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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. To end the show today, we're opening the phones for a call-in of praise for people working with children on their social and emotional learning. We're doing this today because school is obviously out this week for the holidays, so many of you who work in education or parents taking care of your kids are home and able to listen and call in at this time of day this week.
We know taking care of children's emotional needs has been one of the biggest demands on parents and teachers and mental health professionals as kids emerge from the hard of the pandemic with all its losses and anxieties. We know these stresses hit some communities harder than others. The question is simple, who's been a leader in social and emotional learning for children you know who you want to thank? (212)-433-WNYC, (212)-433-9692. Who's been a leader in social and emotional learning in your child's life or your school community's life who you want to thank? (212)-433-WNYC, or tweet @BrianLehrer.
Now, we're also having this call-in today because, every year, WNYC and this show hand out some awards that we call the Lehrer Prize for Community Well-Being. This year, we're planning to specifically honor people working in this field, caring for children's emotional well-being in the stressful year that's about to end. This call-in is one way that we are casting our net for especially deserving groups or individuals in this field. Who's been a leader in social and emotional learning in your child's life or in your school community who you want to thank? (212)-433-WNYC, (212)-433-9692.
We'll have a special broadcast sometime in the new year to honor the winners and the field of counseling and children's mental health and social and emotional learning as a whole. Who's doing great work in this area who you would like to thank or who you would like us to know about and consider for this prize, which does come with a little bit of cash? (212)-433-WNYC, (212)-433-9692. We can also take some calls from some of you who are doing this work. Can you put into words what kinds of differences you're seeing in kids' emotional well-being compared to before the pandemic? Can you describe how it's different for different communities?
We know lower income and communities of color got hit disproportionately by COVID deaths and COVID economic stresses and other related things. How are you seeing that manifest in the emotional well-being of the kids in any such community to this day? I wonder even if you've had to learn more yourself about trauma-informed counseling or education even if you work in the field. (212)-433-9692.
I will also say that we know that, in some, mostly right-wing, political camps, social and emotional learning has become something to oppose. The opponents say it's like critical race theory, teaching our kids that their emotional well-being has to do with privilege in a way that somehow stigmatizes white or better-off children for being more okay, but the proponents and practitioners of social and emotional learning say you can't just address children's feelings individually without social context.
One example I read that you may find interesting was of a kid from a poor family who said in school he was feeling sad because his blanket had holes in it and he was shivering and cold last night. Just approaching that with traditional feelings-level therapy, like, "Take deep breaths, acknowledge that you're sad, see if you can think of things you're happy about or grateful about," that kind of an approach saddles a kid dealing with inequity with the responsibility as an individual to tend to his feelings rather than acknowledge and address the social context. That's why the field is called social and emotional learning.
Thought some of you not steeped in this controversy might find that interesting. People who work in the field, that's one thing you can talk about. For anyone, back to the top-line question, who's been a leader in social and emotional learning in your child's life or in your school community who you would like to thank? (212)-433-WNYC, (212)-433-9692, or shout them out on Twitter @BrianLehrer. We'll take your calls right after this.
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your calls on who's been a leader in social and emotional learning in your child's life or in your school community who you would like to thank. Sherry in Teaneck, you're up first. Hi, Sherry, you're on WNYC.
Sherry: Hi. Thanks so much for taking my call.
Brian Lehrer: Who would you like to thank?
Sherry: I wanted to thank my eight-year-old son's elementary school, which, this year, has started a "special", akin to art and music, of social-emotional learning class. It's become a normal part of their curriculum, and the kids love it.
Brian Lehrer: What do they do?
Sherry: They talk about emotions. They talk about relating to others. They do art and other hands-on experiences relating to that. I hear about it every Monday night.
Brian Lehrer: Do you think it's designed in particular to deal with post-COVID remote learning stress?
Sherry: Absolutely. That was put out to us at the beginning of the year that that's the reason that they put this class in. I think it's very beneficial, especially since my child was a kindergartener during the first year of COVID and really lost out on a lot of learning and a lot of social opportunities.
Brian Lehrer: Sherry, thank you so much. We really appreciate that. Julie in Inwood, a former school principal. Hi, Julie, thanks for calling in. You're on WNYC.
Julie: Hi. I'm calling to say that Lesley Koplow, who runs a program at Bank Street College called Emotionally Responsive Practice, I feel that that program has been the most important contribution to our school community. They've been working, really, since after 9/11, and working specifically with incidents that have been traumatizing to wide groups of kids.
Brian Lehrer: Do you know how they've adapted to the post-COVID remote learning period in particular?
Julie: Not in particular. It's just the program and the approach addresses whatever is going on for kids in the moment. It's not specific to a particular kind of trauma or event.
Brian Lehrer: Julie, thank you so much. Sharon in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sharon.
Sharon: Hi. I'd like to shout out my granddaughter's principal, Robyn Milliner-Johnson, who is the principal of an all-girls charter school in the Bronx. The neighborhood is not the safest neighborhood. It's an all-girls school and it shares its space with a public school junior high school. The two principals have worked together to provide a safe environment and also to inform the community of services, especially COVID-related services, immunization information. They also have a community garden. I'm really happy that they have struggled through COVID to provide a safe space for many, many little girls and also middle schoolers.
