One question that has consistently been on my mind is how to teach students who are going through emotional problems. I think oftentimes we can forget that the children / youth we are teaching come from complex and often painful backgrounds. Some students come from troubled and broken homes - absentee, strict, harsh or abusive parents or family members that make life for them unbearable at home. The classroom, therefore, or high school environment is their own safe place or respite from the difficulties at home. It can be very challenging thus for teachers to teach with these difficulties in mind. We see in the classroom how these challenges in students' living environments manifest in behavioral problems in students - students who are distracted, unable to stay on task, disruptive and attention seeking, angry, etc (the list goes on).
Last week during my volunteering one student disclosed to me that she has difficult family problems that she faces at home - her father tends to be quite strict and does not understand her. This student is also dealing with friendship problems in the school - not fitting in and not feeling safe with the current friends that she has. She explained that she suffers from depression and has self-harmed in the form of cutting and suicidal attempts. Another student, I learned this week lives with her mother, but her mother is ill and in and out of hospital. She has other siblings but they do not live with her. She lives only with her mother. My guess then is that she is home alone a lot. This student also has a boyfriend. Both students are only 13 years old.
I question to myself how a teacher teaches students who are going through such unbearable circumstances in their living environments. I was reading a few articles online that offered good points to consider.
1) Making curriculum relevant to students' lives - I already hold to the importance in making sure that curriculum and in classroom material has a personal connection to students' lives or that the teacher works to create a personal connection to material. Oftentimes resources in the school system are scant, so in the English classroom teachers must use novels, etc that could be rather outdated. Teachers then must endeavour to create and draw personal connections to the text. For example, a novel study on the book Coraline by Neil Gaiman could have students explore their own personal fears and the virtue of courage - areas in their own lives where they must demonstrate courage, why courage is necessary in life, how courage can impact not only their own personal lives but the lives of others. I think the goal is to make their learning in one area transferable to other areas, not only in the field of academics (essay writing, etc), but their own personal growth and development. One article suggested giving students a survey of their own personal interests and how they use their spare time and developing lessons that are geared to student interests.
2) Create positive peer interactions and relationships - developing a sense of classroom community. One article explained that peer relationships are second to impact in a student's life - group learning, peer tutoring/editing, classroom meetings.
3) Relaxation Techniques
4) Teaching students how to cope with stress
5) Developing & encouraging student strengths
6) Keeping classroom rules and instructions simple
7) Using texts (novels, short stories, poems) to help children navigate through their emotions (what was the character feeling, why do you think she was feeling that way, how would you feel in the same situation, how could she deal with this emotion, how would you deal with it?)
http://www.ascd.org/publications/classroom-leadership/nov2003/Helping-Students-with-Emotional-Problems-Succeed.aspx
https://developingminds.net.au/articles-for-professionals/2017/5/21/helping-kids-deal-with-negative-emotions-in-the-classroom
