assignment 2 2022

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4 STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

From Alienation to Social-Emotional Learning Im

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Le ar

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Student Engagement

Instructional

S trategies

C ollective

E fficacy

Evidence Student Engagement

Scan this QR code for a video introduction to the chapter.

C o p y r i g h t 2 0 2 0 . C o r w i n .

A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .

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Student Engagement 51

As we know, “student engagement” is a very broad term, because it encompasses so much when we think about our schools. “Student engagement” refers to how our students feel supported when they enter our doors, and how they feel challenged by what we teach. It means that we know their names when they attend our classes, and it means we encourage them to take a risk and try out for a team sport, band or chorus, or the drama club.

Earlier in the book, I used the term “student engagement” as an example to highlight our need for a common language and a common understand- ing of the phrases and words we so often use in our schools. In the pursuit of common language and common understanding, let’s begin with a working definition of student engagement.

Trowler (2010) defines student engagement as “the interaction between the time, effort and other relevant resources invested by both students and their institutions intended to optimise the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students and the performance, and reputation of the institution” (p. 3). Although Trowler focuses on higher education, the components of this definition fit into our K–12 needs as well.

Reflect here for a moment. I have included student engagement in a few different areas of the book thus far. What comes to mind for you when you think of student engagement?

Mindful Moment

Trowler further defines the different components of student engage- ment, which got its start in the term “student involvement” back in the ’80s. However, Trowler suggests that use of the term “student engagement” is primarily still confined to the United States, Canada, and Australia, whereas educators in the United Kingdom are more likely to use the terms “student feedback, student representation, student approaches to learning, institutional organisation, learning spaces, architectural design, and learn- ing development” (2010, p. 2). This is important to understand, because as instructional leaders are always looking for resources to help us, we need to understand some of the different terms in order to help us find the best resources.

To further illustrate the discussion of student engagement, it’s important to understand that there are numerous ways to look at the topic. Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris (2004), with the aid of research by Bloom (1956), have divided student engagement into three dimensions: behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, and cognitive engagement. Coates (2009) measured

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52 Instructional Leadership

student engagement along six scales. Those six scales are “academic challenge, active learning, student and staff interactions, enriching educational experi- ences, supportive learning environment, and work-integrated learning” (p. 6).

Figure 4.1 helps bring all of these definitions together so that we can focus on their universal themes.

As you can see, there is a great deal of crossover, which makes sense because all of the research focuses on engaging students. If we take this infor- mation and combine it with what we have learned regarding knowledge dimensions, we will find that there are really two umbrellas that all of this falls under, and those are social-emotional learning and academic learning.

In this chapter, we will explore social-emotional learning and what we can do as instructional leaders to try to engage students. This whole chapter will be devoted to the topic of social-emotional learning, because it plays such an impor- tant role in student engagement. We will focus on the academic aspect of student engagement in Chapter 5, when we explore instructional strategies. This will give us time to slow down the process of student engagement and couple it with

Figure 4.1 Definitions of Student Engagement

Trowler Fredricks

et al, Bloom

Behavioral engagement

Emotional engagement

Cognitive engagement

Coates

Academic challenge

Active learning

Student and staff

interactions

Enriching educational experiences

The interaction between the time, effort and other relevant resour- ces invested by both students and their institutions intended to optimize the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and develop- ment of students and the performance, and reputation of the institution

Work- integrated learning

Supportive learning

environment

U.K.

Student feedback

Student representation

Student approaches to learning

Institutional organization

Learning spaces

Architectural design

Learning development

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Student Engagement 53

its necessary components. Social-emotional learning and academic learning are equally important when we are trying to engage our students.

Ultimately, this will help meet the goal of taking a whole-child approach, which means fostering academic and social-emotional growth in our stu- dents. Instructional leadership is about doing this for all of our students— and, yes, I’m aware that it is not an easy task.

Fostering a whole-child approach may reduce the number of students who feel alienated by our schools and help them meet their full potential. A whole-child approach means focusing on the social-emotional, as well as the academic, needs of our students.

