Social and Emotional Learning

Redefining success: Wellbeing, engagement, belonging

Olivia Peterkin — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 17:23:59 +0000

Redefining success: Wellbeing, engagement, belonging Olivia Peterkin Fri, 09/12/2025 - 10:23

K-12 | Research and Practice | Social and Emotional Learning

In this episode of School’s In, the show’s co-host and GSE Senior Lecturer Denise Pope discusses student success and the role that wellness, engagement, and belonging play in supporting learning.

October 2, 2025

By Olivia Peterkin

What does it mean for students to succeed in an academic setting? And how can parents, schools, and educators create the conditions to advance learning?

According to �� Graduate School of Education (GSE) Senior Lecturer Denise Pope, it has less to do with perfect grades and college entrance, than with student wellness, engagement, and belonging.

“You have to be healthy enough to get out of bed in the morning and go to school,” said Pope, who is also co-founder of Challenge Success, a nonprofit that partners with schools to use research-based methods of ensuring student flourishing. “You [also] want to like what you're doing … and think that what you’re doing has meaning and value in your life.”

“[Lastly,] you need to feel like you have someone who has your back, that you feel known, safe, and like you’re part of a community. And that forms a little acronym: wellbeing, engagement, belonging, called WEB.”

Pope joins co-host GSE Dean Dan Schwartz as a guest as they discuss student success and research-backed methods for creating balanced and engaging learning experiences.

“What we know from research is there’s lots of ways to engage kids in classes. And how you do it is interactive learning, small group work, … gamification, bringing in outside technology that’s exciting and also helping them think,” she said. “Not just standing up in front of the class, giving a lecture or saying, ‘Open the textbook, turn to page three and then answer these questions.’"

They also discuss key takeaways like practical school-level solutions, and what parents can do to support their students.

“We’re trying to get people to step back and look at the big picture,” Pope said. “In the grand scheme, you’re not gonna remember your kid’s grade of C+ in math class, and it’s not gonna affect their life.

“You want someone to be healthy, you want someone to feel like they belong to a community, and you want them to be excited about what they do every day.”

Transcript

Denise Pope (00:01):

In fact, these three things, they correlate with academic mastery. That's the dirty little secret.

(00:12):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights in learning. From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners of all ages. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at ��'s Graduate School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (00:36):

And I'm Dan Schwartz. I'm the dean of the Graduate School of Education and the faculty director of the �� Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (00:45):

Together, we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed.

Dan Schwartz (00:54):

Hi, Denise.

Denise Pope (00:56):

Hi, Dan.

Dan Schwartz (00:57):

So, that's a little switcheroo. We're doing some changes for the first episode of the season. You, my co-host, are actually gonna be the first person that we interview.

Denise Pope (01:07):

I'm excited. I'm- I'm very honored to be a guest.

Dan Schwartz (01:11):

Well, I'm very honored to have you as a partner. You know? So, for people who don't know, Denise is a senior lecturer, beloved senior lecturer, at the Graduate School of Education. She's doing, uh, research on AI in education and how teachers and students are responding to it. She's doing work on schools that are exceptionally successful at developing wellbeing. But today, we're gonna talk about her work on Challenge Success. So, Challenge Success, it partners with school communities to elevate student voice and implement research-based, equity-centered strategies to improve wellbeing and engagement for K-12 students. So, my peripatetic friend, are you ready?

Denise Pope (01:51):

(laughs) I am so ready. Very excited.

Dan Schwartz (01:54):

Okay. So, it's called, uh, Challenge Success. Why?

Denise Pope (02:00):

Oh, my goodness. Well, a couple of reasons. We came up with Challenge Success because we're challenging this very narrow notion of success. So, before I get into that, I wanna know, what do you think- what do you think that narrow notion of success is that we might be challenging with our title?

Dan Schwartz (02:17):

Hmm. The illusory dream that there's a single thing that will make everything better, which i- in this-

Denise Pope (02:22):

That's partially right.

Dan Schwartz (02:24):

... which in this case is probably college admissions.

Denise Pope (02:29):

Kind of. Yes. So, when I do talks all over the place for parents or teachers or students, my first question always to the audience is, "How do you define success?" And you're right, a lot of them will say college.

Dan Schwartz (02:42):

You didn't ask me how I would define success.

Denise Pope (02:45):

Dan, how do you define success?

Dan Schwartz (02:48):

Uh, after the fact. (laughs)

Denise Pope (02:49):

What? (laughs) Okay. Totally not fair.

Dan Schwartz (02:53):

If something works well, I say, "Boy, that was a success." (laughs)

Denise Pope (02:58):

(laughs)

(02:58):

Let's just take a guess. I'm asking a- a group of parents sitting in an audience at a school, "How do you define success for your child?" What do you think most of them say?

Dan Schwartz (03:07):

Uh, geez. That they're happy.

Denise Pope (03:08):

Ding, ding, ding, ding.

Dan Schwartz (03:08):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (03:11):

That is the number one thing that adults will say. "I want my kid to be happy." Sometimes they'll say, "I want my kid to be healthy. I want them to give back to society. I want them to find a- a partner who's loving. I want them to be a good friend." All these, like, lovely things, right? And when I ask the students what they think their parents would say about defining success, the students say, "Get into a prestigious college. Make a lot of money. Get good grades." Right? Very, very different from what the parents say. So-

Dan Schwartz (03:48):

So, that's fascinating.

Denise Pope (03:48):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (03:51):

So, how- how do you explain that?

Denise Pope (03:53):

Well, what I... I usually do this exercise, and then I say to the parents, "Guess what? The kids are hearing this from all over, but partially from you. So let's talk about some of the things that you do that are messaging almost the exact opposite of what you're trying to do as a parent. Things like, the minute the kid ho- comes home from school, the first thing you ask is, 'How'd you do on the history test?' Hmm. That's sending a message that, like, the grade on a test is more important than 'How did you treat a friend today? How exciting was school? Did you do anything cool or creative?'" Right? So, we're- we're messaging- we're often messaging the wrong things about success.

(04:34):

And we also have... We do this other exercise that's really fun, which is, "How do you think your community defines success?" And for that, they're all ready to just, you know, slam the community as being so worried about these extrinsic, external things, like grades and popularity and money and college. And then I say, "Well, the kids kind of think that you believe it," right?

(04:56):

So, why are we called Challenge Success? We are challenging that really narrow notion of success, that "You have to do this, this, this, and this, and then poof, you're gonna be successful and happy." There's a quote from my book. One of the students that I shadowed said, "We don't go to school to learn. We go to get good grades, which brings us to college, which brings us a high-paying job, which brings us to happiness." So, it's, like, that really narrow, linear notion of success. And that if you get a bad grade, or you don't get into XYZ school, or you don't get that job, your life is over or you're gonna be poor or destitute or unhappy.

Dan Schwartz (05:34):

Okay. So, you've beat us down, Denise. What is the correct definition of success?

Denise Pope (05:39):

Well, I don't know that there's a correct definition. We do like people to think about what is best for them and their circumstances. But what we know from the literature is there are three pillars that pretty much we talk about all the time at Challenge Success and we measure and look at. And one is wellbeing. You have to be healthy enough to get outta bed in the morning and go to school. You ha- You can't be exhausted. You can't be completely anxious or depressed if you're going to be successful in school and out. So, wellbeing is one.

(06:08):

The second one is engagement. You want to like what you're doing. You wanna be interested in it. You wanna think that what you're doing has meaning and value in your life.

(06:18):

And the third is belonging, which is, you need to feel like you have someone who has your back, that you feel known, that you feel safe, that you feel like you're part of a community. And that forms a little acronym, wellbeing, engagement, belonging, called WEB. And that's how you remember it.

