Central to The York School’s approach to education is an appreciation for the importance of supporting the 'whole child'. What does this mean? Academic success is intrinsically tied to social and emotional wellness.
Hear from Elissa Kline-Beber, Director of Student Wellness, about how The York School's robust homeroom and advisor programme gives students the opportunity to nurture meaningful relationships with teachers and peers and explicitly address social-emotional learning and character building as well as all the other student wellness initiatives and programmes happening at school.
Learn more about wellness programmes and initiatives and the social-emotional learning curriculum in the Junior, Middle, and Senior School divisions by visiting our website. To see these wellness programmes and initiatives in action, search the hashtag #Yorklearns on Twitter or follow Elissa @elissamsw. You can learn more about Marc Brackett's work at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence here and the RULER approach here.
Written and Produced by Natasha Estey Sound Editing by Andrew Scott
Central to The York School’s approach to education is an appreciation for the importance of supporting the 'whole child'. What does this mean? Academic success is intrinsically tied to social and emotional wellness.
Hear from Elissa Kline-Beber, Director of Student Wellness, about how The York School's robust homeroom and advisor programme gives students the opportunity to nurture meaningful relationships with teachers and peers and explicitly address social-emotional learning and character building as well as all the other student wellness initiatives and programmes happening at school.
Learn more about wellness programmes and initiatives and the social-emotional learning curriculum in the Junior, Middle, and Senior School divisions by visiting our website. To see these wellness programmes and initiatives in action, search the hashtag #Yorklearns on Twitter or follow Elissa @elissamsw. You can learn more about Marc Brackett's work at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence here and the RULER approach here.
Written and Produced by Natasha Estey Sound Editing by Andrew Scott
Natasha Estey:
Hi there, and welcome to YORK Talks, a podcast for families wanting to learn more about The York School, Toronto's leading co-ed independent school, delivering the IB programme from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12. I'm your host, Natasha Estey. Join me in conversation with school leaders, teachers, students, and parents in The York School community about different aspects of the school, providing you with a more candid look inside York. Happy New Year! We're back with the eighth episode of YORK Talks. Central to The York School's approach to education is an appreciation for the importance of supporting the whole child. Academic success is intrinsically tied to social and emotional wellness. Today, I'm really looking forward to speaking with The York School's Director of Student Wellness, Elissa Kline-Beber. A clinical social worker, Elissa has been at The York School for almost a decade and has a central place at the leadership table with a bold vision for wellness programming and a wellness philosophy that is key to supporting the whole child. Elissa, welcome! I am so delighted to have this time to speak with you today.
Elissa Kline-Beber:
I'm excited to be here.
Natasha Estey:
How are you?
Elissa Kline-Beber:
I'm great, thank you! Great in the middle of a pandemic. As great as everyone can be.
Natasha Estey:
I'm really happy to hear it. I am hanging in there as as I often say. So, let's just get right into it. I mean, you've been at The York School for almost 10 years. In fact, I was looking back and I think I started working part time at York in May of 2011 and you started that summer in August of 2011. And so that feels like such a long time ago now. But I'm curious to begin, how has the role of wellness at The York School and, in particular, its importance, evolved since you've joined the school?
Elissa Kline-Beber:
I think it has really evolved. I think that there really are very few discussions at this point in the life of The York School that don't have the student experience and student well-being really at the forefront of that discussion. And I think that's an evolution of the understanding of the pressures that children are experiencing, the role that mental health plays in good learning. And I I just, I think that it has assumed really a central role that speaks to an evolution of understanding kids and what they're confronting at the moment.
Natasha Estey:
Why is wellness so important to The York School? Because I certainly have had that sense as well is that it's part of every conversation at the school now.
Elissa Kline-Beber:
I think, you know, a really, really significant piece is an understanding that for good learning to happen, kids need to be emotionally ready to learn. And certainly, the world that we live in has become more complicated. I think we see evidence of that around us kind of every day, very significantly right now. And one of the things that we want to do, I think, is really acknowledge and find a space for all of the background that impacts learning, and understand that those two things kind of really sit side by side. And the more we address the whole of a student's experience, the more they're going to be able to take in and appreciate and benefit from all of the experiences that The York School has to offer.
Natasha Estey:
Mm hmm. Because it is interesting when we talk about this idea of focus on supporting the whole child, I know that that's been one of the pillars of our our strategic plan, and that the wellness piece kind of fits into that. But maybe you could speak a little bit more about what that looks like.
