Educator Kareem Farah traveled to 15 districts around the country to observe student-centered instruction and discovered student outbursts and mood swings that caused significant disruptions and challenged teachers to manage emotional dysregulation, according to an article in Education Week.
He proffers four strategies to enable teachers to meet this challenge in “How to Manage Emotional Distress in the Classroom.”
Here are seven other strategies to manage emotional outbursts:
- Researchers Eliya Ahmad and Zi Jia Ng explain that distraction can be a powerful tool to reset during an emotional moment. In “The Hidden Benefits of Distraction in the Classroom,” they offer evidence-based tips on how to use distraction to reenergize students.
- In “Get Kids Moving During Math Lessons. Trust Me, It Helps Them Learn,” 1st grade teacher Kendall Stallings emphasizes the benefits of movement. She explains how integrating physical activity into class time—movement integration techniques — curbs disruptive behaviors and makes it easier for students to avoid boredom and frustration, leading to greater content mastery.
- Teacher Lisa Mazinas is a proponent of mindfulness in the classroom. She noticed a positive emotional regulation from a few brief exercises. So did her students. “It feels crazy when we come back from lunch,” she recalls a 2nd grader telling her. “Can we try some mindfulness?”
- Larry Ferlazzo asked 25 educators and researchers how teachers can help students develop self-control. In a four-part series they offer this advice:
- Self-Control Can Be Learned.
- Student Autonomy Is a Prerequisite of Self-Control.
- Self-Control Doesn’t Just Happen, It Needs to Be Taught.
- Learning Self-Regulation Is Needed on Path to Academic Success.
- Know what self-regulation is not. Policy analyst Sara Mead explains that teaching self-regulation isn’t about silencing nonconforming kids. She argues that resisting conformity represents a high level of self-regulation.
- Emotional intelligence is one of the most essential tools in a school principal’s toolkit. “How a principal manages emotions—their own and those of their staff isn’t just about being ‘nice,’” write the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence’s Marc Brackett, James Floman, and Robin Stern in a recent essay. “It’s about being emotionally skillful.”
- Elementary school principal Ian Knox in “Kindergartners Are Struggling With Self-Regulation. How Principals Can Respond” explains that the need for emotional regulation is more important than ever due to an increase in dysregulated youngsters that triggers stress, burnout, and unsafe conditions for teachers and peers
Education Week