Dan Schwartz (06:33):

Okay. I like WEB better than SOS.

Denise Pope (06:36):

Yeah. (laughs) So do I.

Dan Schwartz (06:37):

Uh. So, when I think of success, uh, and I'm thinking about my kids, I think of very long-term goals. Whereas these are all really proximal. It's like, uh, wellbeing right now, engagement right now, belonging right now. Right? So, it's kind of a different framing of success, or these are enablers of some future goal of success that I may not know what it is?

Denise Pope (07:00):

Right. They're foundational. Right? And- and if you think, you know, back to Maslow's hierarchy, right, the bottom is safety. Uh. You can't get to enlightenment until you have safety and belonging. Um, so we- we... You gotta start out, like, with the basics. If you're exhausted, it's not gonna work now or later. Right?

Dan Schwartz (07:20):

Okay. But there, it- it- it should be called challenge enabling success.

Denise Pope (07:26):

Yeah. (laughs)

Dan Schwartz (07:28):

Or something.

Denise Pope (07:28):

Okay, that's just not as catchy.

Dan Schwartz (07:29):

(laughs) Okay. Okay.

Denise Pope (07:29):

(laughs)

Dan Schwartz (07:31):

So, how- how'd you come up with these three? Right? And, you know, good- good grades. Uh, self-efficacy could have been one. You feel like you're- you're competent, things like that.

Denise Pope (07:42):

Absolutely. So, what- what we've done for years and years, we've- we've been around for over 20 years now, is we've given these surveys and we've done quantitative surveys and we've also collected qualitative research. And we've done this now for, you know, 15-20 years. The survey started a little bit after we got started. 350,000 middle school and high school students, 500 different schools, public, private, charter, you name it. And-

Dan Schwartz (08:07):

Geez. Do you feel... Do you feel guilty about all the time you've taken from the 350,000 kids to fill out your survey?

Denise Pope (08:15):

(laughs)

Dan Schwartz (08:15):

That's a lot of survey hours. (laughs)

Denise Pope (08:17):

Here's what we say. Here's what we say to the students. "If you do this, we promise we will not only get the results back to your school but you will know the results as well and you will be able to use these results to make change." So, we're finding out how exhausted are you. Let me tell you, kids are exhausted. Over 90% of our sample qualifies as sleep-deprived. Our average amount of sleep is 6.8 hours a night. And the average teen needs between 8 and 10 hours a night. We've got a huge group just getting 4 or 5 hours a night. So, wellbeing is more than just sleep. There's... 80% are experiencing self-reported chronic stress, um, headaches, ulcers, difficulty falling asleep.

Dan Schwartz (09:02):

So, you ask 'em questions like, "Do you have headaches?" Is that how you- you find-

Denise Pope (09:06):

We'll- we'll say, "In the past month, how often have you experienced the following symptoms?" And we'll ask them about their top sources of stress, which, interesting is grades, tests, assessments, homework, workload. Right? It's not romantic involvement, it's not sick parent, it's not parents getting divorced. The top one as a- as a severe source of stress that kids say is always about load and grades and tests.

Dan Schwartz (09:34):

Wow.

Denise Pope (09:34):

Because this is their world.

Dan Schwartz (09:35):

Wow.

Denise Pope (09:36):

Um, and- and so that's... So, on the wellbeing side, we know that there's issues. On the engagement side, we also know there's issues. Uh, over half of them are basically not engaged. They're just going through the motions, what we call doing school. And we- we don't ask them, "Are you engaged in school?" We ask them lots of different questions that get at this concept of engagement.

Dan Schwartz (10:01):

Examples of a question?

Denise Pope (10:03):

Yeah. So, in- in the engagement world, we kind of look at engagement in three parts. And it's... Uh, I call it the ABCs of engagement. The A is affective. So, are you enjoying it? Are you interested in it? Right? The B is behavioral. Are you doing it? Are you putting in effort? And the C is cognitive engagement. Do you find it meaningful? Do you think what you're doing is helping to build your skills? Um. Do you see purpose in your learning? And so, we have questions on the A, the B, and the C.

Dan Schwartz (10:30):

So, how do you... Do you ask the question in algebra class as opposed to, like, when they- when they're in their- their, uh, project-based class?

Denise Pope (10:39):

Totally. You can- you can find out about engagement in different classes. You can find out about engagement in different parts of a class, right?

Dan Schwartz (10:47):

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Denise Pope (10:47):

"When are you most- when are you most excited about what you learn?" A lot of times they'll say, "When I'm with my friends, when the teacher's excited, when I'm interested in the topic," right? We've- we've got- we've got crazy data.

Dan Schwartz (10:58):

Sure. Sure. No.

Denise Pope (11:00):

(laughs) So, yeah. So, for engagement, I mean, what's kind of crazy is 10%, now think of that sample size, 350,000, 10% are disengaged. They're not enjoying it, interested in it. They don't think it's valuable or meaningful. And they're not doing it. That's a lot of kids. And 50%-

Dan Schwartz (11:15):

You said 10- you said 10%? 10%-

Denise Pope (11:15):

10%.

Dan Schwartz (11:18):

... are completely disengaged?

Denise Pope (11:19):

Completely disengaged.

Dan Schwartz (11:21):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (11:21):

And then, 50% are just what we call doing school. They're behaviorally engaged. They're doing the work. But they don't enjoy it. They don't like it. They're not interested in it. And they don't think it's valuable or meaningful to what they do. So we call them, like, little robo students. They're just kind of going through the motion.

Dan Schwartz (11:36):

So, I'm- I'm a parent, and I hear this, and I say, "Yeah, my school experience was like that and I turned out just fine."

Denise Pope (11:44):

Mm. Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (11:46):

Right? So, this is part of doing- part of school is you just gotta do it. You gotta memorize that poetry that you're never gonna use.

Denise Pope (11:52):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (11:52):

That's just part of the deal.

Denise Pope (11:54):

Take your medicine.

Dan Schwartz (11:55):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (11:55):

Shut up and take your medicine.

Dan Schwartz (11:57):

So, but, you know, this... I mean, this drives me nuts. I- When I suggest that we could change education, the number one response is, "I went to school just like that and I turned out fine."

Denise Pope (12:05):

Right. So, I have-

Dan Schwartz (12:06):

So...

Denise Pope (12:07):

... a couple of different ways of responding to that parent who have definitely come up to me and said this-

Dan Schwartz (12:10):

Yes, I imagine.

Denise Pope (12:12):

Okay. So, one is, would you go to your cardiologist and say, "You know what? I don't- I don't like this newfangled stuff that you're talking about. Just let's go back to leeches. Let's go back to the old days-"

Dan Schwartz (12:24):

(laughs)

Denise Pope (12:24):

"... Don't give me the new stuff." Right? No one's gonna question the newer procedures of a medicine professional. But because everyone's been to school, been through school, and think that the way they went through it is right, and- and they blame their success, or they- they give credit to their success for that, um, they feel like they can question our field. They also don't know that we are a field and we study this, and we put people in MRI machines and watch what parts of their brain light up when they're doing problems. Like, we actually are evolving (laughs) and school should not look like when you, sir, went to school. And I say that with, like, great respect to the-

Dan Schwartz (13:04):

But- but- but- but, Dr. Pope, I turned out fine.

Denise Pope (13:07):

You did-

Dan Schwartz (13:08):

Ev- even- even the leeches worked. (laughs)

Denise Pope (13:11):

Yes. The- the- the- the leeches worked. But if I told you that we could do it in a way that you also didn't have to hate it, that you didn't have to suffer, that you didn't have to be bullied, that you didn't have to feel isolated, that you actually could learn in a way that would help you remember not just the words of the poem disembodied but why you use it and why we need to study the humanities and get you excited. See, the bigger problem now is we are having a lot of issues with attendance.