ALIENATION

Many times, instructional leadership is about looking for the “why” in each situation. Why is it important to focus on social-emotional learning? You may already understand the importance, or perhaps you aren’t so sure. In fact, when I explore social-emotional learning in my Finding Common Ground blog for Education Week, I get a great deal of pushback from non-educators and educators alike. Sometimes I am surprised at how much pushback some top- ics bring, but out of all the topics I write about I get the most pushback when I focus on social-emotional learning. The critics do not believe that social- emotional learning belongs in our schools. I keep blogging about it anyway, because this is an important topic, and not all of our students come to school prepared mentally and physically for their day.

Figure 4.2 Fostering a Whole-Child Approach to Learning

Student Engagement

Whole Child Development

Social Emotional Learning

Academic Learning

Enabling Conditions, Self-Awareness, Coping Skills,

Empathy

Knowledge, Skills, etc.

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54 Instructional Leadership

What we know is that we have many students suffering from trauma and mental health issues. Others come from unimaginably difficult home lives. Everything that students experience outside of school has an impact on how they learn. Some of our less fortunate students may begin to feel alienated within our school community because they do not feel as though they fit in. It is not as difficult as you might think for us to do a better job of meeting the needs of students who feel alienated, and we will explore this topic during both the social-emotional and academic sections in this chapter.

Mau (1989) found that alienation is attributable to several factors, which include “meritocratic grading system; curriculum tracking; the composi- tion of students in neighbourhood schools; and student relationships with teachers and peers” (p. 17). I believe that alienation has recently worsened due to the pressure of high-stakes testing, because those students who do not score as well on tests feel devalued by some teachers and leaders. They know that they are being compared to students who helped their school look good when test scores were printed in the newspapers or posted online.

Mau explained the importance of teachers’ actions in regard to the amount of alienation their students feel. “As agents of the school system, teachers influence the meritocratic achievement hierarchy by distributing more scarce rewards or higher grades to some students than others. Students with good grades feel greater efficacy and have better self-esteem than stu- dents with poor grades. In addition, students who meet teacher expectations may feel less alienation in the classroom” (1989, p. 21). We can infer from this that if teachers and leaders strive to have appropriate expectations of each student and downplay differences between them, it might reduce alienation. If teachers, for example, sometimes contribute to the problem of alienation because of biases toward specific students, they can also be part of the solu- tion, by acknowledging those possible biases and learning to address them.

Student Voice Questions What avenues can students take in your school when they feel alienated because of a fractured relationship with a teacher or when they do not feel like they have a voice in their own learning? What supports are in place for them when they feel devalued? Are their voices respected when they speak of being devalued?

Odetola, Erickson, Bryan, and Walker (1972) found that there are two types of alienation that students feel within our schools, which the authors categorized as identification and powerlessness. Identification is defined as

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Student Engagement 55

“the students’ sense of belonging to his school” (p. 19). Powerlessness is a “students’ feeling of incapacity to affect the direction of his learning” (p. 20). From a social-emotional learning stance, we have students who feel alienated because they feel marginalized. Marginalized populations feel excluded from the dialogue happening at their school, and they often feel as though their teachers have low expectations of them or do not care as much about them because they aren’t a part of the dominant group, which is often heterosexual white students.

For example, many African American, LGBTQ, and indigenous students may feel alienated because the curriculum, the imagery and the dialogue in the school don’t reflect their cultural background or sexual orientation. They perceive themselves as constantly missing from the “narrative” within their school when it fails to uphold the diversity of the student body. In order for these students to feel engaged, and less alienated, they need to have an emotional connection to their school community, and that is where social- emotional learning comes into play.

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING

According to a 2018 study by the National Association of Elementary School Principals (Fuller, Young, Richardson, Pendola, & Winn, 2018, p. 33), over 80% of principals reported seeing an increase in the percentage of student mental health issues. This very statistic illustrates why instructional leader- ship is so complicated. It’s difficult for leaders to focus on instructional lead- ership when they find themselves spending so much time helping students who are experiencing mental health issues.

