SEL Sparks Thought About Emotional Health
San Jose Unified mandate brings a new program to teach students about mental health.
By Jocelyn Cosgrove
San Jose Unified mandate brings a new program to teach students about mental health.
By Jocelyn Cosgrove
Since distance learning last year, student mental health has become more of a priority. San Jose Unified introduced the Social Emotional Learning program this semester to help teach students about mental health.
After an 8-week pilot program during the first semester in 10 classes from Sept. 7 to Nov. 2, San Jose Unified is mandating that all third-period teachers use the Seven Mindsets curriculum every other Wednesday FLEX period in the Spring semester.
“It wasn’t a Pioneer decision, it was a district decision, that it wasn’t enough. They wanted to reach 100% of the students so that’s why we are doing the third-period classes during that FLEX,” said Assistant Principal of Instruction Amy Hanna.
Since the program is a district mandate, Academic Counselor Nicole Pearson feels that the SEL program will help social emotional education and support for students after the last year and a half.
“It is a big push for increased social emotional support on school campuses and if we can better educate students on how to advocate for themselves and their feelings then we can hopefully become a better school of support for each other and everybody else,” said Pearson.
During the 8-week pilot program, both academic counselors and some teachers taught these lessons during two or three class periods. English teacher Channel Sulc feels that the SEL gratefulness lessons, while important to know and see, presumed that all students are grateful for the same things.
“I think the curriculum kind of assumes that everyone has some of the same things to be grateful for. I think that even if you have hard things in your life at least you have food on the table and a warm bed which may not be true for every student here,” Sulc said. “And just kind of like, to me, negated or trivialized students’ very real legitimate, difficult experiences especially right now when we have students who’ve lost people to COVID.”
One of Sulc’s students, Sarayu Praturu, 10, felt like the pilot was confusing and very time-consuming since it took the whole Monday class period.
“Even though I am happy that it was a free period for me, I felt like they could do better to express what it is,” Praturu said.
While some teachers worry about not knowing how to teach SEL, other teacher concerns lie with the content itself and how it is being presented to students. Physiology and AP Biology teacher Steven Boyd feels that his main concern for the content is that it is not what Social Emotional Learning is about.
“It’s going to invalidate students with negative experiences because they are all about ‘Just choose the positives and everything will work out. Focus on the positives of your life, and don’t focus on regret and jealousy and all of that stuff,’” said Boyd. “To me it sounds like the program is going to blame the students for their own feelings rather than give them the tools to work through them.”
While the SEL program can be beneficial to student mental health, teachers and students are still concerned about how the current SEL content will help students find ways to cope with negative emotions.
After an 8-week pilot program during the first semester in 10 classes from Sept. 7 to Nov. 2, San Jose Unified is mandating that all third-period teachers use the Seven Mindsets curriculum every other Wednesday FLEX period in the Spring semester.
“It wasn’t a Pioneer decision, it was a district decision, that it wasn’t enough. They wanted to reach 100% of the students so that’s why we are doing the third-period classes during that FLEX,” said Assistant Principal of Instruction Amy Hanna.
Since the program is a district mandate, Academic Counselor Nicole Pearson feels that the SEL program will help social emotional education and support for students after the last year and a half.
“It is a big push for increased social emotional support on school campuses and if we can better educate students on how to advocate for themselves and their feelings then we can hopefully become a better school of support for each other and everybody else,” said Pearson.
During the 8-week pilot program, both academic counselors and some teachers taught these lessons during two or three class periods. English teacher Channel Sulc feels that the SEL gratefulness lessons, while important to know and see, presumed that all students are grateful for the same things.
“I think the curriculum kind of assumes that everyone has some of the same things to be grateful for. I think that even if you have hard things in your life at least you have food on the table and a warm bed which may not be true for every student here,” Sulc said. “And just kind of like, to me, negated or trivialized students’ very real legitimate, difficult experiences especially right now when we have students who’ve lost people to COVID.”
One of Sulc’s students, Sarayu Praturu, 10, felt like the pilot was confusing and very time-consuming since it took the whole Monday class period.
“Even though I am happy that it was a free period for me, I felt like they could do better to express what it is,” Praturu said.
While some teachers worry about not knowing how to teach SEL, other teacher concerns lie with the content itself and how it is being presented to students. Physiology and AP Biology teacher Steven Boyd feels that his main concern for the content is that it is not what Social Emotional Learning is about.
“It’s going to invalidate students with negative experiences because they are all about ‘Just choose the positives and everything will work out. Focus on the positives of your life, and don’t focus on regret and jealousy and all of that stuff,’” said Boyd. “To me it sounds like the program is going to blame the students for their own feelings rather than give them the tools to work through them.”
While the SEL program can be beneficial to student mental health, teachers and students are still concerned about how the current SEL content will help students find ways to cope with negative emotions.