
Transcript:
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8.4 SEL Concerns Erin Waters -
Shannon Betts: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Reading Teacher Lounge, the podcast where you can learn on the go by listening in. As Mary and I share what really works with our reading students,
Mary Saghafi: each episode Shannon and I talk about what we wish we had learned in college, what's helping our students right now, and what we're continuing to discover about how to best meet our students' literacy needs.
Shannon Betts: 'cause while learning to read is complex, some days teaching reading can feel even more challenging.
Mary Saghafi: That's why the Reading Teachers Lounge is here to bring you strategies, insights, and encouragement as you guide your readers.
Shannon Betts: Join our conversations and find what works for your students.
Shannon Betts: Hello, listeners it's Shannon here. I wanna take a quick moment to share why I started using Green Chef again, Mike. Children are super picky eaters, and for a long time I found myself cooking plain, bland food just to keep them happy. But that meant I wasn't getting the kind of flavorful, nutritious meals that I needed to [00:01:00] keep up with.
My busy teacher life, green Chef has been the perfect solution for our family. The meals are quick and easy to make, but they're also full of spices, sauces, and fresh ingredients that make me feel like I'm actually eating real food. It's a little gift to myself at the end of the day. The great news is Green Chef has given me some free boxes to share with you.
If you wanna give it a try, check the show notes for this episode and get the link or go to reading teachers lounge.com/quick links and click on the Green Chef button. If you're tired of cooking the same bland meals just to keep the piece and you need something simple, nourishing, and flavorable just for you, then Green Chef is worth it.
Mary Saghafi: Welcome to the Reading Teachers Lounge.
Shannon Betts: Mary and I are very excited to have a teacher friend of mine here to join us. Talk about a topic we've never talked about before in the reading Teachers lounge. We talked about it. Self-care last, last season up from a teacher's perspective, but now we're gonna be talking about SEL regarding the [00:02:00] students, and I think that's an important topic.
Even though it's not directly about literacy, it affects their literacy development, doesn't it? So, welcome Erin Waters.
Erin Waters: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
Shannon Betts: So tell us a little bit about your teaching experience and what the work you're currently doing.
Erin Waters: Sure. So I grew up wanting to be a teacher. That was my lifelong dream.
I knew I was going to be in education and sure enough, I landed in first grade, which is my absolute favorite and what I taught for seven years. I got started in the daycare world, so I have some early, early childhood experience as well. But first grade is really where my heart is. And then when I started growing a family of my own, I took a little break from the classroom to stay home with my kids and run a business on the side.
And I'm still doing that. But still very much involved in education. I'm in my kids' schools all the time. I'm always seeking out, you know. Opportunities to talk to other teachers. I'm still a teacher at heart, so teaching is still very [00:03:00] much a big part of who I am and what I do.
Shannon Betts: And we're gonna talk about SEL today.
So can you like define how, how do you understand SEL, what does that stand for?
Erin Waters: So when I think about SEL, especially from a teaching perspective, I think that our teaching is divided into two parts. But a lot of times what non-teachers see is just the tip of the iceberg, which is the content, right? The math, the science, the social studies, all of that.
But all teachers know that kids go much deeper than if they know their math facts or how many sight words they know. And to me, SEL is even. More important than the academic side because it is teaching our students as people. I think as teachers, we have one of the most important jobs in the entire world, and we are literally shaping these tiny humans that are going to be growing up to become adults in our society.
So it's our privilege to teach them things like bravery, [00:04:00] resilience kindness, all of the things that make someone who they are. And so when I think of SEL for kids, I think about all of those traits that make. A great person and all of the things that we can do to help our kids learn those during the day.
Shannon Betts: Like that teaching the whole child, right? Yes.
Erin Waters: Yes.
Shannon Betts: And SEL stands for, remind me, you know, we have so many acronyms in education, but social and emotional learning mm-hmm. Is not the official term. Okay? Yes. And it's not just the purview of the counselor or the social worker in the school. You're right that we have to be concerned with it as, as homeroom teachers or resource teachers whatever role we serve because.
We spend, you know, so much amount of time with those students, you know, depending on what the role is. Mm-hmm. If you're the homeroom teacher, you might have six hours a day with the student and that adds up across the week, across the months.