Dan Schwartz (13:36):

Hmm.

Denise Pope (13:36):

We have kids who don't wanna come to school, who are dropping out of school. We have kids who are really suffering in school. So this n- not just feeling like they don't belong, which is about a third of our sample, but we have kids, particularly students of color and gender diverse students, who are actively feeling bullied. So, they don't wanna go to school. It's- it's- it's not just a neutral. It's actually a place that's hurting them.

Dan Schwartz (14:02):

Yeah, yeah. So, uh, let- let's... We've- we've done wellbeing and that- that's, uh, sleep, stress. We've done engagement. Like, are you actually minds on or are you just going through the motions or just not showing up? And then belonging? What i- What is belonging?

Denise Pope (14:20):

Yeah. So, we have lots of different questions on this. So, we have one set of questions that ask, "Is there an adult at the school, any adult, that you feel you could go to if you had a problem?" So, we're looking at student-teacher relationships, which we know is- are really key to school success. And the average that we have is about 70% of the students feel like they have an adult to go to. If you're a glass-is-half-full kind of person, you might think, "Well, that's not bad." But this is a school. We ask them any adult at the school, right? It should be 99.9%. Um, and I've had to report back to schools as low as 50-56% of the kids feel like they have an adult to go to.

Dan Schwartz (14:59):

Wow.

Denise Pope (15:00):

We ask them, "Do they have at least one buddy that they feel they can go to with a problem?" That's usually higher. That's usually in the 80 percentile. And then we also ask a lot of questions like, "People here respect me for who I am," or, "I feel like I can really be myself at this school." So, a typical belonging scale. And about 33% of them are feeling like they don't really belong, at least in some of their classes or in some of the places at school.

Dan Schwartz (15:26):

So, uh, that's painful.

Denise Pope (15:29):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (15:30):

Tough to spend all day at a place where you're sleepy, you're not really engaged, and there's no reason that you wanna be there because nobody else really cares about you.

Denise Pope (15:39):

Very depressing.

Dan Schwartz (15:40):

That's horrible. My God. What's happened to our school system, Denise? I now understand what the challenge is. Like, you- you've been doing these surveys a long time. Has there ever been a period where they're going in the right direction? Or are we just slowly rolling into a dark, dismal high school with dirty bathrooms and snotty kids around corners?

Denise Pope (16:02):

So, some of the things have been very stable.

Dan Schwartz (16:04):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (16:04):

We- we did a report for the U.S. Surgeon General, looking at- longitudinally at the data. And some of the things have been very stable, like sleep, right?

Dan Schwartz (16:13):

Mm-hmm.

Denise Pope (16:13):

They've always been sleep-deprived. They will continue to be sleep-deprived. Part of that is just the institution of school itself. It starts too early for these nocturnal adolescent brains that really have different circadian rhythms than the rest of the world. And we work on that, right? We- we-

Dan Schwartz (16:28):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (16:28):

... ask them to change start times. We ask them to change bus schedules, et cetera. So, part of that isn't surprising that that's been sort of a straight line, almost longitudinally. We do see a change after the pandemic, that engagement numbers got even lower, and they're starting to creep back up again. That gives me some hope. Yes, the pandemic was a really tough time for kids, and schools were closed. It's really hard to get someone engaged through a screen, right? We're starting to see engagement numbers tick up again, um, slightly,

Dan Schwartz (16:59):

But not through a podcast. All you out there in the audience, thank you for being engaged.

Denise Pope (17:03):

(laughs) Yes. Oh, my gosh. You- you're listening and you're-

Dan Schwartz (17:06):

(laughs)

Denise Pope (17:06):

... driving your truck and you're just loving us. (laughs)

Dan Schwartz (17:11):

Okay. Uh, belonging. So, belonging is kind of a new construct. You know, we didn't use to talk about belonging 10-15 years ago.

Denise Pope (17:18):

Right. There's more f- I mean, even folks here at �� who study it very, very in depth know it's important. We're looking at it and trying to help find ways to- to do it, even little ways. Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (17:30):

But no, the- the question is- is, uh, are people feeling more alienated than they used to be?

Denise Pope (17:35):

Um-

Dan Schwartz (17:37):

So it's less belonging.

Denise Pope (17:38):

Certain groups are.

Dan Schwartz (17:39):

Mm-hmm.

(17:39):

Marginalized groups.

Denise Pope (17:42):

Marginalized groups are. So- some traditionally marginalized groups have felt this all along. Students of color, traditionally, um, students who identify as female. We're seeing a new- a newer group or a larger group, I should say. They've always been traditionally marginalized, but gender diverse students, uh, more and more are reporting much lower scores than the rest of the kids.

Dan Schwartz (18:10):

Okay. We- we've hit rock bottom. We know the challenge. Now it's time to figure out how we can do something about it. Do you want to take all three webs at once? Or you wanna pick 'em off one at a time? Uh, are you, like, setting up therapy sessions for children? Like, how- how do you do this?

Denise Pope (18:29):

Well, there's a lot of different ways to do it, but the way that Challenge Success does it is we work with the school and the school policies and practices. So we're trying to change things at the school level, whereas other people might come in and do individual work with kids and counseling and try to get more, um, you know, money for healthcare and-

Dan Schwartz (18:50):

Right. So-

Denise Pope (18:50):

... all that kind of stuff.

Dan Schwartz (18:51):

So, a later start time would be a school-level action.

Denise Pope (18:55):

Exactly. A later start time.

Dan Schwartz (18:57):

Engagement. Like, how do you do that at the school level? You- you throw a candy in the middle of class, like-

Denise Pope (19:02):

Yeah, no, we- we- we try not to just bribe students to learn. Uh-

Dan Schwartz (19:06):

Okay. (laughs) I like it. Bribing to learn. I mean... (laughs) Somebody needs to write a chapter on that.

Denise Pope (19:11):

Yeah, I know, bribing. You might like that, Dan. No. Um, we... And so what we know from research is there's lots of ways to engage kids in classes. And how you do it is interactive learning, small group work, some of the stuff that you've studied, Dan, right? Gamification, bringing in, uh, outside technology that's exciting and also helping them think, right? Not just standing up in front of the class, giving a lecture or saying, "Open the textbook, turn to page three and then answer these questions."

Dan Schwartz (19:43):

So, trying to make, uh, the educational experience more interactive. Is that kind of the-

Denise Pope (19:48):

More- more interactive, giving students... We have a little mantra called voice, choice, revision, and redemption. Voice means they want it to be about what interests them, right? So personalize it, bring it, and help them understand why they need to learn this in the first place and how it relates to their lives immediately and also in the future, right? Choice is giving little baby choices here and there, like a couple math problems from this section, a couple math problems from this section, instead of slogging through all 60. That would be a little example. Revision is... How many of us just take a test and then get the grade and then you move on to the next unit? Like, the- there's not learning happening there. We've had shows on this about assessment. So, revision is giving them the opportunity to reflect on what they've learned, revise the test, the paper, the project, whatever, with feedback and scaffolding. That's more how people work in the real world.

Dan Schwartz (20:40):

What, I get peer review and they want me to revise. It's, like, the least engaging thing on earth.

Denise Pope (20:44):

No-

Dan Schwartz (20:44):

Or is it...

Denise Pope (20:45):

... well, but- yes, but do you... We want you to learn, right? So, your peer review is probably not engaging, but giving a kid a second chance on a test or a quiz or on a paper is huge-

Dan Schwartz (20:55):

Oh, I see. I see.

