You are all familiar with the time in advisory where you have to get in your assigned seats and have to do a tedious social and emotional learning (SEL) lesson. This set of lessons the middle school decided to start teaching last year is called Second Step. You might think that this is just another way for the faculty to annoy kids, and make them feel bummed or bored, but it might be a little more than that, a little more important. If the school spends money to supply these lessons, there must be a reason why we have it. I will be investigating the answer to this question: why?
“[The lessons] are topics that are important for students to learn about that are tied to social emotional learning,” said Ms. Kathryn Mahoney, the head of counseling for the middle school. “The reason why we decided to do Second Step is because we wanted to have some lessons that were already made, so we obtained Second Step because we think social emotional learning for students is important.”
The purpose of Second Step for Mr. Kevin Hoffman, an assistant principal, is to “expose students to materials and content that is meant to challenge their social and emotional skills and to provide strategies for how middle school students can learn and apply strategies in unfamiliar situations.”
But how, exactly, does Second Step help students?
“At a minimum, I feel Second Step generates conversations about challenging topics that would otherwise be left out of a typical middle school experience,” Hoffman said. “I also think the lessons can be helpful for students who have been on the receiving end of unkind behaviors to hear about kids through the Second Step lessons who have been through similar challenges and have ultimately persevered.”
Why do we focus on certain topics for a long period of time? The reason why I wanted to ask this question is because I felt like it was something that made students enjoy it not as much.
“The structure of Second Step and its lessons is set by The Committee for Children, the organization that owns Second Step,” said Hoffman. “We do not teach all of the available Second Step lessons, but we select specific lessons based on the content because it may not be taught elsewhere, or because it reinforces the concepts that are being taught in courses like health and SEED lessons.”
“Second Step has been added to elementary school curriculums in Wellesley as of this year,” he said. “Also, a group of WMS teachers worked last spring and summer to customize each of the Second Step lessons so it included more stories, content, and teaching approaches that we believed would appeal to WMS students.
This tells us not only why, but how the middle school does Second Step.