Erin Waters: That's a lot of time, especially about our little learners who are just in such formative years, the amount that you can teach them standards based or with social emotional learning [00:05:00] can go so much farther than we originally think it could.
Mary Saghafi: This is my first time meeting you, Erin. It's so lovely to meet you. I'm so glad you could join us. Your outlook is very similar to my own, which I really love. And just being a part of the classroom and when I started, I started in kindergarten. And so. When I think, and when I would share with parents, learning in kindergarten was really like 50% of learning the academics, but 50% of learning how to adapt to the culture of the school.
Understand what being part of a community is, understanding how to share your perspective in an appropriate for school kind of way. And sometimes the, there's learning experiences that kind of go hand in hand with that. But maybe you could share, some real world experiences and then we can dive down a little deeper.
Erin Waters: Absolutely. So, sorry, I know that you're gonna edit this part out, but real world experiences, like specifically with SEL in the classroom. [00:06:00] Perfect. All right. So I was really lucky to start my teaching career in an elementary school where we used a lot of responsive classroom techniques, and then I transitioned into another school a few years later that used PBIS.
So I feel like I've seen multiple perspectives of how to shape. Students as people, and as you were saying, productive members of a classroom community. I always personally viewed the classroom as like our own little town or our own little family. And within that little town or that little family, there are so many opportunities to strengthen different parts of our community.
For me, SEL always happened as. A whole class approach, but also individual approach and also small group approaches. So as an elementary teacher especially, I think that so much of our SEL is done woven throughout the day into things we're already doing in the classroom. So I was really a huge proponent of read alouds almost.
All [00:07:00] of my read alouds were chosen from a social emotional learning perspective because it was the one chance I got every single day to sit down with my kids. I knew I had their full attention, and we could connect over a topic and have productive conversations, and it didn't just stop there. I think that the read alouds were so powerful that they were things that we could.
Refer to throughout the rest of the day or the rest of the week, or in some cases throughout the rest of the year. So I would definitely say that books were a huge anchor for me in my social emotional learning journey. And most of all, I really valued the idea of getting to know my students as people first and as learners second.
So we did a lot of community building and getting to know you activities at the beginning of the year so I could learn what they like to do in their spare time. You know, there's so much more to a person than what they do at school. So I think being able to connect to students over their interests.
And what they're good at, what they enjoy doing is the first step in really opening that communication portal where you can really dive deeper [00:08:00] into building them up as humans.
Shannon Betts: Like healthy SEL development would be eventually the goal would be the students would, see the value in themselves.
Right. Right. And believe that they're enough. That's the goal of everybody as a person. Right? Yeah. And so yeah, building that relationship and accepting the students as they are and getting to know all the uniqueness of them and the specialness of them. Mm-hmm. They're probably not even aware that, you know, just in those little interactions that you're doing, like the daily greeting or even the way, you are thanking them about things or you're interacting with the hallway or even the way you correct mistakes and things like that in the classroom when you're giving feedback, they all contribute to. Showing the students that we, we do value who they are. Right. Right. And they're not even obvious, like teachable moments that, oh, we're working on SEL right now.
I think, I think I've heard like sometimes that it's been mandated, you know, that certain classrooms like devote so many, you know, minutes a week or something to SEL time.
Erin Waters: Mm-hmm. [00:09:00]
Shannon Betts: But you're right, it can be woven through the day too.
Erin Waters: That's a great, too about, great point too about just modeling it and making sure to work in things throughout the day where you can subtly show them what it means to act a certain way or show a certain quality.
I loved, loved, loved starting every day with a morning meeting. I think sometimes we can think of our kids and really think of ourselves as grownups and think about what we need to have a successful day. And for me. I like to have a routine that I start every single day with. I like to know what's ahead of me for the day, and I also like to feel good about myself heading into the day.
And that's exactly what something like morning meeting accomplished. And then at the end of the day, we would always close with something similar, which is like a closing circle. So it's kind of like morning meeting, but in reverse. And again, it was a very nice way to kind of have some closure for the day, celebrate what went well, reflect on things maybe that didn't go so well and.
It was such a small piece of our day, but such an important part of our day and in the long run, I think one of the most formative things you can do with students.