Denise Pope (20:56):

... is huge for that kid. It reduces stress, right? It-

Dan Schwartz (21:00):

I see. Yeah, yeah.

Denise Pope (21:00):

... gets you more, like, "Oh, okay, I get it." And then here's the redemption part that you'll like. In the world of school, you might never turn in your homework, but you've got good grades on your tests and quizzes. Doesn't matter. You have all those zeros on your transcript, it's gonna add in and you're not be able to redeem yourself. You're not gonna be able to get to that grade or that thing that you want, right? So, we want voice, choice, revision, and redemption. We want kids to be able to redeem themselves. Maybe you eliminate zeros. Maybe you don't grade homework. If the kid- especially if the kid's doing well on the test. Maybe you rethink your policies around assessment. So, we work, uh, in certain categories around schedule, pedagogy, assessment, SPA, climate of care, C, and then the E is educating parents. So, that spells out SPACE.

Dan Schwartz (21:50):

So, how about, uh, how about belonging? Like, uh, how do you make people be nicer?

Denise Pope (21:57):

It's not so much being nicer. (laughs)

Dan Schwartz (21:58):

Well, to- to make a context where I- I can belong, the people around me have to be kind of nice, don't they?

Denise Pope (22:05):

Well, they have to accept you for who you are.

Dan Schwartz (22:07):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (22:08):

And- and you have to feel it. You have to... You can't just say, "Poof, someone's gonna be nice to me." You have to feel like you belong. You have to feel that you're a valued member of the community. And it's actually easier- easier to do than you would think. We just have to help teachers remember why they're teaching in the first place, right? It's about the kids. It's about the relationships. So, in a busy world where you've got, like, you know, eight classes of kids coming in every day, can you get to know the kids more as individuals? Can you set up advisory periods where there's one adult and a handful of kids and you get to know each other and you move through all four years with them, let's say? Can you, um, greet them at the door? Can you show-

Dan Schwartz (22:48):

Yeah, I know- I know this one. So, there- there was-

Denise Pope (22:50):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (22:51):

Yeah. I was a substitute for a while in Los Angeles. And, you know, you get a phone call at 5:00 AM that you have to go, like, two hours away. And I learned, stand at the door and greet each kid and look in their eyes.

Denise Pope (23:02):

Right.

Dan Schwartz (23:03):

You know, and then you'll... You can talk to 'em later. Otherwise-

Denise Pope (23:06):

Sh- Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (23:06):

... they- they're sort of alienated and...

Denise Pope (23:09):

Show that you care. Even things like moving the test on a day that when they're not ready to take it... Like, the students really appreciate you dialing in and understanding what they're going through. So, we have teachers shadow students from bus stop all the way through all the classes, and real- and then, you know, go home and attempt to do the homework. We have all sorts of exercises that we ask people to do. We have an I-wish campaign. "I wish my teachers knew."

Dan Schwartz (23:35):

Denise.

Denise Pope (23:36):

We got lots of ways to build belonging.

Dan Schwartz (23:37):

So, your solutions are interesting. They're not like, "Blow up the system," right? So, a lot of people who wanna fix schools say, "We need to build school a brand new way." Yours is more, uh, "These schools are here. They're giant enterprises, you know, these urban districts. Billions and billions of dollars. Uh, we can go in and do, you know, things that are executable within the system that you've got." I mean, some are tough, like changing the bus schedule a bit, but...

Denise Pope (24:04):

Well, some things that I think are easy or not, and some things that I think are tough are easy-

Dan Schwartz (24:08):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (24:08):

It depends on the school. But I would say it doesn't make sense to blow up a system when we are the second-biggest (laughs) system next to healthcare in the United States.

Dan Schwartz (24:18):

Right.

Denise Pope (24:18):

Right? Like-

Dan Schwartz (24:18):

Right.

Denise Pope (24:19):

... I would love to blow up some things. And I have some examples of schools that have been blown up and are doing great. But it's just not realistic on a scale level.

Dan Schwartz (24:28):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (24:29):

Whereas these changes, hopefully, are.

Dan Schwartz (24:34):

You know, I- I see that- that you could- a lot of them you could implement. They- it's- it's- they're just not- not huge. I think that testing thing may be tough, but... So- so, I'm a parent and, uh, my kid's not sleeping enough. I'm worried he's not- he's sort of just doing school and, I don't know, he sort of belongs. But then sometimes... And so, what do I do? Do I call up this- the school principal and say, you know, "WEB. Implement WEB"?

Denise Pope (25:01):

(laughs)

Dan Schwartz (25:01):

Like, what- what do I do?

Denise Pope (25:02):

I don't think that's gonna get you that far. The person might think you're kind of a loony tune if you just call up and say WEB.

Dan Schwartz (25:07):

(laughs) [inaudible 00:25:08].

Denise Pope (25:07):

Um. There's lots of things you can do at home. Um, right? So much of what we think is out of our control because our kids are in school for so many hours a day. If you really look at the whole schedule, you do have a lot of control over what happens to your child from, you know, 3:00 PM to 7:00 AM, right? So, sleep is a huge thing. How you talk about school is a huge thing, right? Are you only worried about grades? Are you only messaging that you're worried about grades? Are you only talking about college? Are you... Are you obsessed with, um, the status of other people's kids getting, you know, awards and accolades? And the way you talk about learning with your kid, it actually is really important. So, just a quick another mantra. I'm, like, big on mantras today. It's not what you earn, it's what you learn. So, as a parent-

Dan Schwartz (26:01):

(laughs) Nice.

Denise Pope (26:02):

... you kind of say, "Okay." Right? Like-

Dan Schwartz (26:04):

Nice. And-

Denise Pope (26:05):

... "Hey mom, you know, I got a B-." The parent can, like, go crazy. Or you can say, "Hey, let's look at this. What'd you learn from this?"

Dan Schwartz (26:11):

So, Denise, could- could you make some bumper stickers?

Denise Pope (26:14):

(laughs).

Dan Schwartz (26:14):

Like, I could- I- I- I'd like- No, I ha- I- I have meetings with faculty and they talk about, uh, what success out of college looks like.

Denise Pope (26:23):

Mm.

Dan Schwartz (26:23):

And and they often talk about money. And I'm just sort of like, "Well, you know, I was a philosophy major. I'm deeper than you are. That's my- that's my success out of it." So-

Denise Pope (26:31):

I mean, but you could be joking, but, like, what they're saying now, there... We know that the correlation between happiness and earnings, there's a plateau after your basic needs are fulfilled, right?

Dan Schwartz (26:43):

Yeah. Yeah. No, there's quiet... Everybody has quiet desperation. But, uh, no, that- that's interesting. It- it is... How about me sort of s- trying to get the school to do something?

Denise Pope (26:56):

Well, we would love that.

Dan Schwartz (26:57):

Does that work? Or...

Denise Pope (26:58):

What we say to parents is, "If you're noticing a lot of stress at home, if you're noticing homework overload, and it's a battle, if you're noticing that your kid really doesn't wanna go to school, you actually- we do want you to reach out to someone at the school, whether that's a teacher, whether that's a counselor, probably not the principal as a first move." But the school has no way of knowing what your at-home life looks a- like, right?

Dan Schwartz (27:23):

Right.

Denise Pope (27:23):

So they... If they need to know and you need to bring them into the equation, and then together you can find a solution.

Dan Schwartz (27:30):

Oh, I like that. I like that. Yeah. Just, uh, give them a heads-up.

Denise Pope (27:33):

Mm-hmm.

Dan Schwartz (27:34):

Okay. Well, thank you, Denise, for sitting in the hot seat today. I hope you liked the turnaround.

