What Schools Can do When There’s a Lack of Teacher Training

What schools can do when there’s a lack of teacher training around teenagers’ emotional needs?

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Teachers training around Teenagers Emotional Needs

“ We are seeing our teenagers (15-17) and tweenagers (10-14) have significant health challenges” 

                                                                                    R.Keeth Matheny, former high school teacher

Teenagers are children transitioning from childhood to adolescence. This is the most challenging phase as they are trying to manage physical, emotional, and life changes all at once. Biologically, a teenager’s brain develops at a rapid pace putting the limbic system to cause emotional responses.

It puts teenagers in the fight, flight, or freeze mode resulting in making functions like reason, logic, and moral judgment difficult. Besides these, teenagers have to deal with anxiety, depression, trauma, peer pressure, and bullies.

One of the main processes teens struggle with is self-discovery. The well-being of adolescents’ social and emotional health through Social-emotional literacy is mandatory today and in the future also.

According to WHO, one in seven (14%) 10-19-year-olds experience a mental disorder that many times remains unrecognized and untreated. 

Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among 15-19 year-olds. Unfortunately, many children dealing with mental health disorders do not have access to the professional help they need and thus schools should be prepared to deal with this to support their children.

School plays a very important role in a teenager’s life as a major portion of each day is spent in school. Apart from curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities, Mental health in schools is also gaining priority these days. 

The best example of this is the Happiness curriculum, an initiative in schools by the Delhi government, implemented in all government schools from nursery to Grade 8, which is worth citing here. The objective is to improve the mental well-being of pupils by teaching them mindfulness, social-emotional learning (SEL), critical thinking, problem-solving, and relationship building.

Another initiative by the Uttarakhand government’s ‘Anandam Pathyacharya’ or ‘Experiential Learning Curriculum for school students is also worth mentioning.

What can schools do when there’s a lack of teacher training around teenagers’ emotional needs?

According to a Survey on the need for SEL, a great majority of parents, teachers, and administrators agree that social and emotional learning is as important as academic learning in schools.

Constitute a Mental health advisory panel in the school

Stakeholders like school owners, head teachers, staff members, teachers, students, parents, and government officials from various backgrounds are involved in the process of decision-making and implementation of policies at school. So, elect or appoint eligible members from all areas and create an advisory panel that contributes to finalizing all major decisions taken in school.

Address the stigma around mental health

Globally, mental health issues, at any age, is something that people feel ashamed about. Especially in India: as per the  State of the World’s Children 2021 Report, this is the case. Out of 21 only few young people felt that adolescent emotional health issues should be heard.

Thus the school should have a Counsellor who does regular surveys, check-ins, and one on one sessions with students and address the challenges faced. Also, subject-specific workshops, seminars, etc. by experts should be arranged for students as well as parents and teachers.

All stakeholders and caregivers of students, especially teenagers should also be sensitized  with requisite information and skills i.e. social and emotional literacy.

Identify a suitable SEL (socio-emotional learning) framework

SEL leads to holistic development during one’s childhood and adolescence. Cultivating critical inquiry, focus, emotional regulation, and compassionate action to develop a balance of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive skills a strong SEL framework is required.

Thus, realizing the effectiveness of SEL in classrooms and increasing evidence, various frameworks, resources, and curricula have been developed the world over. In India, the National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP) delineates its vision of achieving holistic development for students by giving SEL its due credence alongside academic excellence.

Thus, incorporating a suitable  SEL curriculum is important. The following framework can be used as a reference for the same. 

SEL

An SEL framework majorly developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL),   which focuses on 5 core SEL competencies; courtesy of CASEL.   

Meaningful implementation of SEL in schools

School administrators, teachers, and parents agree that teaching SEL skills in the classroom can have a significant positive impact on students and the school climate.

As per the 2018 Social and Emotional Learning Report,  64% feel they are only “somewhat prepared” to teach SEL, and only 22% feel they are “very prepared.” 51% percent of teachers reported that the level of professional development offered in SEL instruction at their school is not sufficient.

Teachers are most interested in receiving professional development training on SEL instruction via in-school training at their school (with 85% indicating they are at least “somewhat interested”), followed by in-person training at professional conferences, workshops, or seminars (77%).

A teacher is like a friend, philosopher, and guide to students. Schools should thus work to make their teachers:

  • Competent in training around teenagers’ emotional needs and SEL competencies
  • Equipped to identify the flag signs of emotional imbalances 
  • Capable to implement suitable support systems, solutions and consider expert counselors’ advice 
  • Use suitable monitoring and evaluative methods to track the effectiveness of implementation and work on improvement measures. 

NOTE: Individual Self made evaluations of students’ social and emotional health might be influenced by teachers’ biases, prejudices, and belief systems. This might lead to inappropriate evaluations and solutions that adversely impact SEL and program outcomes. Thus, standard  SEL programs with robust accountability rubrics should be embedded to monitor the effectiveness of programs.

Integrate SEL into the academic curriculum

Teachers should be trained to Integrate SEL concepts into the teaching of formal academic subjects rather than teaching it as a standalone subject. This would reduce the extra workload on teachers leading to their well-being.

Mrs. Upadhyaya a Trained Graduate teacher teaching in a government school in New Delhi cites

 “I generally start the Zoom class [of any subject] with five minutes of a mindfulness activity. Otherwise, I send [students] a short WhatsApp voice note towards the end [of class for them to reflect on],”. 

 The video Can happiness be taught  is an example of SEL being practiced in class by a teacher.

Encourage communication and collaboration between teachers and parents for effective SEL instruction

88% of administrators and 74% of teachers say that SEL is being taught in schools but only 32% of parents say that they are aware of any SEL activities.

Thus, regular interaction, communication, and discussion on updates with students’ parents bring more clarity to each student’s condition.  parent-educator partnerships and governmental partnerships with Civil Society Organisations like the Labhya Foundation are good initiatives in tackling teenagers’ emotional issues.

Design SEL by involving students

One of the major missing puzzles in the SEL jigsaw is consideration of students’ voices and concerns. Include the student’s thoughts and ideas while designing SEL programs. It gives them a sense of ownership and thus helps implement the program more efficiently to address teenage mental health issues in a better way.

Introduce technology for the SEL program

Lots of digital games and virtual teaching content on Socioemotional literacy are available online and offline however the effectiveness of digital SEL literacy mainly depends on the availability of smartphones and internet access and digital literacy.

“Social and emotional learning is critical to a child’s overall development, and teaching these skills at school can help students make responsible, constructive decisions both in and out of the classroom,” 

                                                                        – Heath Morrison, President of McGraw-Hill Education’s School Group. 

By combining effective academic instruction with social and emotional learning, schools can help prepare their students to contribute positively to their future workplaces and the communities where they live.

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