To further illustrate all of this, let’s add a few more statistics to show how much our school populations are changing. According to a report by the National Center for Children in Poverty in the United States (Bartlett, Smith, & Bringewatt, 2017), almost 35 million children in the United States (approximately 48%) have been exposed to one or more types of trauma, and young children are at disproportionate risk compared to older children (p. 4). In the United Kingdom, a report from King’s College London found that one in four young people exposed to trauma met the criteria for PTSD, symptoms of which may include re-living traumatic events through distress- ing memories or nightmares; avoidance of anything reminding them of their trauma; feelings of guilt, isolation or detachment; and irritability, impulsivity or difficulty concentrating.

Research shows that students can experience trauma not only from cata- strophic events but also as a result of prolonged stress in family situations, such as a divorce or a parent’s mental health issues, and many students also have parents who need support. According to Tobin (2016):

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56 Instructional Leadership

Research in psychology and education suggests that trauma is associ- ated with poorer education outcomes, and that traumatised children use more school and system-level academic supports, have lower academic achievement, and have higher rates of grade repetition and school drop-out.

The impact of poverty is equally as alarming. According to a report by the National Center for Children in Poverty (Koball & Jiang, 2018), among all children under 18 years in the United States, 41% are low-income children and 19%—approximately one in five—are poor. This means that children are overrepresented among our nation’s poor; they represent 23% of the popula- tion but comprise 32% of all people in poverty.

The United States is not the only industrial nation with this sort of problem. According to the Social Metrics Commission (SMC), a UK organization, “there are as many as 4.5 million children [in the United Kingdom] currently living in poverty—a figure that accounts for 33 percent of the country’s children. In the average class of 30 students, nine will be living in poverty” (2018, p. 7).

In Australia, the situation does not seem quite as bad, with “one in seven Australian children and young people living below the poverty line” (Smith Family, 2018). However, a low-income background is a serious handicap. “One in three children from disadvantaged backgrounds start school already behind and by age 15, the education gap is equivalent to three years of schooling” (Smith Family, 2018).

Ratcliffe (2015) found, in the United States, “Children who are poor are less likely to achieve important adult milestones, such as graduating from high school and enrolling in and completing college, than children who are never poor. For example, although more than 9 in 10 never-poor children (92.7 per- cent) complete high school, only 3 in 4 ever-poor children (77.9 percent) do so.”

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is defined as “acquiring and effec- tively applying the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to understand and man- age emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions” (CASEL, 2013a, 2013b; Weissberg & Cascarino, 2013, p. 10). Trauma and poverty, which are big threats to social-emotional health, are not just a US issue—they’re an international epidemic that we can all do something about.

How has poverty or trauma impacted your ability to be an instructional leader? In this chapter, I focus on some enabling conditions. This may help you find a bal-

ance between working through social-emotional stress and focusing on teaching and learning at the same time.

Mindful Moment

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Student Engagement 57

From the outside, it’s easy to say that schools should focus only on learn- ing, because the social-emotional issues that students face and how they play out at school are often invisible to the public. There are teachers who believe that SEL is the job of a counselor or school psychologist, not a teacher. In a similar vein, there are families who do not want schools to infringe on the beliefs they have at home.

In a book club focusing on my School Climate: Leading With Collective Efficacy (DeWitt, 2017), one principal told me that she thought social- emotional learning was important but got pushback from parents who wanted the school to focus more intently on AP courses, in order to get graduates into the “right” universities. We need not look to the recent college-admissions scandal to understand the pressures parents can place on schools to get their children into the right universities. And, too often, politicians cite the need to improve test scores as a reason for not focusing on SEL. But it’s very difficult for students suffering from trauma to be fully engaged in academics if they are not supported socially and emotionally. Part of that involves teaching them how to deal with the stress they feel on a daily basis.

“Stress,” according to Claxton (2007), “occurs when the Demands on a sys- tem significantly and persistently exceed the Resources which the system has to respond. If the Resources that people have at their disposal do not increase to meet an increase in the Demands they are experiencing, their attempts to cope may become increasingly desperate and dysfunctional” (p. 117).