Shannon Betts: [00:10:00] If we think of our classroom communities as like little cities or something, or towns, like, we're like the mayor, right? And we're setting up that friendly community.
And then I also had classroom jobs. So we almost have sort of had a microcosm of society in my classroom, but we did those morning meetings and also monthly meetings when we were rotate our jobs. But everybody had the responsibilities that they understood what they had to do to contribute to the wellness of the whole classroom.
Erin Waters: I love that.
Shannon Betts: Yeah. Hey, listeners wanna hear what real reading instruction looks like in classrooms right now, along with our regular bimonthly guest episodes, we're still offering exclusive bonus episodes for our paid subscribers this season. Those bonus episodes feature real reading, teachers, sharing how they teach and what their students need.
For just $5 a month, you'll get all our regular episodes ad free plus those extra bonus conversations. Sign up through the link in the show notes or join [00:11:00] us@patreonatpatreon.com slash reading teachers lounge. Come join the conversation. We'd love to have you in the lounge. So we've been teaching, all of us have been teaching a, a good amount of time.
I started in 2002. If y'all wanna say what year you started teaching, just to put it in perspective, you're welcome to,
Mary Saghafi: This is Mary. I started in 2006.
Erin Waters: I started in 2010. Well, 2009 if you count my daycare year. Mm-hmm.
Shannon Betts: So what count have I'm sure we've seen in those decades of teaching. Like, we've gone through like a whole generation of students, right?
That we've taught. So what changes have y'all noticed in SEL concerns with students? You know, like as we get more in the digital age and in social media age and things like that.
Erin Waters: Gosh, I would definitely say. What students are motivated by today are not necessarily the same things they were motivated by 10 years ago.
And of course it's different from [00:12:00] student to student, but I think we have to be a little bit more creative in the ways that we try to reach our students because so much of their time outside of school is spent in a digital world, right? And the digital world is so much more vast than the real world.
And we don't even really know how their brains are occupied in their off time. So I feel like they're coming into our classrooms with exponentially more needs and ways to be reached than maybe they were a decade ago.
Shannon Betts: We had two episodes about that last season. One was called Smart Technology and just how can we use technology, not as, not as a replacement or anything for teaching, but just a way to enhance what we're doing.
And then we also had a whole episode about engagement. And just, you know, getting the kids to be motivated and we might need to gamify, you know, to just not really become like a gesture on the stage or anything, but just sort of to get these students hooked so that then they can [00:13:00] eventually get into that self-feeding cycle where they feel good about the intrinsic mo motivation that they feel when they learn and accomplish things.
But you might have to kind of trick them into that cycle to get them in there. Right.
Mary Saghafi: Something else I was sort of thinking about. And this is just something that I've observed, but with the digital age and social media prevalence and the ease of children to have access about topics of interest.
So meaning like instead of waiting for a TV show to come on at a specific time, they can truly search and find YouTube topics of interest at the touch of a button. And then there's also this consistent i, I, I mean, doom scrolling, but not necessarily because it's like the content keeps perpetuating as they're re they're learning about what it is.
And part of the content that they're learning can be text related. It can be high interest related, but if it is not high interest, then [00:14:00] students are like more easily drawn away from it or less patient about the process of waiting or perhaps even, we'll just tune you out because it's just not a topic that they feel is relevant or feel a connection to.
And I think that that is really unique because if it is an interest, a topic of interest, you can really dive deep with students and it can be really exciting and you can influence passions and, and really, you know, help support the curiosity of your students. But then also, it can be a, a detriment as well.
So I think that the commonality is that there needs to be connection, right? I think connection truly is the way that you you know, find commonalities with your students, get on the same page and additionally with their parents as well. 'cause this is. But, but the second piece that I was thinking about is how quickly fads change and move because of social media.
So right now in [00:15:00] our household, we are living and breathing K-pop demon hunters. It is just this Netflix special that's on the music is everywhere. When I talk to people who are this, who have children the same age as my kids, we are, we know all the songs. Our kids have been really into it and like. Next month or two months from now, there's going to be another shift, another thing that is like the hook that will hook into our kids and have a commonality.
And I think that there was more time between some of these fads in previous years, even a generation ago. So I think that's kind of unique too.
