Students learn social, emotional skills

SHAWANO — The days of schools teaching just reading, writing and arithmetic are a distant memory, as Shawano School District’s elementary schools are teaching students social and emotional learning skills.

When Terri Schultz took the helm as principal of Olga Brener Intermediate School in 2015, she said students who were referred to her office had only two responses to how they were feeling — happy or angry. She noted that the “angry” was an indicator of some other emotion that her students were unable to express, such as sadness, frustration, tiredness and confusion.

“It occurred to me that we needed better language to identify what these students were feeling,” Schultz said. “You might be acting out of anger, frustration or sadness, but it was all looking the same. The kids only have one tool: ‘When I’m angry, I yell or I fight or I holler.’”

Schultz saw the need for the students to not only realize there are other emotions to express, but there are also healthier ways of dealing with what they are feeling. To that end, the school adopted two programs, Zones of Regulation and Second Step. Schultz noted that she had previously used Second Step in other school districts.

“You might call these soft skills,” Schultz said. “It’s problem solving. It’s the ability to get along with others. It’s empathy, that understanding that not everybody has the same view as you do. It’s not that students don’t have some of them, but what we want is to get them as fully developed as we can.”

The programs have been expanded this year to also include Hillcrest Primary School, Schultz said.

The overall goal of the two programs is to help students realize that what they are feeling is usually all right, but that there are healthy ways to express anger and other strong emotions that don’t involve lashing out. Schultz said recent school weapons incidents in Waukesha and Oshkosh are a reminder of why it is so important for schools to have social and emotional learning skills woven into the overall curriculum.

“A lot of things in society have affected our schools, and our schools are reflections of the times we live in,” Schultz said. “Some of our students struggle with some of these skills.”

Schultz said Zones of Regulation and Second Step are not guarantees that students would not commit violence, but they help to reduce the risk by introducing alternatives that don’t involve shooting or stabbing people.

Much of the curriculum for both programs are taught in what Schultz called “morning meetings,” where the class is together as a group and deals with various lesson topics.

In third grade, students learn Second Step lessons that include focusing attention, being assertive, understanding strong feelings and making and keep friends. The fourth and fifth grades tackle issues like problem solving on their own, developing the ability to have empathy and expressing compassion, among other things.

The issues that the schools are dealing with are not unique to Shawano, Schultz said.

“It is a phenomena of society,” she said.

The Zones of Regulation are a little different than Second Step, Schultz said, because it develops a color system for what students are feeling. Happiness falls under a green color, while anger falls under a red one, with other emotions covered by blue and yellow.

None of the colors are considered positive or negative, Schultz said, because the school wants them to realize that it is OK to be angry about something, as long as it doesn’t result in action that hurts others.

“If a kid is angry, they might have a very good reason for being angry,” Schultz said. “If we tell them that being angry is a negative feeling, you see what happens in society — those are the school shooters, the really troubled ones.”

Safe zones in the classrooms allow students to work on deep breathing, drawing or something that helps them to come back from the strong emotions they’re feeling, according to Schultz.

“We also have a number of fidgets, as well. Or take a stress ball or something,” she said. “What they’re working through is the tension that comes through the body.”

Schultz said the state Department of Public Instruction is starting to work with all schools on implementing social and emotional learning programs, but she’s pleased that Shawano has taken up the gauntlet before the mandate occurs.

“We’ve already had it in place here at Brener for the last three years,” Schultz said.

Because the programs are in their third year, they are just now beginning to produce data. Schultz hopes the data shows that disciplinary incidents at the school are going down because students are learning non-disruptive and non-violent ways to cope with their emotions.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com