Well-Being Matters

 

The two memes I have posted above both come from an education/teacher page on Facebook. The first breaks my heart and the second has me saying "Yes! This!"

Sadly too often the idea that social emotional learning, mindfulness, mental health, self care, and I personally would replace self esteem with well being (we can talk more about that later), emotional regulation...and the like...are left to the idea of "if I have time."

Positive Psychologist Dr. Seligman and one of his doctoral students ran a study with students in the small Asian country of Bhutan. The Ministry of education in Bhutan had a goal of Gross National Happiness. Dr. Seligman and his student looked at what the students needed to accomplish the goal building this GNH and came up with the list of: mindfulness, critical thinking, decision making, communication, creative thinking, empathy, problem solving, interpersonal relationships, resilience and self-awareness. 

A program was created which wove the list of skills into the existing curriculum. They ran this program for 15 months and then stopped for a full year. After a year the well-being of students and teachers was the same as at the end of the program. The findings at the end of the program and a year later? Statistically significant positive well-being.  But that's not all. The students in the program out preformed peers not in the program....BY A FULL YEAR!

The experiment has been conducted in larger settings too and the researchers continue to find that students in the well-being program outperform peers by a little as 3 months, some up to six months, and in Bhutan a full year!

Do you have a student who is low?

Do you want higher test scores?

Do you want your students to grow?

Do you want to be less stressed?

Why not take time for SEL?

Why not engage in small mindfulness activities?

Why not use the mood meter?

Why not every morning ask your students "what went well yesterday?" "what is your gratitude today?"

Think about how you can add SEL, mindfulness, and well-being into your daily schedule.

Morning Greeting can become: Good Morning I am glad to see you today, what went well for you yesterday?

Make morning work to set a WHOOP goal. This is an opportunity to have students work on writing skills while gets a goal and making a daily plan. 

Throughout the day utilize the mood meter to check in with students emotions and your own. (I can send or print for you a small or large mood meter.) I had a great conversation with Ms. March and her 3rd grade class. The idea we talked about was using the mood meter as needed, no matter what is going on. If a student is frustrated with math, let them move their mood sticker (or something of the like) to "frustrated". As the teacher you can acknowledge this and support better. "Hey Cameron, thanks for moving your mood dude, I noticed you identified the feeling of frustration while working on fractions. Is that feeling helping with math? If not, can we work together to figure out how to shift the mood?"

You use the mood meter too. If the class is off task and you are feeling irritated, move your figure on the mood meter. Let the children silently know you are in the red. If you are using the mood meter daily the students will have the common language with you and know that they are not feeling pleasant. If you have built a relationship with your students and the mood meter, perhaps one student will ask if your mood is helpful and if not, how can they help.

After specials, lunch, recess, or any high energy time do a mindfulness. Set one time as your Inner Explorer mindfulness. Use the other times for a quick breathing and mood reflection time.

Close out your day by thanking your students for being in school and present and participating. Let them know that you wish them well as they go home (our Metta Mindfulness... I wish you well...).

Studies show that how we start and end a day, a conversation, our time with others, really matters. It's what people reflect on most. 

Show your students their well-being matters. 

Show students your well-being matters.

 

Emotions Matter, So Do Their Stories

Before we begin, I encourage you to take a Meta Moment. Marc Brackett, Founder and Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, defines this as; a time to pause and activate our best self.

If you remember from our Meta Mindfulness, this was a loving-kindness mindfulness. Meta, means showing love and kindness. Taking a meta moment means showing this love and kindness to yourself, allowing your emotional regulation to be in the green and yellow sections of the mood meter (refer to last week's blog).

When we are our best selves, we then allow others the space to be their best selves.

As I continued my course  Managing Emotions in Times of Uncertainty and Stress I was presented with information which helped me see how I present my emotions when working with students. The concept of emotional co-regulation is one that stood out to me. This is the idea that as social creatures we respond to the emotions of others. Studies have shown this to be a truth over and over again. 

When we take time to reflect on the Mood Meter and check our own emotions we then create a safe space for our students to feel and properly identify their emotions. We model what we want them to know. This can easily be done in the classroom through checking in throughout the day with students and letting them know where you are on the mood meter. This is also something that should be done when utilizing Inner Explorer. Taking this time to engage in the activity with your students, rather than having them do it on their own while you play paperwork catch up.

Think about a challenging time in class....transitions from lunch, recess, or specials back to core educational topics... this is a time for co-regulation, not command. Let the students know that you see they are at a high level of energy and that you want to help them and prepare to move toward a lower energy for greater focus. This is the perfect time for mindfulness and Inner Explorer. 

Studies have shown that most students cannot identify a "safe adult" in school. This means that students feel they have never been allowed or encouraged to give voice to their feelings. When we see a student yell, we tell them to stop. We assume anger behind the yell. In SEL the idea is presented that Behavior does NOT equal Emotion. Most of the time we need the story to truly understand. Take time to listen to the student and their story. Really hear them without judgement.

RULER is a way to help students with understanding and regulating emotions. 

In this video, RULER you have an opportunity to hear from school staff and students about how utilizing RULER has be beneficial. 

R: Recognizing emotions in oneself and others

U: Understanding the causes and consequences of emotions

L: Labeling emotions with a nuanced vocabulary

E: Expressing emotions in accordance with cultural norms and social context

R: Regulating emotions with helpful strategies  

Mood Meter and Perspective Taking

 "We are all in the same storm, but we are not in the same boat."

This quote is from the collage course I am currently taking called, Managing Emotions in Times of Uncertainty & Stress. This class is through Yale and their center of Emotional Intelligence. The course is directed toward those working in schools and is an excellent source of SEL information. I highly recommend taking this course. Feel free to ask me more questions.