Erin Waters: Absolutely. Yeah, the instant gratification piece is a whole new factor, and I'm sure our teachers battled a similar variant of that, but this is absolutely the shortest attention span I think we've been battling so far.
So that's definitely something to consider. And I think you're absolutely right, Mary. I think the connection piece is huge and to me that's more of a timeless [00:16:00] teaching tactic. But I guess teachers just need to be a little quicker to pivot from. Connection to connection these days since, like you said, they do change so rapidly.
Shannon Betts: And, and connection is like what? Analog, it's like the, it's like the antidote to the digital fake connections, right? Mm-hmm. That students might feel. Have y'all noticed any changes since post COVID? Because I know our local school district was really concerned how that would affect students social emotional development, and they gave every single student in our school district a bask.
The behavior survey that's normally just given during psychological evaluations. I think just to kind of give a temperature check, you know, like a really formal temperature check of like how are the kids doing? With that strange year and a half of schooling that they got at the early part of this decade.
Erin Waters: I'm seeing kind of two ends of the spectrum. And this has been interesting for me because I, I'm also the parent of a fifth grader and a third grader this year. So not [00:17:00] only have I been, you know, in the classrooms and around the, the school, but I've also been immersed in these friend groups. So it's like an up close view at things you might not see necessarily on a day-to-day basis in schools.
And I would say that one of the biggest struggles I have seen is students, meeting, which, how should I phrase this? Kind of like a lack of resilience or coping abilities when they're faced with something that just doesn't go their way. There's a very short fuse for some of these students. And it's not that there is a fuse necessarily, but it's just that they, it's almost like they just are unable to process.
Disappointment, especially when it comes out of nowhere. So that's one of the big pieces, I think is reacting in the moment and learning how to work through those feelings. Whereas I feel like I've seen another group of students who have almost seemed to thrive post pandemic, and maybe it is that they had a strong.
[00:18:00] Foundation of social, social, emotional learning before the pandemic. But students that have almost like flourished in their ability to cope in times of difficulty and have empathy for other students. So I think we're looking at also some very different sets of kids when we're talking about how it's affected everybody.
Mary Saghafi: I am right in that with you as well, and I see that with the students that I tutor and then also with my own kiddos. And I would say that the other piece is that like lack of patience or, or understanding that things will, kind of come full circle. I feel like they're not a lot, not able to process that as well as other fifth graders that I have seen in previous years.
And I wonder, and it's just a wonder because I'm, I'm hesitant to place all the blame on COVID. I don't think that that is accurate. I think that there's also resilience in adults at that time that was unexpected. And then there was also high [00:19:00] anxiety and, and. We don't know how that played out, but Erin, like your children.
We both had a kindergartner, I'm sure at the during pandemic times where they were not able to go to school. Maybe your kiddo was on Zoom. Mine was as well. And I think that. It, it impacted her ability to sort of like foresee that things can get better. Like, I feel like I spend a lot of conversations trying to redirect her to think back about other experiences that were similar.
Do those experiences tend to get better? What made it better? And, and also like in the moment, how does your body feel when you're upset? And recognizing that, and I. I definitely see both sides of it, but that lack of coping is definitely something I've seen across many of her peers and also many of the students that I see as well.
Parents are really concerned about that, so I wonder if you [00:20:00] could speak a bit to that too.
Erin Waters: Absolutely. So it's interesting 'cause I haven't really, we're, we're always thinking about like, how is it now after COVID? But as you were speaking, I was kind of trying to think back to life before COVID and classrooms, before COVID and.
Anxiety just was not a buzzword back then. I mean, sure we heard about it in the mental health space as adults, but I feel like it is such a frequently used word now when I'm talking to teachers or other parents or even considering my own children. So. I've always struggled with anxiety, so social emotional learning and just general mental health has always been an interest of mine, but it's been very interesting to see that through the lens of having children and students.
Who struggle with anxiety. And I think you're absolutely right. I'm finding the same thing with my own son who was a kindergartner at the time. And he has grown so much through [00:21:00] his worries. But anxiety was definitely a huge piece to the last few years. And it's, it is, I think it's not knowing what's going to happen in the future, knowing that things can go wrong and kids aren't really supposed to have to expect that things will go wrong, you know?