Denise Pope (27:39):

Oh, my gosh. I did. I did. But, Dan, can I put you a little bit in the hot seat? Usually, I say, "Dan, as always, what are some takeaways?" So, now I think it's only fair, Dan, as always, what are some takeaways that you heard from me?

Dan Schwartz (27:57):

Oh, that Denise Pope rocks.

Denise Pope (28:01):

(laughs)

Dan Schwartz (28:01):

This is... This i-

Denise Pope (28:01):

Oh, I like that takeaway.

Dan Schwartz (28:02):

Yeah, yeah. Uh, you know, uh, everybody wants what you're describing, you know, kids with wellbeing, kids that are engaged, kids who feel like they belong. And, uh, I- I think you- you sort of let the significance of that fade into the background as you're trying to solve all these other things, like getting the kid outta school on time, or there's this one problem they didn't get. So, kind of bring it to the forefront and reminding people this- these are just, like, things that you want for your child or that your child wants, or as a teacher, this is what you want. Uh, I think that's a big deal. And then sort of saying, "And you know what, it's- it's not that hard to get a lot of these things." I like the WEB. I like the three things. Everybody wants 'em, you know, but we forget about it 'cause so much else is going on. How about you, Denise? What are your takeaways, as Dan-

Denise Pope (28:54):

Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (28:54):

... as a podcasting host?

Denise Pope (28:56):

You did a great job, first of all-

Dan Schwartz (28:57):

Thank you, Denise.

Denise Pope (28:57):

I really... No, I me- I mean it. And great job on the takeaways because that really... I mean, we- we're trying to get people to kind of step- step back and, like, look at the big picture. In the grand scheme, you're not gonna remember your kid's grade of C+ in the math class, and it's not gonna affect their life-

Dan Schwartz (29:15):

Uh-huh, yes.

Denise Pope (29:16):

So, oh, do you-

Dan Schwartz (29:17):

I-

Denise Pope (29:17):

... do you think you... Do you remember... You probably remember your worst grades. But foundationally, in the big picture, in the grand scheme-

Dan Schwartz (29:25):

I know.

Denise Pope (29:25):

... you want someone to be healthy. You want someone to feel like they belong to a community. And you want them to be kind of excited about the- what they do every day.

Dan Schwartz (29:31):

Right. And then it doesn't displace learning. It helps it. It's- it's- you're not-

Denise Pope (29:35):

Uh, 100%.

Dan Schwartz (29:36):

... you're not- you're not, like, spoiling the kid by not having them learn.

Denise Pope (29:39):

No. In fact, these three things, wellbeing, engagement, and belonging, they correlate with academic mastery. That's the dirty little secret.

Dan Schwartz (29:49):

Well, so, Denise, thank you. And thank all of you for joining this episode of School's In. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in. I'm Dan Schwartz.

Denise Pope (30:03):

And I'm Denise Pope.

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�� research shows ongoing costs faced by parents after California’s Eaton Fire

Carrie Spector — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 17:06:12 +0000

�� research shows ongoing costs faced by parents after California’s Eaton Fire

Carrie Spector Wed, 06/11/2025 - 10:06

In a new report, Associate Professor Antero Garcia examines challenges around caregiving for families working to recover from a disaster. (Photo: iStock)

Parenting | Social and Emotional Learning

Associate Professor Antero Garcia interviewed mothers in Pasadena and Altadena about the disaster’s lasting impact on caregiving and decision-making.

June 24, 2025

By Carrie Spector

In January, more than 100,000 California residents were forced to evacuate their homes due to the Eaton Fire, which would become the second most destructive wildfire in California history. Thousands of structures in the Pasadena and Altadena area burned to the ground — and months later, even residents whose homes survived are still displaced, wrangling with insurers and weighing the health risks of the damage their neighborhoods sustained.

Antero Garcia, an associate professor at �� Graduate School of Education whose research frequently centers the voices of people from historically marginalized communities, set out to investigate the Eaton Fire’s toll on parents who were directly affected, particularly mothers from a variety of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Through in-depth interviews with mothers of school-age children living in or near Pasadena and Altadena, he explored the ways in which they’ve managed complex decision-making around the fire and its aftermath, as they’ve balanced concerns for their children’s well-being with the ongoing disruption to their lives.

In a new report, Garcia identifies some common themes that emerged, from decision fatigue and survivor’s guilt to a groundswell of community support. The report also provides recommendations for policymakers and strategies for families navigating disaster recovery.

We spoke with Garcia about his motivation for this research, what he learned, and the role caregiving plays in recovery long after a disaster happens.

Associate Professor Antero Garcia (Photo: Caitlin Fisher)

What drew you to embark on this project?

I was noticing on social media the ways that parents, particularly mothers, were discussing air quality and safety issues in the area during and after the fire, and seeing how they were engaging in highly scientific conversations around peer-reviewed journal articles and emerging data. They were basically doing the work of climate scientists, having to make decisions about whether it’s safe for their kids to return to their house, play in the park, or go to school.

That led me to think through the kinds of caregiving challenges and other burdens that parents were experiencing. In addition to dealing with their own displacement and grief and trauma, they were now also thinking about air quality, safety, and risk. They’re also dealing with insurance concerns and their kids’ social and emotional well-being – added layers that were largely invisible and haven't been addressed by the media as closely as other issues like rebuilding and remediation.

Why did you choose to focus on mothers?

Partly it was the nature of who I found in these forums discussing this. But I think we know that the majority of the burden of caregiving and parenting in America right now is usually shouldered by women. I wanted to focus on who's carrying the most of this invisible labor right now.

You found that, even months after the fire, families are dealing with many of what you describe as invisible costs. What are some examples?

For one thing, even though most of the mothers I interviewed did not completely lose their homes, they were still burdened by damage that has not been covered by insurance or FEMA. Several ended up paying out-of-pocket to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars for remediation to their homes — things like debris removal, insulation, air restoration, and soil testing. Others who are working through their insurance companies are still living in rental units and have not been reimbursed.

On top of the financial costs, the moms consistently talked about the emotional stress of moving to temporary housing, and the need to support and console their children. So many of the mothers I spoke with noticed ways in which their kids were acting differently after the fire. One mentioned that any time she lights a candle, her daughter gets anxious about it. Another talked about how her kid is regularly pretending and thinking about evacuation, hyperfixating on it.

Survivor’s guilt was another common experience, even though every family was severely affected with ongoing disruptions to their lives and routines. There was also a lot of decision fatigue, with mothers feeling overwhelmed weighing the potential health risks of their homes and schools and parks against the emotional needs for stability and a sense of regularity.

You also saw generational differences in people’s decision-making. How so?

A number of women talked about how older family members, even on the night of the fire, acted like they were blowing it out of proportion. One woman told me that her mother, who had worked as a housecleaner in the past, said, “I'll just go to your house and do a little bit of cleaning. I'm sure it's fine. It's probably just a little dusty.” And even when she realized that the task of cleaning up the ash inside the house was not something she could manage, she still was surprised that her daughter and her family weren’t going back to live in the house yet.

I saw an ongoing tension with many families whose neighbors might be older and never evacuated or might've only evacuated for one night, how they were really surprised by the severity with which these younger families are taking precautions right now. It's not necessarily along class divides — these are family members in very similar socioeconomic contexts, but with generational differences between what counts as a risk and what’s acceptable.

One bright spot you found was how families and neighbors supported each other in caregiving through this ordeal. What did that look like?

There were immediate networks of care and communication that emerged — everything from parents opening their homes for displaced families to kids giving away their toys to their classmates and friends who’d lost everything. One mom talked about how she’s added extra time every day for school drop-off in the morning because she knows there’s going to be a more holistic check-in with other families. Things that seem like minor social niceties have an increased weight on them because of this shared traumatic experience. A number of community-driven responses that were more scattershot at first are now cohering around particular structures, like listening sessions and town halls.

