In NY Schools, a Little ‘Respect for All’

This week, New York City schools celebrate 'Respect for All Week' with special curricula, trainings and events. But targeted programming already active in some schools makes the idea of teaching empathy and respect an all-the-time affair.

On Monday, in a bright classroom in Brooklyn's P.S. 24, Maria Diaz’s fifth-graders were deep in discussion. On an easel, a chart from earlier in the lesson displayed two columns: “target groups” and “systematic mistreatment.” Underneath these headings: “women,” “people of color,” “gay people,” “old people” and “poor people,” along with “sexism,” “racism,” “homophobia” and “ageism.”

The question of the day: Is it fair when people say that all Hispanics are lazy?

In a dual-language school in which 91 percent of the students are Hispanic, this is anything but an academic question. The kids were animated but took their turns and looked at each other when they spoke.

“My mom isn’t lazy and she’s Hispanic,” a shy girl offered.

Another piped up: “A Hispanic person who’s lazy is my uncle ‘cause he never wants to work. He’s always just sitting on the couch.”

When a visitor to the class — Tom Roderick of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, who wrote the curriculum the kids are working with — said goodbye, Diaz extolled him to come around more often. “We miss you!” she said. “We have interesting discussions in this class.”

She turned to the students. “Do we or don’t we?”

There was unanimity. “Yeah!”

Respect for All Week

Downstairs in the auditorium, New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, along with a large coalition of NGO partners, had just announced the first-ever “Respect for All Week” in the city’s schools. The initiative, which runs from March 8 to 12, is aimed at reducing bullying and harassment targeted at students’ ethnicity, race, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

“I fully believe that our diversity in New York City is our greatest strength,” said Quinn. “But we can’t take it for granted.”

Citing a number of high-profile hate crimes last fall, she drew a hard line in the sand: “Any time someone in this city is harassed … because of who they are, that’s something that’s just quite frankly unacceptable.”

The initiative aims to send a strong message that hate is especially unwelcome in schools. “There can never be learning if children are fearful in the classroom,” Quinn said.

The Department of Education’s Office of School and Youth Development is offering administrators and teachers useful tools to engage with the message of respect, such as sample lesson plans, activity guides and linkages to community organizations that provide programs and free curricula. Morningside Center, for one, is offering workshops on fostering respect and countering bias to staff at every school in the city.

Hundreds of schools in all boroughs are planning events to bring the idea home. At Manhattan’s Legacy High School, for example, students are creating a play called “In My Skin” to encourage the audience to learn about and embrace differences. Other schools are scheduling assemblies and panel discussions on diversity.

Social and Emotional Learning

While a targeted weeklong event is a good way to shed light on an under-represented issue, the need to help students learn skills in respect and cooperation is ongoing. As Chancellor Joel Klein put it, “if we don’t all of us make this part of our daily existence, we’re not going to get the job done.”

P.S. 24 became the site of Respect for All Week’s launch specifically because it has committed to integrating the teaching of social skills and empathy into its everyday life. The curriculum provided by Morningside, based on a concept called “social and emotional learning” (SEL) that aims to boost children’s well-being and academic achievement by giving them the skills to deal with their emotions and address conflict with others, is an essential piece of the school’s agenda.

This means, first and foremost, getting students to think about the cultural and interpersonal context in which they live and how theirs might be different than someone else’s. Exercises like the conversation about stereotypes make thinking about difference a deliberate act. Doing so helps students develop the mental and emotional capacity to consciously cultivate respect for others.

Teachers, too, benefit from structured SEL programs that teach them ways to deal with their own stresses and prioritize their own needs. Linda Lantieri, a leader in the field who has been instrumental in the development of P.S. 24’s integrated SEL program, offers teachers the opportunity to participate in her Inner Resilience Program, which imparts creative strategies and practical tools for maintaining a sense of purpose and positivity in their work.

Building an environment that puts the emotional lives of students and staff front and center, it turns out, is a complex and long-term process.

“Respecting all is a wonderful idea,” said P.S. 24’s principal Christina Fuentes at the press conference. “But it takes hard work to help teachers know how to teach this curriculum and for children to develop these skills.”

A Rigorous Approach

The approach can be as structured and rigorous as teaching any other subject, and the learning it engenders just as — or even more — profound.

In fact, studies show that children who learn social and emotional skills are better equipped to address their academic subjects, since they have a way to deal with unruly emotions and interpersonal conflicts that might otherwise serve to distract.

“When children learn these social and emotional skills, they are much better positioned to do better on their standardized tests,” said Principal Fuentes.

Considering the federal Department of Education’s focus on test scores, that last fact is a main reason the national SEL movement is quickly gaining ground. A bipartisan coalition in Congress, composed of Dale Kildee (D- MI), Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Judy Biggert (R-IL), introduced the Academic, Social and Emotional Learning Act of 2009, H.R. 4223, to the House of Representatives with the aim of getting SEL standards included in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Meanwhile, more and more schools around the country are using various SEL curricula — including an upcoming implementation across three districts in Ohio — and the leading lights of progressive education, among them Daniel Goleman and Timothy Shriver, have teamed up to create the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) to further investigate and promote the idea.

Who’s Going to Comfort Me?

While boosting academic learning is indeed an important goal, for Principal Fuentes, teaching SEL is also central to her school’s emphasis on nurturing empathetic and mature human beings.

“When I think about my future and I think about when I’m old and maybe in an assisted living home, I think, ‘what kind of people would I want taking care of me?’” she said. “Who’s going to doctor me? Who’s going to help me when I fall down and pick me up? Who’s going to comfort me?”

Filling our society with the kind of people you would want in those roles is as important a goal for our schools as cultivating math whizzes, business innovators and brilliant researchers.

“I think I would love for those people to be P.S. 24 graduates because those people will have learned from childhood on to be empathetic people, to be people who know how to work in teams even when they disagree with each other,” concluded Fuentes. “They will be people who have cultural competency.”

And, after New York is done with them, respect for all.

Photo 1, 3 and 4 by New York City Council via Flickr, Photo 2 © Christopher L. Smith.