But unfortunately, they were. Exposed to a time where nobody really knew what was happening. So there was a lot of worries and we couldn't always keep them on the inside, like parents are so good at doing, we were living through it together and it was. Very visible anxiety because we were all stuck at home together.
There's only so many places you can go to worry or have a conversation with your partner or you know, just like de-stress. So I think that they have been exposed to a lot more than we know. But one of the most helpful things that we have been doing at home and is also the inspiration for a book that I recently wrote is talking through those coping me mechanisms.
Because just like I was saying, we have to kind of like plan for our kids the way we plan for ourselves. A lot of our feelings and behaviors that happen because of those [00:22:00] feelings are very similar. At the end of the day, we're grown up kids and they're little adult juniors, you know? So we have a lot of overlap when it comes to how we.
Handle those emotions. So I, if I can, I just wanna tell you quickly about a book that I recently published because it stemmed exactly from the situation and I wrote a book about a watermelon who is always worried about everything. It's called Wally Is Worried, and the main point of this whole book is to walk kids through five different coping mechanism mechanisms, one of which you mentioned, which is, hey, you really have to examine things you've already gotten through that felt hard at the time, and know that even though they felt impossible.
As you were going through them, you're here. You got through them. And that is empowering not only for kids to hear, but for adults also. And I think it's a matter of grabbing onto a few coping mechanisms that work for the kids and slowly rewiring. That brain that was trained for years to worry about the unknown.
So I think that it's really sad that anxiety is such a common [00:23:00] problem with our kids these days, but I think it's also extremely hopeful that there are a lot of different resources and ways that we can catch it while it, while they're still young.
Shannon Betts: I wanna hear about the coping mechanisms and resources, but I wanna go backwards just for a second to see like what are the warning signs that we need to look for as we work with children?
I know I'm noticing with a lot of the tutoring students I have that there's some negative self-talk whenever, you know, it's, it's not just I made a mistake, it's, I'm stupid, and it immediately goes to that place and then we have to like backtrack from there. And. Student is not necessarily gonna say, I'm worried today, Mrs.
Soandso. So what are the things that we need to watch for and look for in our students to kind of put it, we already talked about like what are we doing just as setting up our whole classroom environments, tier one, you know, to make it good, positive SEL spaces, but then what do we need to watch for, for the students that are maybe on the shorter tier two list of like, okay, maybe they need a little bit more and then I wanna get into solutions.
'cause we're all [00:24:00] about solutions here.
Erin Waters: I think when students suddenly are having a harder time concentrating, that can definitely be an outward symptom of worrying and anxiety in the classroom. A lot of times when you have a lot going on inside, it's really hard for you to control your body on the outside. I think that one of the common symptoms that I've seen in students who struggle with anxiety is maybe a little bit more irritable.
Not as even keeled when it comes to either daily conversations or handling. Difficulties. It seems like there's a little bit more outward frustration and anger and irritability that isn't there. With a kid who is not experiencing anxiety,
Mary Saghafi: sometimes I will describe it especially to parents, you know, as they're, they say, I'm not sure I have a really bright kid, but it's like they can't put all the pieces together there and.
Often I explain it as they're not available to learn. Their availability is taken up by [00:25:00] negative thought processes. A worry that might even be like on a subconscious level. And they don't have words to express or communicate how that feels and what it comes off as is the irritability, as you said, or you know, kind of like disassociating with what's actually going on.
And a, a variety of other. Concerns that you just named as well. But the, the common factor is they're not available to learn and our goal is to try to create an environment where it's the safest space for them to learn so that we know we can maximize their potential in that circumstance. So I do like to kind of remind people, 'cause I think that makes a lot more sense when you say.
Availability is just not there. And you can think of if you're having a big fight or you know with your partner and you're expected to go run a big meeting and your nerves are completely fried, you're not gonna have bring your best a game. And so I think that our students are sometimes feeling that kind of way.
Shannon Betts: I [00:26:00] like that analogy. Like back in the day we used to have like a away messages on our computer, you know, like at work or whatever. And I can almost picture that, oh, on the students, like if they were, had a thing, like a bag over their head or like a sign in front of their face. It's just like, I am not available to learn right now, like my body is here.