You write that “we need disaster responses that treat caregiving as central infrastructure.” What do you mean by that?

When we talk about disaster response for something like a fire or an earthquake or a hurricane, we tend to think only about emergency aid, like the Red Cross or FEMA. But we also need to think about the prolonged commitment of caregiving.

These mothers were naming so much of the extra work that needs to be considered in our understanding of disaster recovery. Caregiving is a part of recovery and relief that's going to last long after the event, and it falls heavily on parents and teachers and the broader social structure looking out for young people. That labor is the foundation on which recovery is built.

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Antero Garcia

�� scholar explores the impact of racial stress on Black youth

Carrie Spector — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 22:19:43 +0000

�� scholar explores the impact of racial stress on Black youth

Carrie Spector Thu, 02/23/2023 - 14:19

Strategies to help Black youth understand and respond to racism can reduce the impact of racial stress and trauma, says �� education scholar Farzana Saleem. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Diversity and Identity | Social and Emotional Learning

Assistant Professor Farzana Saleem discusses her work to help young people of color manage racial stressors and heal from trauma.

February 24, 2023

By Carrie Spector

For many Black youth, contemporary life in the United States involves a regular barrage of racial stressors – from hearing racist comments and slurs to witnessing horrific video footage of police violence against Black men and women, often compounded by seeing those responsible subsequently held unaccountable.

What toll do these experiences take on young people’s mental health? And how can the adults in their lives, especially parents and teachers, address both the impact and the persistence of this type of trauma?

Farzana Saleem is an assistant professor at �� Graduate School of Education whose research lies at the intersection of race, culture, and mental health. A clinical-community psychologist by training, she explores the influence of racial stressors on psychological health and well-being, as well as family and community factors that can disrupt the consequences of racial stress and trauma. She teaches courses on African American child and adolescent mental health and has published extensively on ethnic-racial socialization, the process by which children come to understand race and manage experiences of discrimination.

This month Saleem launched an 11-week intervention in four Bay Area schools, designed to help middle and high school students address and heal from racial stress and trauma. She is also the co-author of Healing Racial Stress Workbook for Black Teens: Skills to Help You Manage Emotions, Resist Racism, and Feel Empowered, scheduled for publication this summer, which includes activities to support youth in processing stressors and making sense of the emotions that arise.

Here, Saleem discusses the impact of racial stress on Black youth, different types of messages that can influence how young people understand and respond to racism, and other strategies for families and communities to help address racial trauma.

Farzana Saleem

What kind of experiences typically characterize racial stressors?

People often think about interpersonal encounters, like being called a racial slur, but stressors can be direct or vicarious. You might overhear someone else being called a racial slur. You might see yourself in a group of folks that are repeatedly being targeted because of racial biases or stereotypes. You might be witnessing the killing of people who look like or share an identity with you. A racial stressor can be a single incident, or it could be the accumulation of multiple incidents over time. It can also be systemic, such as witnessing a lack of justice at the systemic level. All of these experiences can trigger stress and symptoms similar to what we might see in post-traumatic stress disorder.

What are some of the signs that a young person is experiencing racial trauma?

There are several different clusters of symptoms that people tend to identify. One common one is avoidance – avoiding an area where you saw or experienced that trauma, or if it was something that you witnessed online, avoiding social media. Another would be intrusive thoughts, remembering and replaying what happened over and over again in your mind. Hypervigiliance is another. Or there could be a numbness, a desensitization to these experiences that is actually a response we see to ongoing exposure to traumatic and stressful events.

In young people especially, trauma symptoms can be mislabeled or misunderstood. They can look like behavioral or attention problems, if kids are triggered and have an outburst in the classroom. While it can manifest in the classroom and be disruptive, it’s sometimes hard for schools to unpack, especially with a shortage of mental health professionals in schools.

How prevalent are these types of stressors among young people?

There’s a study I often cite, involving African American teenagers, that assessed their experiences with race-related stressors over a ten-day period. That could be hearing racist jokes or comments, being mistaken for someone else of their race, being treated like a criminal, and so on.

The teenagers reported, on average, five experiences with racial discrimination per day – directly or vicariously, in person or online. Evidence like that really highlights the importance of talking about this with young people and equipping them with skills to resist this type of stressor.

Your work has explored the role of ethnic-racial socialization, or messages about race and ethnicity and racism, in helping young people of color process and manage these stressors. What sort of messages are common and can be helpful?

Parents and families are often the first to initiate these conversations, which typically fit into several different categories. For parents of color, one category involves messages around pride: learning about your history and building a sense of pride in your race. That’s generally known to be a protective factor, to mitigate the negative consequences of racial discrimination on youth.

Another category involves preparation for bias. Those messages tend to come with strategies that youth can use to respond to race-related stressors when they happen. For example: When a police officer pulls you over, make sure your hands are visible on the wheel. Or if you feel that you’re being treated unfairly by a teacher, document it and bring it home to me so we can discuss it and decide how to respond. These are also shown to be helpful in helping kids develop skills on responding to racial stressors.

Color-evasive messages are another category, or what some call color-blind messages, telling kids that race doesn’t matter. Parents may also avoid racial topics altogether. These messages tend not to be associated with positive adjustment outcomes for youth. We’ve found that it’s most helpful for youth of color to acknowledge differences and build skills around how to respond when racial stressors happen.

Of course we need systemic-level changes as well, to change discriminatory practices and policies. But as a clinical-community psychologist, I know that we also need to think about how to help individuals in the moment if they’re experiencing something stressful or traumatic. Because the reality is that for youth of color, particularly Black youth, these kinds of stressful and traumatic experiences are going to happen.

You’ve just launched a program in Bay Area schools to support young people in healing from racial stress and trauma. What does the program involve?

It’s a group intervention for middle and high school students, called TRANSFORM, which I co-developed with psychologists Won-Fong Lau Johnson, Isaiah Pickens, and Audra Langley. There was a clear need for holistic and culturally responsive interventions to address and heal racial stress and trauma. Youth and adults who participated in a spring 2022 pilot study of TRANSFORM in Washington State echoed the same pressing need.

We created TRANSFORM as an entire curriculum to address trauma and race-related stress for youth using evidence-based strategies from a decolonized framework. The program is designed to help youth build resistance to racism, strategies on how to respond and manage stress, and a healthy sense of self.

Notably, the program can be implemented by non-clinicians as well as licensed mental health professionals. Since the availability of clinicians is often limited in school settings, we’re able to train people who are embedded in the school system to facilitate the groups. In the process, these staff are learning to understand issues around racial stress and trauma, so they can also be more prepared to intervene in that setting when something happens – and to modify their own behavior to reduce harm. Our hope is to roll the program out nationally, to provide more accessible support in child-serving settings.

The Bay Area TRANSFORM pilot study is supported by a grant from the ��-Sequoia K-12 Research Collaborative.

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Farzana Tabitha Adjah

Online therapy for autism

Carrie Spector — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 18:26:11 +0000

Online therapy for autism

Carrie Spector Wed, 08/03/2022 - 11:26

Image: hydra viridis / Shutterstock

K-12 | Learning Differences | Social and Emotional Learning

Grace Gengoux, director of the Autism Intervention Clinic at ��, shares an effective approach to therapy for children with autism.

August 3, 2022

The right motivation can increase the likelihood of completing a difficult task – something that’s even more important for children with autism, says �� psychologist Grace Gengoux. But it’s not always easy to tap into something that motivates an autistic child who struggles with social interaction to communicate and engage with others.

