Learning the Basics Before You Teach It!
Introducing Emotional Literacy
I love presenting on emotional literacy to school pupils and offering clues and starter thoughts on how to identify and regulate feelings. A mantra I often use to describe this learning process is: “Change what you think, change what you do and your feelings will change too.”
My presentations might include getting younger tamariki to conclude with the phrase, “Feelings aren’t forever!” nice and loud, or getting older children to come up on stage to play act different parts of the brain. In essence, they are becoming literate in emotions so they can learn to regulate them. As children learn to regulate emotions, they enter a state of emotional wellbeing.
With plenty of child mental health programmes and initiatives coming through to tackle issues like rising anxiety and depression, I feel it’s really important to make these distinctions about emotional learning.
Taking Emotional Literacy Online
Using the same principles I present with, this year I launched an online programme to find an immediate, non- clinical solution to the rising tide of anxiety we’re seeing in New Zealand children – this understanding is drawn from many credible sources and particularly evident since Covid struck.
I’ve called the video and worksheet-based programme, “Think and Be Me.” It’s in early stages, but since its launch in June, teachers, social workers, RTLBs, SENCOs and even a range of health professionals have jumped on board to deliver the online programmes themselves, after receiving facilitation training or professional development from myself.
I wanted to share some of my own learnings about how teachers can deliver expert courses to classes in general – specifically lessons that came up during creation and teacher (BETA testing of my own work). I hope you find them useful!
Rating Your Own Emotional Literacy First
Before you set about teaching children what anxiety is and how to deal with it, it’s essential you learn what that means for you as an adult. As one school senior leader recently said, “There are great teachers who love psychology and already have some affinity with it. There are also great teachers who don’t feel they understand the basic concepts. We all need to start on a level playing field.” So let’s look at five areas to reflect on the causes and effects of anxiety in your own day-to-day life.
1. Start with watching two simple, short free videos for teens and kids at thinkandbe.me/videos.
2. Thinking about the above video for teens, how has anxiety affected your ability to think clearly and address things other than what you’re stressed about? Can you think of three examples of different situations this has occurred in?
3. Thinking about the demo video for kids, can you recall something that you’re going through that would look much less concerning if you switched your worry watchdog thinking for cool cat thinking?
4. In my teens video, I explain that we no longer need the shot of adrenalin we used to need, in order to run from a tiger. But we still experience all the same physiological symptoms when faced with, say, a looming deadline. With anxious symptoms explained like this, does it help to put your deadline worries into place?
5. Thinking about both videos, can you identify times over the last week when you’ve had thoughts that produce distinct physical symptoms? Can you name what the thought was and how you felt immediately afterwards?
Practical Tips for Delivery in the Classroom
If you’re ready to dive in and deliver emotional literacy as an educator, here are three practical tips to making it successful:
1. Take a moment to calm kids down before they watch the videos with you. This might be breathwork, stretching or shaking-out.
2. Make sure you’re really familiar with all the resources first so you know which delivery approach you want to take. For instance, we BETA tested a video and worksheet package and found that some teachers felt playing videos then pausing to write responses worked well for some age groups but wasn’t necessary for others.
Often, you may want children to identify how they feel before and after a lesson. To appreciate the value of this more, you can download a free, modified version called a Mood Mat, at thinkandbe.me as pictured. I suggest teaming it with a post-lesson questionnaire.