But
Erin Waters: I would like one of those personally.
Mary Saghafi: I have to throw in a really quick story because I think this will bring a little comic relief to the
Shannon Betts: We love stories!
Mary Saghafi: situation. We had a lot of, have a lot of children in our neighborhood and especially during lockdown times, we would let the kids play outdoors with the neighbor kids.
And so we often had one neighbor who was quick to ring the doorbell and ring the doorbell and sometimes we were not available and she would come over sometimes like. Three and four times and be like, well, why aren't you available? And so we ended up putting a sign on our door that was either red or green, whether or not we were [00:27:00] available or not, because I think that signal is really helpful.
You know, for some people we don't have that option as teachers, but I think even just the, the comic relief of it is, is really helpful. Mm-hmm. I will say too, one day she goes. Excuse me, but your sign has been read for three days. Why are you not available? So, you know, you just have to, the, the answer was we were sick, but still she didn't know.
So anyway, I thought I would just bring that as a little common.
Shannon Betts: You said we didn't have that, you know, capability as teachers, but I think we could do that. Like we could. Frame this to students to even just realize, to be self-aware. Like, okay, this is what it looks like when you're ready to learn and these are the things that might impair you being ready to learn.
You know, check in with yourself before you start, like a really hard concept in math, like, are you available to learn or not? Like, I think that would be one thing that teachers could definitely do, and I could do, you know, in my tutoring sessions as well.
Erin Waters: I love that. [00:28:00]
Shannon Betts: What else can teachers do? Like how can they better set up classroom routines?
How can they intervene when they see students that are struggling with this? If you wanna give some spoilers from your book you know, to help the watermelon, let us know.
Erin Waters: Yeah. Well, two things. One, I think that, again, I think it setting up a really good foundation at the beginning of the year is so important.
And of course, you're still tweaking things throughout the year and constantly adding things to your routines and taking away as you see fit. I also think giving kids ownership of the classroom at least as much as possible, is really, really great. I think it gives some kids a voice who don't always have a voice in the way things go or the outcome of certain situations.
So to include your kids in kind of like the building of your classroom at the beginning of the year. Is really important. Kind of going back to what you were saying about the classroom jobs having them create the jobs. What do you think, what do you think our needs are going to be this year and how could we solve those by having jobs?
Just as a small [00:29:00] example. So I think that's something physically that teachers can do. To help kids feel more at ease and more included in the classroom community and more comfortable sharing those feelings and being their true selves throughout the year. And then for students who are actively struggling, I think it really does come down to those coping mechanisms and I feel like we see them everywhere and we're always hearing about ways to calm your nervous system or how to reduce anxiety.
And I'm talking about as a grownup, even, I'm surrounded by these messages on social media. But things I've done personally and things that I've seen really effective with kids are, like I said, first of all, thinking about those past triumphs and how you can use that mindset to move through new challenges.
I think that's really, really important for students to see, Hey, you know what? I've been here before. My brain has felt like this before and we got through it. There's a just something like a little bit of comfort that happens when you can remind yourself about things that you've overcome in the past.
And that's one of the coping me [00:30:00] mechanisms in the book. I think physical exercises like breathing especially, is a great way to reset and really feel grounded in a moment where students otherwise might feel really out of control. So there's always breathing techniques you can use with the really little ones.
We call them tomato soup breaths, where you would pretend like you're holding bowl of soup and you breathe it in through your nose to smell it, and then you slowly breathe out through your mouth to cool down the bowl of soup. That's another cute little one that works again with the little ones. If we're talking about older kids, obviously it's not always going to work across the board.
So yeah, I think any way you can visualize the worry and name the worry and name the anxiety and. Really get the kid to see that, Hey, you know what, this isn't really something to be worried about right now. This is just a story my brain is writing right now. And just because my brain is writing the story doesn't mean that it's true.
My brain can tell a lot of stories that aren't true. Think about all the Imagination [00:31:00] Games kids play and all of the fanciful things they can make up in stories that they write at school. The brain can do the same thing. When it tells you something is wrong or something is going to go wrong, and just as easily as our brain can tell us these scary stories, we can also teach our brain to tell us happier stories and stories of hope and resilience rather than doom and gloom every single day.
