Children Full of Life, Full of Emotions

In our self-reg course, we were watching and discussing a documentary about a class in Japan, Children Full of Life. In this fourth grade classroom, children are encouraged to share their stories through journalling, and the class becomes a supportive community. This is demonstrated when one child shares a journal entry after returning to school following the death of his grandmother.  This prompts another child to share her feelings about her father's death, three years before. The teacher and the students support both children as they deal with their grief and loss. Eventually the young girl is able to move beyond sharing her grief and begins to share happy memories of her father as well.  The teacher says, "When people really listen, they live in your heart forever."

It made me think back to my own experiences when I was going to school and other classrooms I've observed where, if a child was having a painfully emotional moment, we would excuse them, maybe take them aside or out into the hall to talk with them privately, or send them down to chat with a counsellor.  Once they were settled down, then they would return to class.

What message might that be sending to children?  Are we teaching them that strong emotions don't belong in the classroom? That if you are feeling strong emotions, you should do that in private, not in a public space like a classroom? Perhaps we've been inadvertently teaching children that it's not okay to share your emotions, that the classroom isn't a space for that. But what better space than one where you are surrounded by caring peers and a caring adult?

How do you deal with children's strong emotions in the class?

Description of Children Full of Life from YouTube:
"In the award-winning documentary Children Full of Life, a fourth-grade class in a primary school in Kanazawa, northwest of Tokyo, learn lessons about compassion from their homeroom teacher, Toshiro Kanamori. He instructs each to write their true inner feelings in a letter, and read it aloud in front of the class. By sharing their lives, the children begin to realize the importance of caring for their classmates."

How are you feeling?

In the work I'm doing with educators, we are supporting students in developing their awareness of their arousal levels and effective self-regulation strategies.  But I know that there are times when I don't do a great job of awareness of my own arousal levels and I don't always self-regulate.  There are times when people ask, "How are you?" and my automatic response is "Fine."  

Years ago I was going to my family doctor and he was going to send me for tests for some sort of gastrointestinal hernia due to all the pressure I had in my chest and throat.  He asked, "Could it be stress?'   

"Oh, no," I replied convinced that I was not that stressed.  

Then in July, when I was off work for the summer, all my symptoms instantly disappeared.  Hmmmm - the doctor knew I was stressed, my body was telling me I was stressed, and I had convinced myself that I wasn't stressed.  So when I'm working with young children and expecting them to notice and name their arousal level, I have to remember how hard it was for me to do that.

Another important point to keep in mind is that very seldom are we feeling just one emotion.  Prior to a presentation I may be alternating between excited, anxious, nervous, and confident.  Sometimes when we are asking students, "How are you feeling?" we need to understand that the answer they give us may not capture the full range of emotions.

from www.eslchestnut.com