The quote stood out to me when thinking of the pandemic, our school, our staff, and of course our students. We are all experiencing the pandemic, but not in the same way. Some may feel they are on a lifeboat rowing through icy waters as they watch the Titanic sink. Others may feel moderate concern for their medium sized vessel as it sails through a gale on a Great Lake. And then others may feel they are on a pleasure cruise down the Mississippi, enjoying drinks and playing poker while a light breeze dances across their face. The storm is the same but due to your location and your boat size some feel safer than others.

To help ourselves, our co-workers, and our students through the storm we need to engage in perspective taking. 

Another idea that stood out to me in my class is that we need to engage in perspective taking more than empathy. One article in the reading stated that empathy can be challenging. The idea of empathy is to put yourself in someone's shoes. But how can you put yourself in another's shoes when you have never seen those kind of shoes before. This created a deeper understanding for me as I thought about our students and even co-workers.

Imagine someone walking into the school building with the strangest shoes you have ever seen. To you they appear uncomfortable, binding, limiting, and maybe even ugly. You probably do not want to try them on. Wearing the shoes would be empathy. Instead of asking to try on the shoes, take time to ask how they feel, where they are from, learn the story. This is perspective taking. 

Too often we assign a label to the emotions of others based on how we might feel in the same situation. Again, we are in the storm with others so we assume they are experiencing it the same way we are, even though their boat looks vastly different from our own. 

Marc Brackett, the professor of my course and the director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, wrote a book entitled Permission to Feel and in this book he addresses the topic of identifying emotions without judgement. (If this concept sounds familiar that is because it directly relates to mindfulness.)

In his book Dr. Brackett share the Mood Meter.

This graphic is a great way to start a conversation regarding feelings. This X and Y axis table helps us observed our feelings to be a Data Point in our day and not the Definition of our day.

I would encourage us all to start utilizing this chart to check in through out the day. See if you are low or high on the X-Pleasantness and low or high on the Y-Energy.

Once you are able to identify the feeling and give it a name you can address the feeling in the way that will best help you. You can then ask the question "does this feeling serve a greater purpose for my well-being?". In psychology there is the idea that you have to "name it to tame it". Once you name a feeling you can learn to sit with it (Yellow and Green) or shift it (Blue and Red). 

The better you become at naming your own feelings the better you will be able to help your students name their own.

Take a day next week to set up random times for mood check ins. Ask yourself where you are at on the chart, note the level of X and Y and note what you are doing at that time as it relates to the feeling. After you are comfortable asking yourself about feelings set up a day to engage in this activity with your students.

SEL (social emotional learning) should never be seen as an "if I have time" but rather should be built in to your schedule daily. Studies show that those who are better able to identify their emotions achieve higher. 

This storm is strong, but so are we. Take some time to listen to another person and learn how well they are faring the storm in their boat. Take a minute to see how well you are sailing your own boat.

Self-Compassion v Self-Esteem

 

This week while spending a (rare) quiet moment reading I was presented with an idea that stood out to me. In her book, Maybe You Should Talk To Someone, psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb talks about her own journey in counseling as well as how she counsels others. She shares, "In therapy we aim for self-compassion (Am I human?) versus self-esteem (a judgement: Am I good or bad?)" 

The concept of self-compassion versus self-esteem stood out to me when thinking about our students. Are we utilizing mindfulness to teach our students self-compassion? Too often our society tells us that we must fill children with self-esteem to make them strong and feel their best. What if we utilize our time to teach them to take care of themselves? 

This idea, of course, lead me down the path of exploring mindfulness and self-compassion. A journey easy to take. Mindfulness teaches us to be aware and accepting. When we are aware of our feelings and we accept them as they come we will learn to have more self-compassion.

How many times have you heard self-defeating comments from a student? I hear them from my 2-year-old. She will be engaging in an activity and will suddenly state "I can't, I just can't." She will then have a sad look on her face and stop her task. I of course take the time to ask her what she feels she can not do and tell her maybe she can not do it yet but to keep trying. I don't tell her something untrue and fill her with "yes you can, just do it." In stead I teach her to have self-compassion and remind her that sometimes you cannot do something but that means you need to keep trying. Remember; our brains are wired toward negative not positive. Being positive needs to be taught.

I had never before thought of self-esteem as teaching us to question if we are good or bad. This makes me sad that we are told by society that our children need to be filled with self-esteem. I would rather we take time to work on self-compassion. The question "am I human" has one answer for us all, "yes". When we answer yes than we can look at the bigger picture. Humans make mistakes. Humans need help. 

Self-compassion mindfulness looks like: using the 90 second rule to feel and left go, practicing loving-kindness mediation, eating a healthy lunch, drinking water, moving/exercising, sleeping, and using kind words with ourselves. 

When I did in home social work I would have to talk with every member of a family about violence in the home. This often left clients feeling ashamed, vulnerable, and self-defeated. Our students have homes we may never be able to imagine, families we may never be able to understand, and lives that leave them desperate to feel better (to know self-compassion).

Instead of teaching self-esteem, let's teach self-compassion through mindfulness.

One of my favorite ways to teach positive self-talk, which fits well with loving-kindness meditation is to teach "I can", "I am" , and "I will". 

Teaching our students to take a one minute break to say "I can try my best, I will try my best, I am doing my best," can be a great start to opening students up to self-compassion. Try it yourself today. Maybe you are feeling defeated by the structure of the school year, the pandemic, personal life issues, students, co-workers, pets...the list of things could go on and on. Try some kind mindfulness. Try self-compassion.