“Once kids feel like they can calm themselves, even through breathing, it’s like the ‘wow’ moment,” said Rick Kinder, creator of a mindfulness program called “Healthy Work” in an article in the Children’s Mind Academy.
In major schools, conversations about the brain continue throughout the day, as teachers can be heard encouraging students to recognize their emotions or ask, “What does your amygdala say to you at this moment?” According to Jessica Gomez, a psychologist and executive director, a nonprofit in the Dallas-based mental health organization that runs the school. (The amygdala processes emotions in the brain.)
Through these frequent discussions and other lessons on mental health and health relationships, teachers “try to make these things part of the human condition, not stigmatizing things,” Gomez said. The school also regularly hosts parents’ nights to educate families on how to work and teach emotional regulation strategies families can practice at home.
Founded in 1997 and funded by charitable donations, the school’s grant is to practice mental health and brain science research from the Bomyous Institute and the BrainHealth Center at the University of Texas at Dallas. Boment’s latest research and BrainHealth Center found that this approach could lead to positive outcomes for school graduates. Of the 73 important school students who graduated from high school from 2016 to 2018, 97% received a high school diploma, while 48% received a college degree.
These findings are in a lesson about emotions, relationships and social consciousness, commonly known as social and emotional learning, which has become a flashpoint in the wars of education and culture. Studies show that such lessons can improve academic performance: Other researchers have not been with important schools and have also found that teaching about the brain can power students and improve academic and social development.
Gomez said that when teachers and students return to school and face new practices and social situations, it is a good time to build relationships and even introduce young students to ideas about how their brains work. While many students focus on challenges such as poverty, she believes that schools’ emphasis on mental health and brain science helps families better cope with these stresses.
“The key is not to bear stress in life, but to know what to do,” Gomez said. “Children and parents with agents and tools can help them know how to deal with stress in life, which can buffer their brains.”
Contact the worker Jackie Mad Call 212-678-3562 or make@hechingerreport.org.
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