This year, social emotional lessons (SEL) took place every Wednesday morning during students’ Skytime (homeroom) classes. Students were encouraged to practice breathing techniques or share and learn new ways to regulate their negative emotions.
They didn’t like it. Many Skyline students report that they don’t find the lessons to be engaging.
SEL lessons are meant to help students better their mental well-being. “We look at SEL as a part of overall student health,” said Bill Harris, one of the AAPS central office leaders who helped bring TRAILS lessons into the district.
Whether the lessons will ultimately be successful in helping students to self-regulate, “it’s probably too early to tell,” said Harris. “This is a big implementation effort and it’ll take some time to settle in.”
Transforming Research Into Action to Improve the Lives of Students (TRAILS) is the organization behind the SEL lessons. According to their website, they “equip school staff with the training and resources they need to provide evidence-based and culturally responsible programming to their students.”
The impact SEL lessons have at Skyline is hard to determine. “I’ve seen improvement,” said Christopher Cole, a teacher at Skyline with a Skytime class, particularly “in student behavior with the addition of SEL lessons.”
Some students do think they are beneficial. “I do believe the lessons can be helpful,” says Shyanna McCraney (‘26). “The SEL lessons help us give a better understanding of how we feel things, and how we react to things. It happens in everyone’s life and it’s important to recognize those behaviors and learn how to manage them. I know a lot of middle schoolers and high schoolers may feel like they have a hold of their emotions, but some of the behaviors they exhibit aren’t exactly the most positive.”
However, student response to SEL lessons has been mostly negative. “I don’t find it useful,” said Isaiah Garcia (‘28). “They just seem too boring to watch and a waste of time and effort.”
“The SEL lessons are common sense,” said Claire Hegwood (‘28). “And no one pays attention to them because they are doing their work anyway.”
In other schools, this same pattern is seen. The majority of students don’t find the lessons engaging.
“When we did some research on that,” says Harris, “SEL lessons are better received at the elementary level and a little less so at the middle school level and — by the time you get to high school — it’s a little bit more challenging to get student buy in … students are not finding it engaging.”
“Yeah, I don’t think they help,” says Joe Green (26’). “Because nobody pays attention or really cares about sharing their feelings in school.”
Things may change soon as early brainstorming has begun on the future of Skytime. “We’ve been brainstorming some possibilities about how to address that we need to better understand the student perspective about why students are not finding it engaging,” said Harris.