Shannon Betts: I like what you mentioned too, but naming the worry, and also I've had to learn this as an adult, is to name the feeling. Mary was talking about you know, how do things show up in her daughter's body? Like I've had to pay attention to that. Like, what feelings make my heart race, which ones make my, you know, breathing kind of go fast or.
Go too slow. Which ones kind of make me freeze up and just checking in with myself on the feelings wheel. You know, a feelings wheel might be really helpful to have by the board or by the meeting space in the classroom. So that students can name the feeling and then, okay, well what triggered the feeling?
Okay then, okay, how do we process it [00:32:00] All? Feelings are, that's another thing that I think is important is to teach students that all feelings are okay. Then, you know, so the each fe, you know, feeling is, or information that our body is trying to teach us, and it's okay to have them. But then what's, in a way, what's an appropriate reaction in, in the space where you are for, to deal with that feeling?
Erin Waters: Definitely that's like our family motto with, with my kids. I always tell them. It's okay to feel the way you're feeling, but it's not okay to act the way you're acting right now. And I think that's a really good way to validate their feelings and not dismiss them because, and again, not to loop everybody into generations, but you know, growing up that was, it wasn't really, you know, we weren't always able just to say how we were feeling and have it validated.
You know, it was, I feel, I think today's world is much more in touch with mental health and your social emotional needs. So to imagine hearing that as a young kid. I can imagine is extremely powerful rather than just like, you'll be fine. Right. Which I'm sure I've said even [00:33:00] as a parent, but to let them know that the way they're feeling is okay is so important.
And I think, like you were, I, you made me think of something. And again, my experiences with lower elementary classrooms, so that's where my lens of teaching is coming from. But another thing I've seen done in classrooms is having like a specific designated. Area of the classroom where kids can go to the
Shannon Betts: calm down corner.
Erin Waters: The calm down corner. Yes. And I don't know if you can see my streamers in the background, but I had a little calm down corner in my office actually. 'cause is that
for
Shannon Betts: you or your kids?
Erin Waters: Well, probably both, but I had these little posters hung up with like different coping mechanisms you can use when you're feeling worried, when you're feeling anxious, when you're feeling upset.
And I love your idea, Shannon, about being able to also name. The feeling because that, again, is connecting those wires in the brain saying that, Hey, this feeling makes me feel this way, but I can do this instead of this. And again, learning that at a younger age is something a lot of us probably could have benefited [00:34:00] from.
So anytime you can do that in a classroom, a little ones, I think it's amazing.
Mary Saghafi: As many of our listeners know, my background is in special education and so I was one of the teachers who was like. Really on the cusp of having a calm down corner because I have students who displayed behaviors and they really needed that, and I think that there's a lot of specificity that we can learn to incorporate from the special education world into the general education world.
And I do think that there has been a lot more crossover and understanding that. Many of the strategies work for special education also are highly strong practices in the general education classroom. And I think a story I can share is teaching my students about unexpected behaviors. So I would you know, have a general education classroom that I had a student as a part of being included for part of the day within the general education population.
And sometimes that student would [00:35:00] exhibit. Unexpected behaviors. It would be an outburst or a big frustration, or maybe it's tearful or maybe it's a loud noise, and they are stemming, and that loud noise is helping them to find some balance within their own brain. And so we talked a lot about unexpected behaviors, and I like naming that because unexpected behaviors happen within the entire population.
We all have a reason that we are trying to. Regulate ourselves in one way or another. And so we would talk about what to do if this student had some unexpected behaviors, but not just this one student. And this is where I really wanna capitalize on this during morning meeting or in whole community ex places.
Make sure that you also use unexpected behaviors and, and talk about those models. Within the general education population as well, what could that look like maybe for one student [00:36:00] and what could that look like for another student? And what could that look like for a third, fourth, and fifth student?
What are unexpected behaviors in the classroom? And then teach what is the expected behavior? So in this first circumstance if my student was. Having a really hard time, and maybe it got to be the point where it was disrupting the class. We did have one interaction where we really had to actually make the whole class, leave the classroom for safety reasons, but the whole class knew exactly what to do.
