The half day. The day before a school vacation. The week before a holiday weekend. The weeks between Thanksgiving and winter break. The alphabet countdown to the end of the school year.
The classroom crafts. The schoolwide assemblies. The movies in pajamas. The pizza parties. Lots of sugar. Fewer demands. Irregular schedules.
If you are in education, then you know what these days have in common: big emotions and disruptive behaviors—and more of them.
As an education researcher advancing the science of learning and social and emotional development who has worked in schools for the past two decades, I know these are the days and weeks that are off-limits when it comes to doing research in school buildings. There is limited to no new content taught during these times. Instructional practices are flexible. Schedules are in flux. Routines are nice to have. One could argue that in some schools, learning in and of itself is optional. Whether this departure from instruction as usual is positioned as earned or necessary, there’s only one consensus: Get to the end of the school day without incident.
Teachers, at these times, lean into social and emotional learning.
In schools nationwide, there are growing messages that position SEL as just one more thing to do that is taking away from traditional academic instructional time. Although robust evidence from neuroscience, learning science, developmental science, and implementation science all resoundingly suggest otherwise, this myth of inconsequentiality can be hard to overturn.
To be sure, I will be the first person to tell you about the importance of explicit SEL skill instruction, especially the teaching of the skills of emotion management in school and how it underscores optimal learning, teaching, and thriving. I also know that teaching is hard, the demands of the classroom and school are real, and sometimes we educators must make difficult choices about how we use classroom time to ensure we meet our student, classroom, or school needs where they are, rather than where we would hope they would be.
So, why not lean into these moments of potential emotional turmoil as an opportunity for explicit SEL? You certainly don’t need to wait for your students to actually experience big emotions to teach social-emotional skills but, if the door is already open, imagine what could happen if we took the opportunity to run through it with SEL?
With winter break on the horizon for students nationwide, consider these tips to maximize learning in your classroom and school.
Telling students (or teachers) to calm down does not de-escalate behavior; it exacerbates it. No one likes being told to calm down. It invalidates and dismisses their emotions and implicitly suggests that they “shouldn’t” feel the way they do because there is a “right” or “wrong” way to feel in that moment.
A much more productive way to support your students when they are experiencing a big emotion is to ask them how they are feeling and why they are feeling that way. Use their emotions to inform what happens next in your classroom, not as an excuse for what doesn’t get to happen as a consequence of their behavior. When we flip the script so that emotion is understood to be the driver of behavior rather than a product of misbehavior, we have an opportunity to use that clarity to our—and our classroom’s—advantage.
- Big emotions require skills to navigate them. At school and in life, kids and adults have challenges processing the tidal waves of common emotions, including excitement, joy, disappointment, anger, and jealousy, and benefit from support on how to manage them. To be clear, spending too much time talking about emotions is not helpful for students. But not supporting students so they can build the skills to navigate their emotions renders them powerless to manage those feelings. Consider these free resources and many others to support students as they build their emotion-management skills at school and beyond.
- Incorporate classroom exercises to optimize learning when students are on the brink of emotion overload. Distraction, mindful breathing, body awareness, and somatic relaxation techniques are all evidence-based strategies that can help young people navigate escalating emotions. I teach my students to use progressive muscle relaxation before their exams, job interviews, the big game, or waiting for their first date to arrive. Emotion-regulation strategies like these are intended to settle nerves and impulses and empower your students to have agency over their learning, behaviors, and choices.
Not everyone is excited by the impending holidays or school vacation. Across the United States right now, we could expect that while there are students in your class who are overflowing with joy, there are also those experiencing heightened stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and loneliness because of the upcoming holiday.
Importantly, these heightened joyous and sad feelings can show up in different ways: Students may exhibit academic disengagement and avoidance and withdraw from classroom activities. A student may not want to share their vacation plans because they don’t have any. And asking students how they are spending their vacation could be an implicit reminder of their social status relative to their peers’.
Consider directing the conversation to how they want to feel during the break and how they can have their emotional needs met. For example: I want to feel safe during the break. I feel safe when I am with my family. I want to feel excited during my break. I feel excited when I am learning something new and I can learn new things by reading, listening, asking questions, and exploring. Not sure where to start? Check out this helpful resource to prepare to engage.
I never cease to be amazed by how educators can make the most of an instructional minute. Next time the countdown to vacation starts and instructional demands are temporarily diminished, lean into SEL and see how explicit instruction can support you and your students to get the most out of school in the weeks before break.