Too often, though, teachers and leaders prioritize social-emotional learn- ing only as a means of helping students who are dealing with trauma or

mental health issues. There were many times that I was guilty of the same thing. I jumped on my soapbox and told every- one SEL was an area of need because we had so many students who were struggling. Then, my friend Marie-France

Crête, an educator in Canada, reminded me that social-emotional learn- ing is not just for students who struggle. All students benefit from learning how to collaborate, to have empathy for others, and to empower themselves when life gets tough. In fact, Crête wrote, “The sooner kids develop those skills, the better they do in school and the better the school climate will be” (personal communication, July 24, 2019). Social-emotional learning is not merely for those who are in devastating situations.

All of this means that the question is not whether schools should be responsible for the social-emotional learning of their students. The question is how leaders can confront the social-emotional issues their students are fac- ing while also devoting enough time to instructional leadership.

Social-emotional learning is not merely for those who are in devastating situations.

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58 Instructional Leadership

Reflect on your perspective on social-emotional learning. How do you focus on SEL with teachers in a way that moves beyond trauma and mental health to include all students?

Mindful Moment

FIVE EASY STEPS TO SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING

Meeting students’ social-emotional needs does not have to be difficult. There are ways to meet a student’s needs every day, and some of it is as simple as standing in the doorway. Following are five ways teachers and school lead- ers can truly embrace social-emotional learning to set examples for their communities:

1. Greet students at the entrance—every single day. This sounds like common sense, but let me provide some research to back up this example. According to the Quaglia Institute for School Voice and Aspirations (Quaglia, 2016), out of more than 100,000 students, only 52% believed their teachers took time to get to know them. Learning students’ names and seeing them for who they are as individuals is the first and most important step toward a healthier classroom environment. And this advice doesn’t extend only to teachers. It’s equally as important for leaders to get to know students, so that they can “put faces on the data.” When I myself was a school principal, I used to study the yearbook from the year before and attempt to memorize the names of students. Maybe you can try a similar means of familiarization.

2. Use a high-quality social-emotional-learning curriculum. An organized SEL curriculum can help teachers bring difficult or traumatic topics to light with students. Teachers might, for example, delve into the multitude of children’s books and YA novels that explore situations or behavioral issues students are dealing with, which they can then weave seamlessly into academic learning. Try to be a leader to whom teachers can look for support in incorporating a social- emotional curriculum. Too many teachers worry that their principal is all about the academic side of learning, so leaders who support an SEL curriculum can help teachers feel more comfortable using it in their classrooms. The Collaborative for Social Emotional Learning (CASEL; https://casel.org) offers resources around resiliency and self-regulation.

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Student Engagement 59

3. Hire more counselors and nurses. Many schools lack the appropriate number of counselors and nurses to help students process their thoughts and feelings. Less than half of public schools in the United States employ a full-time nurse, and 21% of high schools don’t have access to a school counselor. School leaders should advocate for more health professionals in schools to help meet the needs of students suffering from trauma and reduce the burden for counselors and nurses already on staff.

4. Offer training for teachers. Awareness is key. In order to support SEL, school and district leaders need to offer training to teachers on how to work with students in need. The organization or people doing the training should be carefully chosen to possess not only a deep understanding of SEL but also the added complexities of teaching. In addition, instructional leadership is about being in the room yourself during training. Doing so shows your support of the curriculum and allows you to learn new techniques to use with students as well.

5. Improve the way you interact with students. It sounds simple, but it can be hard to alter your habits. Small changes can make a big difference, however. For example, sometimes the very language that leaders use can have a positive or negative impact on students. When it comes to students who are at risk of alienation, you may be unable to improve their home environments, but you can certainly make them feel welcome in the school community. The chart below offers some suggestions for changing your dialogue with students. There is even space for you to add a few of your own ideas.

Student Voice Questions

Stretch your thinking around the five steps above. In what ways do you make sure that students feel welcome and valued in your school?

Reflect on the transformations represented in Figure 4.3. While these “better” behav- iors may seem like common sense, we often get busy in our daily lives as leaders and do not always react appropriately. Think about what you might add to this list. Then take a mental step back and reflect on a negative interaction you recently had with a student. If you could do things over again, how might you turn that interaction into a more positive one? Remember this the next time you’re in a similar situation.

