Social-Emotional Learning and the Brain. Marilee Sprenger B.
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was the same. I thought about giving up on the morning greeting. The students had felt abandoned; I was feeling rejected.
In time, the students responded somewhat to the brain-compatible learning strategies that I used. They began to feel more successful as they interacted with one another, worked in cooperative groups, and became more aware of others' feelings as well as their own. It was the social-emotional learning connection that made a difference.
After 17 mornings of my standing by the door to greet them, the "leader of the pack" reached out to shake my hand. Quinn, the best-dressed and cockiest student of all, shook my hand and echoed back my greeting when he said, "Good morning. I'm glad you're here today." Was he just mocking me? It didn't matter. At least it was a response!
After that, the other students slowly followed suit. What made the difference? It wasn't my persistence. It wasn't my smile. They didn't feel sorry for me because no one would respond. It was the fact that I was there—every day. I showed up. I couldn't dare be absent. They had to see that they could again count on someone.
No one has to explain to you how to greet a friend, but, after making eye contact and saying the person's name, you can make a greeting more powerful by doing one of the following:
Ask a question: What's your favorite ____? (You can ask about color, season, food, kind of pizza, animal, and so on.)
Make a request: I could use your help with a bulletin board. (Alternatives might include using an app, solving a problem, or taking attendance.)
Use nonverbal signals: These may include smiles, high fives, handshakes, hugs. (It took a long time before some students would let me touch them—particularly those who had been mistreated or abused in some way. Be patient and know that some students may never let you touch them.)
You Say Hello; You Say Goodbye
Welcoming students with a greeting is a great strategy, but saying goodbye can be just as important. Teachers in middle and high school may have difficulty with this, but leaving your last-period classroom and being in the hall when students are packing up at their lockers and heading out the door can be powerful. They will know that you care when you leave your desk and papers for a few minutes to say goodbye, remind them about an assignment, or tell them you look forward to seeing them tomorrow. That tough group of 5th graders softened up even more at the end of the day. Helping pack up a backpack, asking how their day was, and just saying, "See you tomorrow!" let them know I cared and would be there for them. It was a little sad yet heartwarming when a few of the kids leaving would ask, "See you tomorrow?"
Tell Your Story
One strategy that has been heavily researched is storytelling. As Burton (2019) tells us, our brain takes information and puts it in story form as it tries to make sense of the world. Research has uncovered the "chemical cocktail" that occurs in the brain when we listen to or read a story. First, dopamine is released as we derive pleasure from listening to the story. Small amounts of cortisol are released when there is some distress or uncertainty as "the plot thickens." Finally, oxytocin is released as we relate to the characters and learn the outcome. Dopamine is released again as a reward—that is, the satisfaction and pleasure derived from the solution to the problem or the outcome of the story.
What does storytelling have to do with relationships? Everything. It begins with your relationships with your students. Talking about yourself, your family, and your activities helps build rapport with your students. Involving them in a problem and asking them to help provides a solution that connects them to you.
For instance, in one large 6th grade class consisting of 32 students (21 boys and 11 girls), it wasn't easy to get to know each student quickly. Their teacher, Mrs. Tate, often began each day with a story relating to the content (history or literature) that would be covered that day, and she would try to put the students in the story. When they studied the Civil War, she might begin a story like this: "Imagine yourself wanting to join your friends to save your 'country.' You are out to protect your family, your home, and possibly your freedom. You put on a heavy uniform, if you have one. In the early days of the war, not everyone had a uniform. To make matters more complicated, you might have a blue uniform. This was tricky. If you were fighting for the South, the Confederacy, you were to wear gray. The Northerners, the Union, were the ones who wore blue. So if you fought for the South and all you had to wear was a blue uniform, you could get shot by your own side! What would you do to keep yourself safe?"
A story like this focuses students on the content and their own emotions—and strengthens their relationship with Mrs. Tate. In essence, she is asking each individual student in the class what they would do. The question elevates them to a sense that "we're all in this together."
Use Five Ways to Show You Care
It was Teddy Roosevelt who said, "Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care." Letting students know that you truly do care about them is often easier with younger kids than with preteens and teenagers. Students need to know we care, and here are five ways, according to Fisher and Frey (2019), to show we are invested in relationships with them:
Providing structure: Rules should be fair and apply to all; having consistent expectations for every student is key.
Offering choice: Students, particularly teens, seek autonomy, and when possible, they need to be involved in decisions that are going to affect them personally.
Showing interest: Discovering information about their lives, asking questions about their music, and attending their athletic events (or at least knowing the scores) are ways to demonstrate your interest.
Being optimistic: Express to students through speech and actions that you believe in their ability to succeed.
Acknowledging their feelings: Show emotional support and help them process their feelings.
Keeping these things in mind, let's consider middle to high school students. Their schedules don't allow for a lot of one-on-one time. In addition, teachers who have five or six different classes each day have less time to build relationships. Nevertheless, making the effort to do so is well worth it.
Write Notes to Students
Keep envelopes with each student's name in your desk and occasionally write notes to students. Let students know what you appreciate about them or how you liked some of their work. You might keep the envelopes in a file, and after you give a student a letter, put that student's envelope at the back of the bunch. This way you can be certain to reach out to every student.
Stick It to Them
In a variation of the note-writing strategy, keep a stack of sticky notes handy, and whenever a student does something that you want to point out, write it on a sticky note and put the note on the student's desk, locker, or notebook. The note can be anything from "You played a great game last night!" to "I saw you helping the new student, and I'm sure he appreciated it!"
Be a Name-Caller
Self-improvement author and lecturer Dale Carnegie once said, "A person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language." Be the person who knows students' names. In some cases, be their "person." One of my favorite television shows was Grey's Anatomy. What attracted me most were the relationships among the doctors and how they built those relationships. The first time I heard one doctor say to her friend, "You're my person," I was instantly struck by the emotion I felt. I know that serotonin and oxytocin were released in my brain—the first to calm my body and make me feel good, and the second to make me feel connected to these characters and to remind me who "my person" was at varying times in my life. In an issue of Educational Leadership with the theme "What Teens Need from Schools," a column