Setting a calm and peaceful tone within the classroom at the Denver Center for 21st Century Learning, a public school known as DC21, is important to its teaching, Winters told CNN, to help students grow both emotionally and academically as they learn. the pandemic advances.
“These girls were in sixth grade the last time they attended school before this year,” Winters said of her eighth graders.
“Our sixth graders were in fourth grade the last time they attended school,” he said. “They’re asked to meet the behavior and development bar and the academic bar, and they missed both. It’s hard to meet the academic when you’re still trying to figure out, ‘How do I stop doing that?’ as a fourth grader. ?'”
This year, 20 minutes are set aside every day to provide social and emotional learning (SEL) to each of the 90,000 students in Denver Public Schools, the largest district in Colorado.
In the midst of a school year that is as close to normal as anyone has seen in a long time (classrooms are open for all of their students five days a week), educators in Denver say they are just beginning to get a handle on what who broke into his students.
“We found that they came back many times as a shell of who they were,” said Renard Simmons, director of DC21. “We have to be patient, we have to persevere and continue to find the children where they are.”
Simmons gave an interaction as an example of how stress has affected students. There was a boy who had previously done well academically and had a relationship with the principal, returning to the building after not leaving the house much during virtual school.
“I’m excited to see the young scholar when they return,” Simmons said, describing how he greeted the teenager. “And I was greeted with a swear word!” he said.
Simmons welcomes students to school every day and is always on the lookout for any issues, he says.
“You catch on so much that sometimes you can see in the child’s eyes, ‘Hey, you had a rough night, let’s not send you to your first class, why don’t we send you to our mental health team,'” he said.
“There’s no point in sending a kid knowing they’re in trouble, and now you’re going to work on your math or your language arts. It’s not fair to the kids.”
Simmons said supporting students through challenges has long been a part of DC21, where all children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
It’s spreading through the rest of Denver Public Schools as part of healthy student life, says Kim Price, director of SEL for the district.
She is aware of criticism from some parents at school board meetings across the country that SEL is less important than academics or is unwarranted “indoctrination.” But she rejects him. Academic performance, success in life, all of that, she says, comes from a strong emotional core.
“We really believe that when we understand our emotions, we understand our feelings, we understand how we show up in the world, then there’s a willingness to learn and that’s what school is all about,” she said.
“We have to teach people how to communicate with each other,” he said.
SEL is being woven throughout the day and across all grade levels in Denver. At Samuels Elementary School, kindergartners recently played a version of “red light-green light” that was really a lesson in dealing with anxiety.
“When we play these games sometimes, we can have these strong feelings. Like angry or nervous. What can you do to help yourself stay calm?” teacher Ivory Jarman asked the students as they lined up for the game.
“Take a deep breath!” all the children said in unison.
Down the hall in third grade, show-and-tell was a daily ritual in which students shared the good and the bad of the previous day. The class discussed what to do when something bad happens and celebrated the good things their classmates enjoyed.
At West High School, students can get a yoga class one day or a place to talk. One day last month, Amy Thomton, the school’s student support coordinator, led a mindfulness workshop.
She walked the children through 20 minutes of breathing exercises and a lesson on how to meditate. Even in a room full of teenagers, there was an enthusiastic acceptance.
Thomton says that a single breathing exercise should not be expected to bring a child back to normal in these abnormal times. But she says Denver’s focus on emotional health is the best way to eventually win them back. Twenty minutes at a time.
“It’s a slow trickle,” he said. “But for some of them it’s just having that safe space and that connection with a trusted adult and connection with their peers, that they’ve been missing so much during the pandemic and during remote learning.”
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