Teaching SEL, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Student Agency, Responsibility, Well-Being

I am teaching demonstration classes with several teachers and 8th-grade students in Chicago. It is the climax of our cross-curricular unit and we are at the end of a war. Bodies are spread across the space and the only survivor raises his arms totally elated saying, “We won! We won! Hooray, we won!” Then he looks around him; his arms fall to his side as he realizes the impact of what has taken place.

Students in the Red School arm wrestle in the traditional way. The Blue School counts how many times the arms can touch the table in one minute.

The unit starts out innocently enough. The students are divided into the Red school and the Blue school. Their values differ but one is not better than the other. Students are learning about how conflict impacts us and how it can escalate, as well as what we can do instead. Students are role-playing inside a class story to better understand the concept of the lesson. Learning is more relevant when students are experiencing and emoting inside the story. This is embodied learning.

Texting in a group using sticky notes. Students learn through group thinking out loud.

Inside the story, something happens, an assumption is made and rumours start, followed by several decisions resulting in war. (The war is done safely using words as weapons. It is a powerful learning experience.)

Throughout the unit, we come out of the story to reflect. At the end of the unit, we look back. At what point does the story start leading to war? We discover that it starts early on with a misunderstanding.

How it Escalates

Students discover how a misunderstanding escalates. Here are the new concepts and vocabulary students learn because of our reflection.

Presumption of guilt: saying something,

“The Red school ripped the artwork we prepared for the competition.”

Generalization: There is harm done to another person’s reputation by making a false statement about that person to a third party. And it is vague.

“The Blue School is toxic, manipulative and lies.”

It turns into, doing something,

“The Blue School sent someone into the hall to disqualify us. The Blue School is trying to disqualify us.”

Essentialism: Essentialism is the view that categories of people, such as women and men, or heterosexuals and gay people, or members of ethnic groups, have intrinsically different and characteristic natures or dispositions. (really bad)

“The Blue School is racist.”

We go from criticizing a person’s actions to criticizing the person themselves.

Pretend-moralism/pretend-intellectualism: pretending they are hurt/offended but really they are envious and spiteful,

“The Blue School is already best at sports; they just want to win the art contest to steal all the trophies.”

No Forgiveness: forgiveness is never granted; brought up repeatedly in the future even after an apology

Even though the Blue School apologizes, the Red school escalates the situation and votes to go to war.

The Transitive Nature of Cancellation: if you associate with someone who is cancelled, it rubs off on you.

The two schools decide not to play sports or even associate with one another. Parents and community members take sides and the community is divided. Does it sound a bit like an analogy for Romeo and Juliet?

We go from criticizing a person’s actions to criticizing the person themselves. An unrelated example is, we can say,

“Pat is feeling shy.” Not “Pat is shy.”

The second comment is labelling the person themselves. The message to a child hearing this can be understood as his shy demeanour has no hope of shifting. This is just who he is and it will never change. However, being shy is just a feeling. Feelings come and go.

Cancelling is not criticism.

It is not holding someone accountable.

It is an attack on a human being.

“Othering” is excluding. As teachers, we work so hard at creating an emotionally safe environment, one of inclusion so that learners will take risks, raise their hands, offer a response, be willing to try, make mistakes and try again.

In order for people to learn, they have to be in an emotionally safe environment, free of negative judgement, free to make mistakes and try things out, take risks and express their developing thoughts.

As teachers, we work hard on creating a space for our kids to learn. And, we must model that for them in the world outside of school. As “life-long learners,” we must give each other the grace to make mistakes. And get curious, seeking to understand another’s point of view when it differs from our own. Then, we may decide to disagree. That is fine.

Self-expression is important to teach our students. We must be more than tolerant. We must embrace free speech and be able to have civil debates on sensitive topics. We need open minds to be able to listen and to consider another point of view. As educators, we must ask ourselves, are we modelling open-mindedness to our children?

Consider, we are all part of one race, the human race. We have more in common than we realize. Let’s support one another, regardless of background, race or differences in opinion.

Our goal as educators and parents is to develop children to be above the red line on the Ladder of Accountability. Sometimes this is referred to as being “above the line” or “below the line.”

Ladder of Accountability

Reflections inside the 8th Grade Unit

Those 8th-grade students learned some valuable lessons inside our cross-curricular unit called, Us and Them. They articulated their learning on a graffiti board and in conversation. They made connections to their own lives, to other texts and to the world.

“I feel that this war was equivalent to fighting with a brother or sister. You disagree on the smallest thing for a long time but then eventually it worsens. At that time a parent (death) steps in and takes away what/who we love.” Colin
“Just because people are different, doesn’t make them worse.” Brent
“I am present to what is happening in the middle east where people are fighting over their differences and they need to realize the consequences and how we really aren’t different at all.” Alexis
“I am now present to the fact that we’ve been walking through the fog this whole time, not bothering to see if we could improve our vision. We’ve been blind and lost our glasses.” David

Analogical Problem-Solving ™ is what I call teaching by living inside a story such as the Us and Them unit. Students have agency/voice to make decisions inside their class story, an analogy of life. As teachers, we carefully follow their suggestions and integrate lessons as we plan strategies that allow them to discover their learning.

Students learn real-life lessons without real-life consequences. They realize at a deep and profound level that we have so much in common. We are all connected. Ultimately the students decide war is not worth the enormous human cost. And they internalize that we are all part of the human race.

*At the end of the unit, the Blue and Red Schools create tableaux depicting where the conflict first started. Students have fun with this exercise but we had many moments of serious contemplation.*

Like those 8th grade students, who learned so much about what it is to be human, we can also take a critical look at society and at our own lives. It is easy to fall prey to a group mentality of “us and them.” And we don’t have to go there. We have a choice.