Brian Lehrer: Do you have any sense of what kinds of trauma or other emotional fallout the girls in your granddaughter's school have been dealing with COVID-related?
Sharon: They've been dealing with their older brothers and sisters being in the streets and having to come pick them up and just the environment of the trauma of so many guns in the Bronx. Also, the asthmatic rate is very, very high in the Bronx. There's a lot of outside environmental and social factors that they all deal with. We're dealing with a middle school and an elementary school in the same building.
Brian Lehrer: Sharon, thank you so much for that call and that story. Victoria in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Victoria.
Victoria: Hi. I just wanted to shout out the paraprofessionals of New York City. I work in a school that has wonderful guidance counselors and wonderful social workers and teachers who are really sensitive to student needs. Paraprofessional is a position that I don't know everyone knows exists. It's a group of people who don't often get recognized. They're really working one-on-one with students, especially if a student is having social-emotional difficulties or is really struggling a lot of time it's the paraprofessional who's right there with them, who's taking them for a break in the hallway and working one-on-one and giving them calming strategies.
They get overlooked a lot. It's a shame because they're really a valuable part of a school community.
Brian Lehrer: That's a great group to mention. Do you know how the paras are trained? I don't expect you to necessarily know, but do you, in any of these things?
Victoria: Well, that's the thing, is there's a really wide variation in the amount of support they're given and the amount of training they're given. In some schools, I think there are professional development seminars that can be brought in where the paraprofessionals are trained on some of the social-emotional curricula that we use. A lot of that's been started since COVID, the ruler system and a few others.
Sometimes it's that type of professional development, but unlike teachers, they don't have the same type of educational requirements as teachers. A lot of it is on-the-job training. A lot of it is PD. A lot of it is just that they are so close with the students that they become really sensitive to their needs. They're often really in great communication with families. Even though they're technically not social workers, they're great at hooking families' stuff with resources in the community if they need that.
Brian Lehrer: What's that system that you mentioned? The ruler system. Did I hear that right?
Victoria: Yes. That's just one of the curricula that's used in the schools for helping students express their social-emotional lives, their inner lives.
Brian Lehrer: Victoria, thank you very, very much. Joanna in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Joanna.
Joanna: Hi. Can you hear me?
Brian Lehrer: I can hear you. I see you teach sixth grade, yes?
Joanna: Yes. I teach sixth grade at a public school in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn called Brooklyn Studio Secondary School. I'd like to shout out two of my sixth-grade colleagues, Rachel Dolan and Stefan Barone. What they've done is they've implemented what's called a mood meter, which is a way for students to indicate their emotions as well as talk about anything that might be going on in their lives that they'd like their teachers to know about.
We do it with a Google form, and then they take the time every week to go over all 130 sixth-grade responses and then send a summary to the rest of us on the sixth-grade team. Then we all decide on a follow-up approach that we'll take with each student. It has been tremendous in letting us know more about what's going on in our students' lives, both the good and the bad. I think it's really been an amazing approach to their social-emotional learning.
Brian Lehrer: Have you learned anything in particular that you could call a post-remote learning pattern that the mood meter is detecting?
Joanna: That's a good question. I think, especially initially, a lot of the kids just felt very isolated. There seems to be more social angst going on. I think that some of that is due to that they just spend so much time only interacting with people on computers or on screens. Then we notice as they return to school, a lot of that is even continued. If you go down into the lunchroom sometimes, you don't see a lot of kids talking to each other. They're doing it through screens. We have noticed that.
Brian Lehrer: Just like the grownups, hahaha. Joanna, thank you--
Joanna: Yes.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Let's see, we have time for one more, maybe two. Kat in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kat.
Kat: Hi there. My son is Lincoln in first grade at PS 261 in Forest Hills, and he did through pre-K during Zoom. I was very impressed that the school just made a very clear statement. They were doing a social-emotional module every single day for everyone in the school, and it was just a shift that they got 100% buy-in from. All the teachers are on board. The kids come home with really great coping mechanisms. It's an area that's less than a mile from the Elmhurst Hospital, so he spent pre-K home-
Brian Lehrer: At the center.
Kat: -listening to sirens all day long. I'm just very grateful and I'm impressed by listening to all these calls. It feels like the school system, at large, even though it can be variegated, has embraced this in a way that's helped a ton of kids.
Brian Lehrer: Can you give any 10-second, literally, 10-second example of what they do that works?
Kat: They do a lot of mindfulness. They do a lot of breathing exercises. While they seem trite, I think their insistence to stick with it has stuck with my son. He's brought it home and been a good influence, frankly.
Brian Lehrer: Kat, thank you. Thanks to everybody else who called. Listeners, keep posting them on Twitter. We are collecting in effect nominees for this prize for community well-being that we'll be giving out in a few weeks. It is going to be this year for people involved in this kind of counseling or social and emotional learning, if you want to call it that, with children. Tweet @BrianLehrer who is really, really deserving in this field. Thanks, everybody, for listening today.

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