We had practiced if someone in our classroom is having a hard time and an adult needs to intervene, we're going to give this signal. Everybody stands up, we're going to the hallway. And every student who did what was expected in that moment. Earned some sort of a treat or reward, but they had already been prepared enough to know what to do when something unexpected happens.
And I like that vagueness about it. And I just wanted to [00:37:00] really broadcast that that is social emotional learning because we we're gonna experience it.
Erin Waters: I love that perspective because, I mean, when you think about kids and their emotions, every single one of their feelings is unexpected. You know, kids don't, they're not premeditated.
They don't, they're not calculating. They live life minute by minute. And that's why it is so hard to teach that emotional regulation because anyone can sit here ahead of time and say what I would do in a situation, and anyone can look back on a situation and be like, oh, I really should have done that, but.
Even for adults in the moment, it is so tricky to know exactly what to do with those feelings, how to feel on the inside, how to look on the outside it means. So I love that phrasing of unexpected. That's, I love that.
Mary Saghafi: I will share one more 'cause I think it's semi-related. And that is sometimes that you can have a rock brain, your brain can get really stubborn and it's really hard to be flexible in that moment.
So [00:38:00] the opposite of flexibility is this like rock symbol. And we would talk about how sometimes you might need extra help to get out of your rock brain and that's okay. And what you need to do is say, I. I'm so frustrated. I need help and keep it really short and simple, and I know I learned this because I also had a lot of experience in early childhood education too.
But giving students language to ask for help in the moment is really powerful. It's very powerful for adults as well. We always say that. Kids teach us so much, but I have learned a tremendous amount from kids, especially because there's so much neuroplasticity. So when you're teaching these skills, you are changing their brain in the way that they're processing emotions in a really positive way because it empowers them.
Right. So I, yeah, just have to shout that one from the rooftop too.
Shannon Betts: I appreciate you saying that. 'cause I struggle as an adult [00:39:00] asking for help. So. But I, I applaud my, stu, my my own children and my students every time I see them asking for help. Yeah. So what else? Is there anything else we need to, you know, talk about, I think we shared so many wonderful solutions that our listeners can apply.
But is there anything else that you wanna share with teachers while you're here with us in the Reading Teachers Lounge?
Erin Waters: I don't think so, other than the fact that being out of the classroom has never made me appreciate teachers more, especially having kids who are school aged, you know, every single age.
We're like, oh, maybe this is the hardest age or the best age, or maybe this is the hardest age or the best age. And teachers are just incredible for the ways that they can adapt to the students that walk into their classrooms every single year. And I think social emotional learning is a big part of that.
So,
Shannon Betts: and this isn't something extra that teachers have to do.
Erin Waters: No.
Shannon Betts: Right. It's just the approach to what they're already doing. It's just looking at what they're already doing through a different lens. [00:40:00] Right.
Erin Waters: Exactly.
Mary Saghafi: I have to also commend you because I think if you are a teacher who doesn't quite know where to start I, one of the very first things that we talked about was using books as a tool to help guide this.
And I think that you know, if you're feeling a little overwhelmed by a lot of these topics and, and struggles that your kids are going through within the classroom, and maybe you don't have kids that same age and you're not as attuned to all of this. Just starting with a book that really touches you and that you feel like, you know, resonated with you.
Sharing that experience with your students is. Truly, like, I think the first step on the journey. So that's why it's
Shannon Betts: important. It's common language right? To talk about it. So
Mary Saghafi: yes,
Shannon Betts: for example, if you read the watermelon story you know about worrying, then, then everybody can be like, oh, that's when I felt this way.
And it might be one of those touchstone stories that everybody in the class might refer to back the whole year, you know?
Erin Waters: Definitely,
Mary Saghafi: and just for our listeners, we'll make sure that we [00:41:00] link Aaron's story in our show notes so that you can take a look and peek at it too. And some
Shannon Betts: other
Mary Saghafi: recommend.
Shannon Betts: Yeah. And some other recommended books for SEL L topics and you know.
Mary Saghafi: Yeah. It's been a joy having you. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing this is such an important topic. I love it.
Erin Waters: Thank for having me. I really appreciate it. I had a great time.
Shannon Betts: Alright thank you for joining us and thanks for tuning in you guys.
We'll talk to you next time.