Mindful Moment

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60 Instructional Leadership

Figure 4.3 Suggestions for Improving Your Interactions With Students to Enhance SEL

Instead of… Try…

saying, “What did you do wrong?” saying, “Tell me what happened.”

just teaching content, teaching children.

stopping students in the hallway and asking for a pass,

stopping students in the hallway and asking how their day is going.

focusing solely on academics, focusing on social-emotional learning, too.

focusing on disciplining a problem, focusing on getting to the heart of the issue.

creating zero-tolerance policies, utilizing empathy-informed choices.

Note: What would you add to this list?

ENABLING CONDITIONS

Often when we talk about student alienation, it is paired with issues outside of our control, such as poverty or a lack of parental involvement. In order to effectively meet the needs of students at risk of dropping out or feeling alienated from the school community, we need to focus on the issues we can control. And much to the point I brought up earlier, all students can benefit from social-emotional learning, not just the students who struggle.

In the research around neuroplasticity, Burns (2019) found that “Serotonin is associated with a feeling of well-being and is a power- ful modulator of neuroplasticity. As teachers, we are very familiar with the importance of enhancing students’ sense of trust and confidence in the educational process, which can help increase serotonin levels in a positive!way.”

There are a variety of ways that instructional leaders can help students feel safe and supported when they are in school. In my school climate work (2017), I brought in enabling conditions, which I really found when I was doing my doctoral research on safeguarding LGBT students back in 2010. Enabling conditions are simple steps that we can take to ensure that all stu- dents feel safe and which, at the same time, help leaders practice instruc- tional leadership. There are two additions to my original list, which I will mention!below.

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Student Engagement 61

Enabling Conditions and How You Can Use Them in Your Instructional Leadership Practices

School board policies/student codes of conduct. We know that board policies and codes of conduct are important. They provide a roadmap to what a district feels is important, and it gives us the support we need if a parent, student or adult in the community gives us pushback on topics that they consider too controversial to be taught in the school. These topics may include conversations around race, gender or sexual orientation.

Many times leaders will only support what they think is important, and if they don’t have the confidence, or self-efficacy, to support safeguards for LGBT students or other marginalized populations, the policy or code of con- duct isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. To make it worth that paper, lead- ers need to engage in conversations, one-on-one or as a group, with teachers and other leaders who do feel confident speaking about controversial issues. Through that dialogue they can find one starting point. (I’m not asking for leaders to do it all, but I am asking that they do something.)

Teacher-student relationships. This is an addition to the enabling condi- tions, but it is a very important one. In Hattie’s synthesis of meta-analysis, teacher-student relationships have an average effect size of!.72, which is over the hinge point of!.40, which has been shown to equate to a year’s worth of growth for a year’s input. When students believe we care about them, they will work harder for us, and when they think we don’t like them, they will work harder to distance themselves. Students need an emotional connec- tion to their school community, and one of the best ways to provide that is through teacher-student relationships. However, leaders have a stake here too. I provided some examples of how leaders can improve their relation- ships with students in the five easy steps section of this chapter.

As a principal, I used to greet students getting off the bus, go to every classroom every morning just to say “good morning” to each class, and study the yearbook so that I knew students’ names when I saw them in person. Such practices mattered then, and they matter now. As instructional leaders, we can build relationships with students so that they know they can come and talk with us about whatever problem they might face. We may not always know the answers, but we do know how to help them find those answers.

Mindfulness. This is a new addition to the list of enabling conditions. The truth is, our students experience a great deal of stress from social media pres- sures and the goal of getting into a good college. They need to understand how to handle those pressures, because they are beginning to be a normal part of life. Additionally, our teachers and leaders are stressed over the many pressures they feel in their roles. We all need to take time on a daily basis to breathe, have a few moments of silence, and not judge ourselves so negatively.

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62 Instructional Leadership

The research on mindfulness shows that taking time out to breathe can make an enormous difference to how we approach our daily activities.

Mindfulness is not just a recommendation for our students. It is equally as important a recommendation for the adults who work in the school. Given all the trauma and mental health issues that teachers and leaders help stu- dents work through, it’s easy to see how adults can get caught up in all of this and suffer from vicarious trauma. So, I would like to offer a moment of mindfulness for you in this chapter. Below is a blog post that I wrote for Find- ing Common Ground on mindfulness and adults (DeWitt, 2018b). Please take a moment to breathe and read this piece. This will replace the normal “Mindful Moment” section of the chapter and provide you with a much deeper look at mindfulness. After you finish, we will continue the list of enabling conditions.

