Nguyen _ Addressing Mental Health Issues in the Classroom

Increasingly, there has been a movement in education to address Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in the classroom. The goal of SEL curriculums is to promote and enact, “a systematic, evidence-based approach to teaching kids how to achieve goals, understand and manage emotions, build empathy, forge relationships, and make responsible decisions.” (Clayton, 2017). One of the primary goals of SEL curriculums is to build a student’s social and emotional intelligence; this means identifying and processing their own emotions, as well as empathizing with the experience of others. Studies have shown that well-implemented SEL curriculums 1) Improve student’s academic achievement 2) Increases pro-social behaviors 3) Improves student attitudes towards school, and 4) Reduce depression and stress among students (Weissberg et al., 2016)

A successful SEL program is multidimensional, but it should unquestionably include mental health education. This begins with discussions around how we process universal emotions like joy, sadness, and anger, but should ultimately progress to a point where we can address and learn about distinct and diagnosable mental health problems.

Importantly, the discussion around mental health in the classroom should be built to help students evaluate their own mental health, but it should also help to build a community whose knowledge about mental health issues helps end the stigma. As educators, it is important to recognize that mental health problems can affect any student, but students from impoverished backgrounds, or students who have experienced trauma are particularly at risk (Jensen, 2009).

            As educators, where then, do we begin? Kiefer and Tyson suggest that books can serve as an excellent resource for bringing up tough issues in the classroom (Kiefer et al., 2014). Books are also valuable because of their variety, with Children’s literature addressing everything from dealing with our basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, etc.) to narratives about highly specific experiences with different mental health diagnoses. One book that I would like to highlight for use for teachers is Coralie Bickford-Smith’s, The Fox and the Star.

The Fox and the Star is beautiful and deeply insightful; the folk-like illustrations tell the story of a young fox whose joy and light are tied up with his only friend, a star. As the Earth rotates, the fox’s star disappears from the sky, and the fox retreats to his fox-hole where he is enveloped by darkness and loneliness for many days. Slowly, he emerges, and he sets off in search of the light of his star once more. The story culminates with the fox’s discovery of not one, but a sky full of stars. Part of the ingenuity of this text is the way it spans grade-level and experience; teachers of young students may decide to use the story to prompt a discussion about loss, loneliness, and/or emotions like sadness, whereas teachers of more mature children might begin to examine the metaphorical depiction of depression in the book and compare it with other curated sources on mental illness.

 

Although I don’t have the space to explore more titles in depth in this post, I would like to share the following titles I came across while creating this blog post. Each of these books could be successfully implemented as part of a literature-based curriculum that looks to treat the subject of mental illness, and although each text deals with the complexity of mental health issues and presents characters that are defined by more than a mental illness, I have included in parenthesis the primary mental health issue that the book addresses as a tool for selecting books that might be relevant to a particular unit or topic.

Elementary SchoolThe Princess and the Fog, by Lloyd Jones (Depression, Emotional Behavioral Disorders)

Everyone, by Christopher Silas Neal (Feelings, universality of feelings, coping & response)

Middle School / Junior High

Helicopter Man, by Elizabeth Fensham (Schizophrenia, Illness of a Parent/Guardian, Food/Shelter Insecurity)

Finding Audrey, by Sophie Kinsella (Anxiety, Relationships)

Every Last Word, by Tamara Ireland Stone (OCD, Anxiety)

References

Anderson, M. (2016, September 20). Here's How Schools Can Support Students' Mental Health. Retrieved July 16, 2017, from http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/09/20/459843929/heres-how-schools-can-support-students-mental-health

Clayton, V. (2017, March 30). The Psychological Approach to Educating Kids. Retrieved July 16, 2017, from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/03/the-social-emotional-learning-effect/521220/

Jensen, E. (2009). Teaching with poverty in mind: what being poor does to kids brains and what schools can do about it. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Kiefer, B. Z. & Tyson, C. A. (2014). Charlotte Huck’s Children’s Literature A Brief Guide (2nd ed.). New York City, New York: McGraw-Hill.

Stutterheim, J. (2016, March 03). Mind Matters: The Impact of Poverty on Mental Health. Retrieved July 16, 2017, from https://www.children.org/archive/2015/apr/mind-matters-the-impact-of-poverty-on-mental-health-

Weissberg, R., Durlak, J., Domitrovich, C., & Thomas, G. (2016, February 15). Why Social and Emotional Learning Is Essential for Students. Retrieved July 16, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-sel-essential-for-students-weissberg-durlak-domitrovich-gullotta