When I was 18, I realised for the first time that being sad didn’t need a reason. That
having a bad day didn’t need spilling my coffee or missing my train to precede it.
When I trained to be a teacher, I was taught how to teach long division, number bonds to ten, comma splices, fronted adverbials.
When I became a teacher, I taught long division, number bonds to ten, commas splices (I think!), fronted adverbials and that it was ok just to be sad.
I am pretty sure all 30 of the 9-year-old children in my room would have either survived, googled, or learnt the first 4. I am almost positive it would have been another ten years, or even a lifetime for many to learn the last.
There is something wrong with our school system, and now, it feels like the powers that be are tackling it from the top down. Exams and grades are the culmination of years spent studying and for many feeling the pressure that goes along with a letter or number defining you. In my classroom, I prioritise mental health and emotions first. That doesn’t mean I do not want the children to get 7/7 on their spelling test I would just rather they didn’t stay up all night worrying about the idea of not. You may think, really an eight-year-old and their spelling test? But 8-year-olds don’t have annual reviews or observations – to them a spelling test is their judgement of themselves, and often, their parents and friends’ judgement of them too.
When I teach the children to own their sadness, they have pretty much just met me and say, ‘What I am not sad!’ I say ‘ok! But you might be sad tomorrow?’ Their foreheads wrinkle in bewilderment ‘Miss, do you want me to be sad?’ this used to evoke a smile across my face but over time I have managed to keep a straight face.
‘No I do not want you to be sad, but I want you to know that it is ok to be.’
There are 4 boxes in my classroom labelled ‘happy, neutral, sad and can I talk to you?’ and the children each have a magnet with their name. On entering they drop their magnet into their feeling and go about their morning. This takes practice, and in all honesty the first year I taught my own class and took this approach I was met with weird looks and asked by colleagues why I was making more work for myself.
I teach the children that being sad is just a normal emotion, we don’t need a reason to be sad just like we do not need a reason to be happy. ‘I just am’ is a valid response to ‘Why are you so sad?’ just like it is to ‘Why are you so happy?’. The boxes help me see why Jimmy may be a bit slower today in maths, or putting his hand up less, just like on my down days the chat with my barista may be shorter, and the music in my ears may be more Folklore than 1989. But it also helps children to see that when they are sad, they can do hard things, they can show up, they can go to school, they can do the spelling test, they can get through
it. They may put their counter in sad for four days, but the clouds clear when they enter neutral afterwards or more often ‘Can I talk to you?’ because the fog as settled, and clarity has risen.
There are many things I teach in my classroom that are more important than grades, these don’t come in chunks, with learning intentions or knowledge organisers but with practice and intuition. Over just a few months I can see the children recognising their feelings more.
Can you just imagine how much better of a place we would be in, sending children out into the world, naming their feelings instead of the years of the roman empire
Florence Taglight - Senior mental health lead.