Educators Need Mindfulness. Their Mental Health May Depend on It.

In a very powerful and popular guest post (Finding Common Ground, 2018) called “Kids Need Play and Recess. Their Mental Health May Depend on It,” superintendent Michael Hynes cites Dr. Peter Gray of Boston College when he writes:

Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College, found that “Rates of depres- sion and anxiety among young people in America have been increasing steadily for the past 50 to 70 years. Today, by at least some estimates, five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago.” If that doesn’t alarm you as a parent, an educator or a concerned citizen, I’m not sure you have a pulse. The fact is, we have an existential mental health crisis in K–12 education and beyond. The question is, what can schools do about it?

It’s not just children who are at risk these days. As a former school principal, and even in my present role as a consultant, I have had

a hard time calming down my active mind. I often find myself asking what I should write next, how I can improve on my practice, and what I did wrong to make someone want to provide me with negative feedback.

As a principal and teacher, I often could not shut off the bad interactions I had with col- leagues or parents. When I experienced a negative interaction, I would carry it with me like a heavy weight on my shoulders. Do you ever feel that way? If you do, you are clearly not alone.

There are countless school counselors, teachers, nurses and school leaders who feel stress on a daily basis and that begins to bleed into their daily lives. Besides stress, many of these school personnel are working with students who experience trauma at home. Those adults working with this fragile student population are at risk of experi- encing vicarious trauma, because they just cannot shake off the heaviness of working with students who seem to be living through so much turmoil.

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Student Engagement 63

For example, in “School Counselors’ Perceived Stress, Burnout, and Job Satisfaction” (2018, p. 1), Mullen et al. cited numerous studies that showed

school counselors can face multiple and competing demands, leading to symp- toms of stress, empathy fatigue, emotional exhaustion, counselor impairment, and eventual departure or resignation from their jobs.

When looking at new teachers within their first few years of the profession, McLean et al. (2017, p. 230)

examined the trajectories of depressive and anxious symptoms among early-career teachers as they transitioned from their training programs into their first year of teaching. In addition, perceived school climate was explored as a moderator of these trajectories. Multilevel linear growth modeling revealed that depressive and anxious symptoms increased across the transition, and negative perceived school climate was related to more drastically increasing symptoms.

Principals are not immune to stress and burnout either. In fact, Queen and Schum- acher (2006) found that

as many as 75 percent of principals experience stress-related symptoms that include fatigue, weakness, lack of energy, irritability, heartburn, headache, trouble sleeping, sexual dysfunction, and depression.

Additionally, Van der Merwe and Parsotam (2011) found that “school principals experience high levels of stress that hamper their self-efficacy and inhibit their executive control capacities.”

Ten minutes in the morning

What we all have experienced is that when we are busy and feel stressed, even the slightest of things can negatively impact how we move about our day. I used to feel like I woke up in the morning and hit the ground running. The problem is that when we hit the ground running, we sometimes leave ourselves behind.

There are numerous ways to approach the issue of stress and burnout among prin- cipals, educators, nurses and counselors. We always should step back and look at how we spend our time. Do we add to our stress by reinventing the wheel each time we have to do a new task; do we look for ways to build collective efficacy because many hands make light work; or do we try to take some of the work off our plate because we spend too much time being martyrs thinking we have to do everything when we really don’t?

Besides all of that, do we simply try to give ourselves 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night to focus on breathing? Yes, 10 minutes.

For full disclosure, I have always been a fan of calming techniques like meditation, but I did not think I was doing it right, so I quit. However, over the last few months I have made a com- mitment to meditate (I use an app named Calm) for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 at night.

(Continued)

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64 Instructional Leadership

You may think that my life as a consultant/author is glamorous. I travel from city to city, meeting wonderful people and seeing amazing places. That’s true some of the time, but not all of the time. My life revolves around being in hotels a few times a week about 45 to 47 weeks a year. Participants do not always love being on the receiving end of professional development (surprise!), and I sometimes work all day in one city and get on a plane to travel by night to the next.

