Kindness in the classroom
alice byrne students show impact of Character Strong program
As schools continue to adapt to the changes brought on by COVID-19, educators and parents alike have stressed an importance for Social Emotional Learning (SEL) to help students emotionally adapt to the pandemic’s challenges.
At Yuma Elementary School District One, SEL has become a part of the district’s curriculum with its Character Strong program. Counselor Rae Packard spoke with the Yuma Sun about the effect the program has had on students this year.
With the Character Strong curriculum, elementary students learn about a different trait each month. In August, students learned about kindness. In September, responsibility. And this October, District One students learned about courage.
As a counselor, Packard assists in SEL.
“Because teachers already have so much on their plate, our role as counselors has been to help teach,” she said. At Alice Byrne Elementary, Packard’s teaching has involved making presentations and keeping three bulletin boards up to date with the character trait of the month.
During one of her presentations on kindness this semester, Packard had students say unkind words to a stick-figure drawing of a student on a large piece of paper. With each word, she crumpled the paper until it became what she described as “a wadded mess.”
She then discussed the importance of kindness and encouraged students to undo the damage by saying kind words. She noted that they often say apologetic things and try to include the figure, using phrases like, “I’m sorry I was mean to you, I have a lot going on at home” or even “I’m sorry I said that to you, do you want to join me at lunch?” But she explained that despite all efforts, the stick-figure student is never the same and remains wrinkled.
“Words can hurt – forever,” she wrote in a public post on the school’s Facebook. “I always leave the wrinkled figure in the classroom to promote further thinking and discussion.”
The exercise is one that Packard’s had students engage in many times in her career.
“[It’s] powerful but simple,” she explained. “I don’t let the kids opt out. They may think, ‘I don’t have
anything unkind to say to that person’ and usually it’s just common stuff like ‘You’re ugly,’ ‘You’re stupid,’ ‘You’re fat.’
“[But] sometimes they say stuff like, ‘You never should have been born,’ ‘Your mother should have never had you.’ That’s learned speech. It makes me wonder what’s said at home.”
This most recent time, however, she shared that something new happened. After having left the crumpled figure drawing in the classroom, she was asked to come back.
“I’ve done it for seven years and this [was] the first time a teacher called me back,” said Packard. “[The students] gave him a name, took him shopping, gave him Starbucks and gave him a dog. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
The students accomplished this by creating paper accessories for the figure. By the end of the day, Fred, the stick-figure student, had Starbucks, an iPhone, a dog, Supreme glasses and Nike sneakers.
Packard explained that these exercises in SEL are important because they’re beneficial to the overall learning process.
“A child is not gonna learn academically if they’re suffering emotionally,” she said. “Same thing if they’re hungry, so if there’s stuff going on at home, if there’s COVID, if there’s bullying – they’re not gonna learn.”
Among her duties, Packard shared that she normally starts socialization groups with fourth- and fifth-graders to prepare them for middle school. But one of the changes COVID has brought is that she’s starting with second graders because they haven’t been to school in 18 months.
COVID’s made it more challenging. She noted that there would be students who didn’t want to come back to school and she would make check-ins with them to see if they’re doing OK.
“The first few weeks [of the school year] there was a lot of anxiety,” she said. “I spent a lot of time in the classroom. I’d sit by the student and let them know it’s OK.”
Now, Packard happily shares that she’s seen students making friends with kids they weren’t friends with previously. In some of her check-ins, students have asked, “Miss Rae, is this going to cut into my recess time?”
As SEL continues to benefit students at District One, Packard appeals to parents to find out what the character of the month is.
“Look at ClassDojo and find out,” she said, “and have that translate from school into the home so we’re all on the same page.”