Gengoux, a clinical professor and director of the Autism Intervention Clinic at ��, works with pivotal response therapy (PRT), a type of treatment that follows the child’s lead in finding the motivation to communicate and interact. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced her and her team to take their program online, they found unexpected benefits in this new way of delivering treatment.

On this episode of School’s In, Gengoux joins �� Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope to talk about what characterizes a person with autism, evidence-based practices to motivate this population of children to interact socially, and the advantages her team discovered when they brought their program online.

Before the pandemic, the Autism Intervention Clinic provided two types of direct service: a classroom-based program for young kids, with a therapist administering direct treatment; and parent training sessions at the clinic, to help parents learn how to deliver PRT on their own at home.

When COVID-19 hit, Gengoux was surprised by some of the benefits of moving the program online – including access to a practically unlimited library of digital props to align with a child’s particular interests, as well as the ability to create a virtual environment online, a more appealing space for the child to learn complex social communication skills.

“These are the core skills that children with autism need to practice – but using their interests, which are at our fingertips when we’re online.”

You can listen to School's In on SiriusXM, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Soundcloud.

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An optimistic look at Generation Z

Carrie Spector — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 18:15:00 +0000

An optimistic look at Generation Z

Carrie Spector Wed, 04/06/2022 - 11:15

j.ennifer / Shutterstock

Parenting | Social and Emotional Learning | Technology

�� cultural anthropologist Roberta Katz shares some good news about the generation that grew up alongside the internet.

April 8, 2022

Gen Z, generally defined as the generation born between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s, is the first generation to grow up with all of the power of the internet at its fingertips. It's a generation that has been raised, to no small degree, by the internet itself.

There’s a lot of bad-mouthing of young people who seem to have their eyes glued to their phones. But in interviews for her new book, Generation Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age, �� cultural anthropologist Roberta Katz found that these are people who want to make a positive difference in the world. The internet has given them a front-row seat to so many problems around the globe — and, Katz said, “they want to be part of the solution.”

On this episode of School’s In, Katz, a senior research scholar at the �� Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and vice-chair of its board, joins Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope to discuss how the internet has shaped the cultural norms and values of those born after 1995.

For her book, Katz and her co-authors conducted 120 interviews, backed up with survey data from some 1,000 Gen Z-ers in the United States and another 1,000 in Britain. “Their life has been one of constant change,” Katz said. Without the relevant expertise of their teachers, parents or other adults, “they’ve had to figure out new ways of growing up. And they are learning about how to contend with this unprecedented amount of information.”

When Katz asked the survey respondents for their favorite mode of communication, she expected to hear texting or email — but almost everyone said face to face. “These young people who have grown up in the midst of all of this digital technology are adamant about preserving our humanity, our messy, emotive humanity,” said Katz.

With fundamental technological change comes fundamental social change, Katz said. Gen Z is very aware of the risks to humanity today — “climate change, gun violence, you name it,” she said. “And they care about each other. It’s all about keeping us from being machines.”

You can listen to School's In on SiriusXM, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Soundcloud.

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How to calm a stressed kid? A one-minute video can help, according to �� researchers

Carrie Spector — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 02:21:55 +0000

How to calm a stressed kid? A one-minute video can help, according to �� researchers

Carrie Spector Fri, 11/26/2021 - 18:21

Mindfulness practices have found their way into the classroom at many schools, but a new �� study is the first to show that a few slow-paced breaths can significantly alter a young child’s physiological stress response in everyday settings. (Photo: GOLFX / Shutterstock)

Early Childhood | Parenting | Social and Emotional Learning

A �� study shows that taking a few slow, deep breaths significantly reduces children’s physiological arousal in everyday settings.

November 29, 2021

By Carrie Spector

It’s one of the first things parents and teachers tell a child who gets upset: “Take a deep breath.” But research into the effect of deep breathing on the body’s stress response has overwhelmingly ignored young children – and studies done with adults typically take place in a university lab, making them even less applicable to children’s actual lives.

A new study by �� researchers is the first to show that taking just a few slow, deep breaths significantly reduces young children’s physiological arousal. By measuring the effects in naturalistic settings such as day camps and playgrounds, the study is also groundbreaking for its design, which more closely reflects a child’s experience than a study in a lab would.

What’s more, the short, animated video developed for the study is now freely available online, providing a proven tool that can be used in the classroom to introduce children to deep breathing as a way to self-regulate. It can also help parents prepare kids for a potentially stressful situation – a vaccine appointment, say, or a holiday gathering.

“This study is the first to show that taking a few slow, deep breaths in an everyday setting can have a significant effect on a child’s stress physiology,” said the study's lead author, Jelena Obradović, an associate professor at �� Graduate School of Education (GSE) and director of the �� Project on Adaptation and Resilience in Kids (SPARK Lab). “But just telling children to take a deep breath may not be enough – children need scaffolding. So we’re excited that we can also offer an easy-to-use tool to help kids learn this technique.”

The study, which was coauthored by GSE research associate Michael J. Sulik and doctoral student Emma Armstrong-Carter, was published on Nov. 16 in the journal Developmental Psychobiology.

“Just telling children to take a deep breath may not be enough – children need scaffolding. So we’re excited that we can also offer an easy-to-use tool to help kids learn this technique.”

Jelena Obradović

Associate Professor, �� Graduate School of Education

Designing a realistic field experiment

Mindfulness practices that incorporate deep breathing, such as yoga and meditation, have found their way into the classroom at many schools. But prior to this study, research had not clearly shown whether slow-paced breathing itself could significantly alter a young child’s physiological stress response, the researchers said.

They set out to isolate the activity of breathing and investigate its impact – taking practical considerations into account, including the likelihood that young children might not have the capacity for even a couple of minutes of deep breathing, and that they would need help learning how to do it.

“When you ask young children to take a deep breath, many don’t really know how to slowly pace their inhale and exhale, if they haven’t had any training,” Obradović said. “It’s not intuitive for young kids. They are more successful in taking several deep breaths if they have a visual guide.”

To help elementary schoolers learn the technique, the researchers worked with a team of artists at RogueMark Studios, based in Berkeley, Calif., to produce a one-minute video. The animated video shows young children how to slowly inhale by pretending to smell a flower and to exhale by pretending to blow out a candle.

“From a pragmatic point of view,” Obradović said, “we thought a very short sequence, four breaths, seemed doable for this age group.”

For their randomized field experiment, the �� researchers recruited 342 young children – 7 years old, on average – with their parents’ permission, at a children’s museum, a public playground and three full-day summer camps in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Roughly half of the children were assigned to a group to watch the animated video with the deep breathing guidance. The rest watched an informational video that featured similar animated images but did not involve the breathing exercise.

All of the children were shown their assigned video in small groups, at tables set up adjacent to the site from where they were recruited, to maintain a natural setting for the study. Also in keeping with the real-life approach to the study design, the researchers did not monitor children or provide extra encouragement to implement the deep breathing instruction.

This “intention-to-treat” approach – analyzing all subjects, whether or not they engaged with the intervention – is widely considered to provide more insight into the potential effectiveness of the intervention once it is applied in everyday group settings, like classrooms, where not everyone is likely to take part, Obradović said.

Measuring the body’s response to everyday challenges

Researchers measured two biomarkers in all of their recruits: heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which refers to the changing pace of the heartbeat when a person inhales and exhales.

RSA plays an important role in influencing heart rate, Obradović said, and it has been linked to children’s ability to regulate their emotions, focus their attention and engage in tasks.

“When it comes to measuring the effects of deep breathing on stress physiology, RSA seems to be the most appropriate biomarker,” said Obradović. “RSA is the only pure measure of the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, the system we’ve evolved to help us deal with everyday challenges – the kinds of challenges that don’t require a flight-or-flight response.”