Some of the same stress I felt as a consultant mirrored how I felt as a principal and teacher. So, I sat back and learned how to make a conscious effort to breathe in the morning and at night before going to sleep. What I found is that I am less stressed, love the lessons taught by my app, and sleep much, much better. Educators can find the same benefits.

In fact, Van der Merwe and Parsotam found that

participants’ main stressors, their reaction to stress and the influence of controlled breathing on their stress relief were investigated through individual interviewing. It was found that school principals’ main stressors related to extensive workloads carried out in an environment of resource constraints. The regular practising of controlled breathing resulted in a decrease of the levels of stress experienced with main improvements related to revitalized energy levels, restored clarity of thinking and improved interpersonal relationships.

This is supported by the work of Valerie Brown. In a guest post titled “Mindful Leaders Are Key for Transforming Schools” (Finding Common Ground, 2016), Brown writes.

Mindfulness improves a school leader’s ability to notice and to focus, slow down, stop, pause, breathe, and avoid automatic reactions that might later cause you regret. The capacity to focus in the moment is a hallmark of leadership excellence. Connecting with others, taking a genuine interest in the well-being of another, lis- tening for what is said and what is left unsaid, supports true understanding and promotes a trustworthy school community. This strengthens the leader’s capacity to influence others in a positive way.

In the End

We are all at risk of burnout and stress, which negatively impacts our mental health. Our students need brain breaks and recess in order to ensure that they feel less stress, as Hynes so keenly pointed out, but adults need brain breaks as well, and sometimes it’s as easy as waking up in the morning and making breathing a part of our morning routine.

Mindfulness, meditation and breathing may not solve all of our issues, but through the experience of focused breathing, we will become less stressed, sleep better, and take more time to make better decisions which could have positive effects on our mental health. No, this is not rocket science, but sometimes it’s the simplest of ideas that have the greatest benefits.

(Continued)

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Student Engagement 65

References

McLean, L., Abry, T., Taylor, M., Jimenez, M., & Granger, K. (2017, July). Teachers’ mental health and perceptions of school climate across the transition from training to teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education!65, 230–240.

Mullen, P., Blount, A., Lambie, G., & Chae, N. (2018). School counselors’ perceived stress, burnout, and job satisfaction. Professional School Counseling, 21(1), 1–10.

Queen, J. A., & Schumacher, D. (2006, November/December). A survival guide for frazzled principals. Principal, 18–22.

Van der Merwe, H., & Parsotam, A. (2011, November). School principal stressors and a stress alleviation strategy based on controlled breathing. Journal of Asian and Afri- can Studies,!47(6), 666–678.

As you can see, social-emotional learning isn’t just for students. It’s important for adults to take moments to practice mindfulness and foster their own social-emotional health and well-being.

Inclusive books, novels and curricula. If we truly want every student to feel that they matter, then we have to have resources to show it. This means using books, novels and curricula that are representative of the diversity within our schools or the diversity we want to prepare our students for in the outside world, and those representations need to be positive. For example, when I was growing up, members of our indigenous population (sometimes referred to as Native Americans) were represented in our textbooks, but it was not a posi- tive representation. These resources can be used to spark healthy debates in classrooms and create important dialogue around inclusivity. This alone is one place leaders can hone their skills as instructional leaders by making sure the curriculum used is inclusive, which helps build student engagement.

Images. When you walk into any school, you can see images all over the walls, from student work to colorfully painted murals. Unfortunately, many times those images are representative of only one population within the school, and that population is white, straight students. Images need to represent all students, such as our LGBTQ population, by having Safe Space stickers (Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Education, Network) or murals that include African American, Indian, Latino and Asian students. So many of us are on social media and share pictures because we feel engaged with those images. Shouldn’t we offer that same engagement within our schools?

Student Voice Questions

In what ways do you help marginalized students feel valued in your school? What images do they see when they enter the school? Are those images representative of all students?

