New Ways to Support and Empower Students Facing Big Emotions
Teaching can be tricky when the classroom is full of emotionally-charged young people who are still learning how to process their feelings and may have already shut the world out that morning because of something else that’s happened prior to their arrival. But there’s some magic here. Something simple you can start to play with that can help them unlock their power and motivation when they’re otherwise stuck in a rut. Today’s youth all long for authenticity. All youth everywhere. They want realness. Though it can often come across as the opposite because many young people can seem underneath this facade they crave permission to completely own who they are and what they feel.
In many school environments, however, with there being so many rules and uniform codes, lots of young people can feel repressed, boxed in and inauthentic. As a teacher, though, you have more power to help them than meets the eye. Yes, you have standards to maintain in the classroom and grades to get your students to aim for, but what if there was a creative way to cut through the noise and ‘excuses’ for them not engaging in your classes, before the classes even begin? How does this idea sound? Opening up a dialogue for students to express how they’re feeling about life, exams,
pressures and whatever else is going on, and how that is affecting them in the classroom? To many, this might sound like a recipe for opening up a can of worms that may be hard to contain, but this is your encouragement to release your expectations and stories of how you think it would go, and open up to the possibilities of things turning out much more enriching and empowering. After all, we are far more likely to give all our attention to something once we have actually got the emotional and mental space to contain it.
There is so much power in simply acknowledging each other from a human-to-human perspective, and allowing the feeling of authority to simmer down as much as possible, to help students feel seen, respected and valued for where they’re at. Not everyone will jump on the opportunity to open up, but the beauty lies in you showing them they can. If it seems like something you’d like to explore but aren’t sure how, here are some ideas:
• Allocate one lesson a week where at the beginning, whoever wants to share what they’re feeling or what’s blocking them from engaging at the beginning of class, is able to do so. If they choose, they can receive feedback and support from others.
• Spend the first five to ten minutes of class with a guided writing session. Write on the board a question such as, “What’s on my mind at this moment that could possibly distract me from engaging today?” Then, follow it with “Now that I’ve acknowledged it, what is one thing I can do after class today to contribute to improving my feelings or situation?” Students can privately get everything out of their heads and have a clear action point so that they’re ready to engage with you.
• Have a space in the room where students can stick post-it notes on the wall, and get them to each write an encouraging quote or message for everyone else to read. Read some out loud.
• When you do roll call, catch eye contact with every student and say, “I see you,” in a meaningful way. This can be quite an intimate thing but is hugely powerful and may be the only space they will actually feel witnessed.
Of course, you’re not there to play counsellor and this is not an encouragement to spend your classroom time consoling upset students, but this current world climate has so many young people either overwhelmed by their emotions or completely detached from them because it’s too scary. If you can simply become a beacon of light, let them know you see them and understand life isn’t always easy. It can transform
the level of engagement in ways you will not believe and will inspire them to dig deeper into themselves to honour the space and time you are giving them to learn and grow.
Letting students know that you don’t expect them to show up as someone they’re not, that you will encourage them to be the best they can be. If big stuff does present itself, give them the opportunity to take a friend with them to the counsellor’s door or take some time out. This will be far more productive in the long run than forcing them to just be quiet and get on with tasks that aren’t actually sinking in anyway.
You may find that many students won’t choose to open up, but having a space where they know they are acknowledged as a complex human being with feelings will be invaluable for everyone involved.