Now, more than ever, teachers have recognized the need for emotional support for students. Since the pandemic, social and emotional needs of students have moved to the forefront of education.
Tier one of a comprehensive school mental health system includes the promotion of positive social, emotional, and behavioral skills and overall wellness for students. (Mid-America Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network) This includes emotional support for students.
Why Understanding Emotions is Important
We recognize that helping students to understand and describe their emotions is a crucial part of developing emotional wellness. Our emotions affect almost all parts of us. They are connected to our families, culture and experiences. The effects of our emotions show up in our biological systems. Our emotions are also expressed in our behaviors and our behavioral patterns.
No matter what age or subject matter we teach, every teacher knows that emotions can cause conflicts for students. Whether they are emotions that harm an individual’s sense of self, or emotions that cause conflict between individuals, teachers find themselves regularly dealing with students’ emotions. Add to that raging teenage hormones and a still developing prefrontal cortex of the brain and you have a recipe for an explosion of emotions.
Brené Brown on Managing Our Emotions
According to Sociology researcher Brené Brown in her book Atlas of the Heart, those who are able to understand and distinguish between a range of various emotions are better able to manage the everyday ups and downs than those who see everything in black and white.
Brown and her colleagues have identified 87 different human emotions. In a massive study where participants were asked to list all of their emotions, Brown found that the average person listed just three: happy, sad and angry. The premise of her book is that we need to be able to better name and understand our emotions.
“Without understanding how our feelings, thoughts and behaviors work together, it is almost impossible to find our way back to ourselves and each other. When we don’t understand how our emotions shape our thoughts and decisions, we become disembodied from our own experiences and disconnected from each other (p.xx). ”
The Language We use Around Emotions Matters
The language we use around the emotions we have plays a crucial role in our experience of our emotions.
For example, a student who studies for a test and then fails that test might have a variety of emotions about the experience. The student might be angry, disappointed or frustrated. The student might feel resentful of those who studied less and passed. On a personal level, the student might feel shame, embarrassment or discouragement.
Any of those words, and others could be used to express emotions around failure. The language we use to express those emotions often dictates our behavior.
For example:
An angry person wants to lash out or fight.
A discouraged or hopeless student might feel like quitting.
A disappointed student might try to figure out how to do something differently the next time.
A student who is resentful may take out the experience on others who were successful.
A student who feels shame or embarrassment might become quiet and try to hide or forget the experience.
Clearly, these are different ways to react to the experience of failure.
How Teachers Can Help Students Understand and Express Emotions
Teachers are not guidance counselors or social workers, but they can still play an important role in helping students to develop an understanding of their emotions and using different language to express those emotions.
Here are simple ways that teachers can foster growth and understanding around emotions. These are not meant to be lessons specifically about emotions but to integrate emotional awareness into all areas of the curriculum.
- When reading or discussing content where characters or people are experiencing emotionally charged events, stop and talk about what these people might be feeling and how it may affect their actions.
- When reading, watching a video, or discussing current events, focus on the perspective of the people involved. What behaviors were displayed? What emotions might they be feeling and why might they be feeling this way? How are the behaviors and the emotions connected?
- In teaching writing, encourage students to expand and clarify their words choices about feelings. Have them search an online thesaurus to replace overused terms such as happy, sad or angry with more specific terms.
- Welcome students at the beginning of class. Ask them how they are. When they comment with “good” or “ok”, respond back with a few specific choices, “Are you content? Satisfied? Thrilled?” Eventually this can become almost a game, and students will start to respond with more specific answers. Make it fun, not a chore!
- Use emojis when responding to student work. There are emojis for many different emotions! 😁🤣🤗😏😥😗😌
- Use music or art in your lessons. Both music and art can evoke strong feelings. Use it as an opportunity to talk about different feelings that come up with hearing or viewing in a different medium. This can work in any subject area.
- Set a daily intention. Before you begin a lesson, set a learning intention. Some examples: “By the end of the day I want you to feel accomplished.” “After you work in your small groups, I want you to feel satisfied that you have figured out the solutions to the math problems.” Or “As you work today, I want you to feel surprised at something new you discovered.”
- When a student becomes visibly upset, pull aside the student and have a private conversation. What is the student feeling? Why? What are some ways to respond appropriately to those feelings?
- Be a role model for expressing feelings. If you are disappointed in something, say so and discuss it. In awe of last night’s lunar eclipse? Share it. Let students see a variety of emotions expressed in healthy ways.
Offering emotional support for students isn’t a curriculum to be implemented. It isn’t a one -and -done lesson plan. It is about recognizing that helping students to express and regulate their emotions is a useful goal.
It is understanding that you are not teaching just your subject matter, you are teaching students.
Our best,
Brown, B. ( 2021). Atlas of the heart. New York: Random House.
P.S. If you teach young children, read our discussion on how to help young students name emotions here.
Teachers, we see you struggling. We know that only a week or so after a break you are already feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. The truth is that teaching has always been challenging and the demands on teachers have been increasing for years. The pandemic has exacerbated everything.
If you are feeling especially exhausted, know that you are hardly alone. What many teachers expected to be a more normal school year has been anything but normal. The pandemic continues and has caused disruptions in our daily lives. Students still come and go either because they have Covid or because they have been in close contact with someone who has. In some districts, parents have been expressing extreme views and sometimes extreme behaviors in terms of supporting vaccines and masks or rallying against them. Teachers are caught in the middle at a time when it seems that no matter what you do, you will not please everyone.
We recently asked teachers in our 