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66 Instructional Leadership

Professional development for staff. Self-efficacy is the confidence we feel in ourselves, and research shows that it is context-specific (Tschannen- Moran & Gareis, 2004), meaning that we feel confident about certain parts of our teaching and leadership but completely lack confidence about other parts. Professional development is about building mindfulness around some of those enabling conditions that we find controversial, and it takes more than just one five-minute conversation in one faculty meeting. It means devoting time to making sure our school is truly inclusive. Sometimes that means we have to work with outside professionals, because they hold the expertise. The only thing to keep in mind when working with an outside organization is that its representatives need to understand your school’s spe- cific context. All too often, outside organizations enter a school and dictate what needs to happen, which can be a turn-off to staff members. Make sure that those organizations are properly vetted and that they find the right start- ing point with staff members. When this type of professional development is taking place, it is important that the leader be present and engaged in the learning as well.

Common language/common understanding. This is clearly an impor- tant topic we discuss throughout the book. It is an enabling condition because we need a common language and common understanding around topics of race, sexual orientation and gender studies.

In our school where I was a principal in a rural area outside of Albany, New York, we tried to engage students with a calm environment by offering the following changes to how they learned:

Flexible spaces. We varied the furniture, offering tables, couches, a tub (yes, a tub), and ball chairs. We wanted to find a balance between a space that distracts and a space that engages.

Theatre gels. In many classrooms, we replaced some of the harsh fluorescent overhead lights with theatre gels. They were a soft yellow, orange and blue. Studies show that soft lighting can alleviate anxiety.

Mindfulness. We took frequent brain breaks and practiced mindfulness.

Natural lighting. There were many windows in our school. Often we turned off the switches and let the sun shine in to light our way.

Mindfulness Moment

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Student Engagement 67

IN THE END

Mental health issues and trauma are critical issues facing leaders in schools around the world. The staggering statistics from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia show that countless students enter our schools not fully ready to learn. Social-emotional learning may be a controversial topic, and critics believe there isn’t a place for it in our schools, but the reality of our time in education is that we cannot neglect to implement social-emotional learning practices. Perhaps this can inspire us to look at why so many children around the world are experiencing trauma and mental health issues, as well as why so many of our students continue to live in poverty. It is our job as educators to try to help them find a way out.

However, in order to make sure that social-emotional learning does not become the next buzz phrase, like “growth mindset” or “differentiated instruction,” we must all agree that SEL is about empowering all students— those who struggle with mental health issues and those who do not—with the strategies they need to be successful in life.

The examples of changing the way we interact with all students might seem like common sense, but the reality is that leaders sometimes get so busy with tasks and pressures that they speak at students instead of with them. Putting the suggested talking points together with mindfulness, it is my hope that leaders can take a step back and think about their words before they use them with students. This is especially important when considering the research around alienation. It’s not just grading practices or our curriculum that might alienate students. Sometimes it could merely be the way we inter- act with them in our conversations.

It is my hope that changing the way we talk with students, and find- ing ways to make sure we engage our marginalized populations, will help combat all of this trauma students feel. In order to help you do these things, I have used the program logic model from earlier in the book and adapted it for social-emotional learning. As with all program logic models you will find represented in this book, Figure 4.4 provides specific details that will help meet the needs of the school, which in this case are ways to build an emo- tional connection to the school community. I truly hope it helps you move forward in a positive way.

Social-emotional learning is about empowering all students—those who struggle with mental health issues and those who do not—with the strategies they need to be successful in life.

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68 Instructional Leadership

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Student Engagement 69

STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS

• As a leadership group, how do you foster a more inclusive climate where students feel engaged socially and emotionally? What are specific examples you can offer?

• How have poverty and trauma impacted your school system? What supports do you have in place as far as these are concerned? Are they working?

• How do you achieve a balance between (a) under standing the needs of students experiencing traumatic issues and (b) challenging them with the academic education they need?

• Think together about ways in which practices in your school (lack of inclusive resources, grading practices, etc.) may be alienating some students. How might your group help foster a climate where students feel less alienated?

• When it comes to enabling conditions, how does your school, district or school board (Canada) make sure that the resources used in teaching are inclusive for all students? If your first reaction is to skip this question, perhaps you should look deeper into that.

• Out of the enabling conditions offered in this chapter, which ones do you believe your leadership team excels at, and which ones might be an area of growth for all of!you?

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