Hello Teachers,

Welcome to our new website! After a few weeks of working to ensure that we share a professional site that will be easy and pleasant to navigate, we are finally back. During this time, I have been contemplating the right topic to start with in this new journey. I wasn’t sure whether to share a topic that would only benefit PHE teachers or all teachers. So, I decided to begin with a general topic. Even though this is an MYP PHE site, we receive teachers from all subjects and from all over the world. Today, I am bringing insights about SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING, a topic that I am currently exploring with my grade 6 students.

To situate you during our Social and Emotional Learning session, we discuss feelings, emotions, relationships, gratitude, and making good choices. We explore how to understand them and handle the challenges that come with them in a positive way.

During one of the sessions, I shared a piece of my book – “The Dreamer” – in which I narrated my life journey. My goal was to explore gratitude and choices through this story. The students did not know where that story came from, as I changed my name in the story I shared with them to ensure that they could share their thoughts without any influence. The story goes like this:

Gratitude and Choices

A World of Unbelievable Dreams

I was born in a hopeless place, or that is what many people who see us from the outside might think. In my neighbourhood, you don’t have a clear idea of what the world looks like. When you grow up in a place where you are all the same, there is no ambition to work hard to make it in life and be successful because you have been blinded by the false sense of comfort. You live inside a box with a few unbelievable or impossible wishes.  Many homes did not have electricity where I was born, but that was not an issue until a certain age. Why would we want electricity when we could not afford anything that required electricity? We did not have a TV or a fridge. We did not need electricity to cut our hair because our parents used a comb and a blade. They pressed one against the other to give us a haircut. For cooking, we used coal. We did not even think about taking a bath with hot water unless we were sick. When our parents made a fire, it was for one purpose only – cooking. When preparing a fire, it was so obvious to everyone that even your friend could tell you: “Hey, Passarinho, in your house they are about to cook”. 

There was no money or snacks for you to take to school for lunch. Since the school sessions were divided into two, you had to either fill up before school or perserve until after school. If you were attending in the morning, you would eat when you come back. If you were attending in the afternoon, you would have to eat before leaving the house, and should the food not be ready, you would have to go on an empty stomach. And how could you focus if you were hungry?  

Social problems in my community started in school. A hungry student would not focus during the lessons instead, he would involuntarily start looking for solutions. If any opportunity would present itself, he would take it. Some would wait for lunchtime and start asking other children to share their food with them. On the first day, the child would share, and on the second day also, but eventually, they would start avoiding the child. Some kids would feel the need to search other kids’ bags and pickpocket. As time went by, they would take this behaviour to their own homes, and steal money or food. When they felt more confident, they would move to the community. 

In groups of 4 to 3 students, they navigated through the story. It was evident from their faces how surprised they were by what they were reading. Voices started to gain life in the room, and you could hear things like, “Is this true?” “Which country is this kid from?” “Do you think the kid still lives there?” Even finding the moment so emotional, we had to proceed. This was not the first time they read the story, but every time new questions would arise. Soon, we will be sharing insights about the first time.

Moving on, after the students read, I had them do the following questions to discuss and share their thoughts. The discussion took 45 minutes, and they needed more time to share their thoughts. After the questions, you will see below the students’ work, which was done by hand, so we had to write it again for clarity.

Student task: 

Gratitude: Discussion Points

Basic Necessities: Highlight the lack of basic amenities in the narrator’s neighborhood. Discuss how often we take these things for granted (electricity, TV, fridge, hot water, etc.).

• Discussion Question: What are some things in your life that you’re grateful for but might take for granted?

Appreciating Little Things: Explore how the narrator’s community made do without luxuries like TV or electricity.

• Discussion Question: How can we appreciate simple things in our lives, like a home-cooked meal or spending time with family?

Impact of Challenges: Discuss how the lack of resources affected the students’ focus in school and their choices.

• Discussion Question: How might challenges like hunger affect someone’s ability to make good choices?

Results of the discussions: 

Group 1:

Things we are grateful for but sometimes take for granted:

Family: You expect them to love and support you even when you don’t. When you gradually age, you sometimes distance yourself from family and spend more time with friends, expecting them to be there the second you turn around and need/want something.

Food: As soon as you come and you are hungry, you expect there to be snacks and a home-cooked meal waiting for you, without even considering the work and money that go into making/buying the food.

School: You always complain about school, thinking how much of a nuisance it is, taking it for granted. But when you grow older and apply for a job, you realize how hard it is.

How can we appreciate the simple things?

There are many ways to appreciate the little and big things. One of them is just stepping back and enjoying the moment. For example, one of us writes a gratitude journal where she writes all the things she is grateful for every night. Taking some time off to think about what you’re grateful for or just thanking someone—you could also just give someone else something to be grateful for, like a compliment.

How do challenges affect someone’s ability to make good choices?

For example, if you are super hungry, the desire for food overwhelms you, leading to unsavoury habits (e.g., pickpocketing). According to one of us, in her old school, there was no drive to be good at school as social norms led kids to believe that not doing school was cool.

Group 2:

What are some things in your life that you are grateful for but you take for granted?

We think school because it is where we get our education and all our knowledge which can increase our chances of staying out of poverty and being successful. Also, we make friends and connections that will help us emotionally and to make good choices. However, we take it for granted because many of us think it is boring even though we don’t realize how much it helps.

How can we appreciate the simple things?

Imagine stepping mentally into a less privileged person’s shoes and visualize how different their experiences are and how much of a treat things are that are normal for us like a cooked tasty meal. Connecting to question 1, it would be extremely difficult to concentrate at school without the basic necessities like food.

How challenges affect someone’s ability to make good choices?

If someone doesn’t have access to basic necessities such as water, food, shelter, and education, they may feel the need to steal and get involved with criminal acts which can get them in a harder place and a worse future than before. They will feel more insecure and experience depression which could affect their mental health. Without proper education, it’s harder to achieve success. Without basic necessities, it is much harder to escape poverty.

Group 3:

There are several things that we are grateful for like: Getting proper access to electricity (sometimes, even when there is a power cut.) (Inverter), Homecooked meals, having quality education, getting enough food and water, proper clothes, access to devices like TVs and mobiles, Friends and family, getting medical support whenever needed, having good job opportunities when we get older and Money.

We can appreciate small things by trying not to take them for granted. Things like spending time with friends and family should be appreciated because not everyone gets to do so. We can appreciate electricity and devices by using them wisely. We should appreciate things like money because unlike us, there are people who can’t buy whatever they want or need.

Having challenges like hunger may affect people’s ability by making food the person’s priority and not thinking about anything else above food. Also, a person is unable to focus because they are mostly thinking about food. Also, not having a quality education may lead a person to not have a job in the future and start stealing just like the way the story tells us.

Here are some reflection questions for you before:

What do you find interesting in this article?

How would you answer the questions that students answered?

How would you explore this topic differently?

Was this useful for you, and how?