The change in the measures was profound: RSA increased and heart rate decreased only in response to the deep-breathing video, and the effects were greater during the second half of the video, which included most of the deep breathing practice. The children in the control group showed no change in either measure.

“Our findings showed that guiding a group of children through one minute of a slow-paced breathing exercise in an everyday setting can, in the moment, significantly lower the average level of physiological arousal,” Obradović said.

Further research should examine the effect of deep breathing in this age group after a stressful or challenging experience, she said. “But the fact that children of this age can downregulate their stress physiology even when they’re relatively calm offers promise that the technique will be even more effective when they’re frustrated or upset.”

Access the full version of the video, with an introduction to deep breathing, or a shorter video with the deep breathing practice only.

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Jelena Obradović

Looking back to find meaning

Carrie Spector — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 14:22:53 +0000

Looking back to find meaning

Carrie Spector Mon, 09/27/2021 - 07:22

Image: Shutterstock

Child Development | Social and Emotional Learning

�� Professor William Damon talks about the value of reviewing your past in order to move forward with purpose.

September 27, 2021

No matter where you are in your life’s journey, reflection can help you grow. That’s why �� Graduate School of Education (GSE) Professor William Damon recommends undertaking a “life review” — as he did.

“The past matters,” said Damon. “The way you think about your history of successes and failures in life makes a big difference to how you think about your future.”

On this episode of School’s In, Damon joined GSE Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope to talk about the value and process of reflecting on your life to move forward with a sense of meaning and purpose.

A startling discovery spurred Damon’s own life review. For most of his adulthood, he rejected all opportunities to find his father, who had abandoned the family when Damon was young. That changed when Damon was in his 60s, when his daughter found their half-family. He embarked on a five-year research project to get to know his late, lost father.

That experience culminated in his new book, A Round of Golf with My Father, which uses his own journey to teach the life review method of self-analysis: “thinking about your past in a systematic, intentional way that can give you a hopeful and purposeful future,” he said.

Along with self-analysis, Damon recommends talking to people from your past and getting hold of school records.

“Even as you get older, you have a future,” Damon said. “And it’s very important to think about your past in the right way because it does affect how you think about who you are and what you want to do.”

You can listen to School's In on SiriusXM, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Soundcloud.

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Faculty mentioned in this article: William Damon

The psychology of belonging

Carrie Spector — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 18:53:05 +0000

The psychology of belonging

Carrie Spector Wed, 09/08/2021 - 11:53

Image: Hobbit / Shutterstock

Diversity and Identity | Social and Emotional Learning

�� psychologist Geoffrey Cohen shares what teachers can do to help students feel a sense of belonging – and how that feeling propels learning.

September 8, 2021

The idea of belonging – “the sense that you’re accepted and respected in a domain,” says �� Professor Geoffrey Cohen – may prompt memories of hurtful teenage rejection. But belonging can make a lifelong difference, especially for people in historically marginalized groups.

On this episode of School’s In, Cohen, a professor of education and psychology at ��, joined �� Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope to talk about the importance of belonging and its effect on learning.

“If you feel like your belonging’s on trial, and you’re wondering if this is a place where you’re regarded favorably … it takes up working memory,” said Cohen, which is “mental energy taken away from learning, focusing, performing, growing.”

To help, Cohen’s team develops techniques to change environments, to “craft situations that foster belonging for as many people from as many walks of life as possible,” he said. In one study, he had African American college freshmen participate in an intervention indicating that most freshmen at their school worried about fitting in but eventually felt at home. Those students earned better grades and reported better health than a control group.

He’s also had seventh-grade teachers ask students to write about their most important values. That, he said, made the students feel like their teacher cared about them and wanted to get to know them better.

Cohen is the author of the book Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides (W.W. Norton, 2022).

You can listen to School's In on SiriusXM, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Soundcloud.

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Geoffrey Cohen

Everybody chill now

Carrie Spector — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 18:10:20 +0000

Everybody chill now

Carrie Spector Fri, 08/06/2021 - 11:10

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Parenting | Social and Emotional Learning

�� mindfulness expert Emma Seppälä explains how young people and adults alike can benefit from learning restorative practices like meditation.

August 6, 2021

Maybe your family is a little stressed right now? Don’t beat yourself up.

“Nobody really knows how to regulate their emotions,” said Emma Seppälä, science director at ��’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. “We learn critical thinking, we learn coding, we learn all sorts of things, but who’s ever taught us how to regulate our emotions, even as children?”

Instead we “suck it up,” which hurts our bodies and damages our relationships. Even exercising when you’re highly stressed can strain your heart. But we can always learn better ways.

On this episode of School’s In, Seppälä, author of The Happiness Track, shared some mindfulness and emotional relaxation strategies with �� Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope.

Mental health problems are up due to the loneliness and lack of social connections brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, said Seppälä, “we complain about stress but we also worship at the temple of stress … because we believe that’s how we get stuff done.”

In reality, calmer people are more creative and productive, Seppälä said. She walked the hosts through an abbreviated version of a research-tested breath exercise, which trains the calming response that counters fight-or-flight.

Such strategies should be taught in school, Seppälä said. If you don’t meditate, “you could be walking past sort of a gold mine in bringing out the best in yourself as well as really strengthening your well-being.”

You can listen to School's In on SiriusXM, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Soundcloud.

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Student stress during the pandemic

Carrie Spector — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 23:35:10 +0000

Student stress during the pandemic

Carrie Spector Fri, 03/26/2021 - 16:35

Image: mmstudiodesign / Shutterstock

K-12 | Parenting | Social and Emotional Learning

Denise Pope talks about COVID-19’s impact on students’ mental health and engagement with school.

March 22, 2021

High school students are experiencing rising stress levels and lower engagement with learning since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study by NBC News and Challenge Success, a nonprofit affiliated with �� Graduate School of Education (GSE).

Kids feel that “they are more stressed than they were before the pandemic, they have more work, they are less engaged in school, and their relationships with teachers and [other] kids are strained,” says Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at �� GSE and co-founder of Challenge Success.

On this episode of School’s In, Pope talks with show co-host and GSE Dean Dan Schwartz about the study – one of the largest national research projects to shed light on the pandemic’s impact on student connection, engagement and mental health. She also shares what parents and educators might take from its findings in the days and years ahead.

In addition to grades, workload and time management, the study found that one of the top sources of stress for students was lack of sleep. This surprised Pope, who thought remote learning would give students more flexibility and time to sleep. But 43 percent of the students reported sleeping less, and about 5 percent said they were getting less than four hours a night.

Other sources of stress included college and the future, finances and a lack of time to play and relax. Females and students of color in particular experienced high levels of stress and pressure.

Some good news: “People are now much more aware of these problems,” says Pope. “I think more teachers recognize the importance of checking in on mental health and how it’s connected to academics, and how it’s part of their job.”

You can listen to School's In on SiriusXM, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Soundcloud.

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Faculty mentioned in this article: Denise Pope

Social and Emotional Learning

Redefining success: Wellbeing, engagement, belonging

������������ research shows ongoing costs faced by parents after California’s Eaton Fire

������������ scholar explores the impact of racial stress on Black youth

Online therapy for autism

An optimistic look at Generation Z

How to calm a stressed kid? A one-minute video can help, according to ������������ researchers

Looking back to find meaning

The psychology of belonging

Everybody chill now

Student stress during the pandemic

�� research shows ongoing costs faced by parents after California’s Eaton Fire

�� scholar explores the impact of racial stress on Black youth

How to calm a stressed kid? A one-minute video can help, according to �� researchers