Elissa Kline-Beber:
Well, I think our wellness initiatives are multi-layered, and developmentally, look different in each division. So, for example, in our Senior School, one of the key initiatives that we feel is really important is making sure that each Senior School student has a trusted adult in their lives, who really, really knows them. And so out of that thinking was born our Senior School advisor programme. So our goal is to have each student enter Grade 9, they're all assigned to an advisor. And in the best case scenario, barring maternity leaves and other situations which arise, that student would have the same Senior School advisor throughout their Grade 9 to 12 years. And that advisor would really be focused on having a very full picture of that student, their academic experience, but also their athletic experience, what they're interested in through a co-curricular lens, who their friends are, how they engage with peers and adults in the building. And that holistic perspective being just really important with lots of evidence to tell us that having a trusted adult is really, really key to kids success. Other initiatives that we have are things like our mentor programme. So we also, as much as possible, we're looking for opportunities to foster student-to-student support, and really see the role that older students can play in guiding and mentoring younger students. So we have senior students, Grade 11 and 12 students, who take on the role of mentors for younger students in the Middle School. And through that forum, we address all kinds of topics. So one of the key pieces that our students, our student mentors, lead is our digital citizenship initiative. And that is really a time for kids to help other kids unpack online behaviours. Think about best practice, think about behaviours that they need to avoid. And we've really figured out that students and other young people can help steward those conversations in a way that adults cannot. And so I think, you know, on many levels, we're just looking for ways to make well-being part of the daily conversation, to give our community some shared language around well-being. And that's been one of the rules that the Marc Brackett work has played into the work that we're doing at the school.
Natasha Estey:
So bringing up Marc Brackett, so his, so Marc Brackett's work with the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence and specifically the RULER approach to social and emotional learning that's come up in a lot of my other conversations that I've had, these podcast episodes. And so tell me a little bit about this approach. What is it about this approach to developing emotional intelligence that has inspired you and your colleagues?
Elissa Kline-Beber:
So I think one of the things that was the most appealing to us when we looked at guidance around our thinking around social emotional learning, was that this is not a programme per se, but an orientation to emotional intelligence. So the programme, the acronym is called RULER, which stands for recognizing, understanding, labelling, expressing, and regulating emotion. And that's sort of the orientation to helping young people and adults alike, gain greater insight into the feelings that they're experiencing, and ultimately, then be able to regulate them with more confidence. But I think what was most appealing to us about this thinking, was the elevation and understanding of the importance that emotions play in good learning, in getting through a day at school, both as a student and as a faculty member, and really honouring that. And recognizing that for so long, there has been an idea that you walk through the door and you put your feelings away. And I think that Marc Brackett's work really calls that orientation into question and says, actually, you're bringing all of that stuff to your school day. And what we need to do is give you language to acknowledge it, and unpack it, and make space for it. Again, so that all that good learning can happen. And that kids and adults alike don't feel like they there's parts of them that they can't bring to school, because we know that doesn't really work and then it comes out in other ways.
Natasha Estey:
This idea of bringing your whole self, you know, we often talk about bringing your whole self to work and you bring your whole self to school. You bring your whole self to all parts of your life.
Elissa Kline-Beber:
I think what we've learned is that the more we ask people, kids, adults alike, to separate themselves off from how they feel, the more those kind of feelings go underground and come out, certainly in other ways, right? Anyone who's parents can relate to, you know, the behavioural kind of outbursts that underlie when kids don't have the language or the tools to express how they're feeling. And so they just show it. And so I think, you know, one of the things that for a long time people expected is that children would naturally intuit social emotional learning. And I think, increasingly, we've understood that that is a skill set to be taught just the way we teach math and reading. And that while some kids intuit, those skills really naturally, others will intuit social emotional learning really naturally, and others will find it more challenging. And I think all of what we're trying to do is recognize in a really explicit way, that this is another aspect of learning.
Natasha Estey:
And could you provide maybe a couple examples of what the social emotional learning framework or curriculum, if you will, looks like in the Junior School as compared to the Middle School and and then in the Senior School, because obviously, it does evolve over time. And it looks a little bit different.
Elissa Kline-Beber:
It does evolve. Yeah, so in in the Junior School, there are classes carved out for PSE.
Natasha Estey:
The PSE, it's personal and social education.
Elissa Kline-Beber:
And so in the Junior School, we have a Junior School Counsellor, who supports our staff, our teaching faculty, in that education. We use a multiple lenses for that PSE. But that's really, again, an opportunity to create a shared language and unpack social situations that inevitably arise on the playground, within class, children's own ability to regulate, wait their turn, all of the kinds of skills that are so central to early education. It evolves in the Middle School through our homeroom programme. Again, we have the Middle School Counsellor who supports our homeroom teachers in the delivery of that. And then in the Senior School, we have the mechanism about our advisor programme. And in each year, in each grade, we look at different issues, or oftentimes the same issues, but just through a grow ng lens. And really, our goal i to give kids a chance to expres themselves, express their eelings about things, challe ge them to think about things that perhaps they're not so use to having conversations about. I think, you know, my ultima e goal for our students, by the time they leave our buildi g, is to really feel that at The York School, they've had a chan e to get to know themse ves, they have a greater unders anding of their streng hs, they have some insigh into what is more challe ging for them. And then, above ll, that they've develo ed a skill set to advoca e for themselves so that they k ow how to ask for help when t ey need it that really stems f om an understanding of their w ole being, their orient tion, to the way they work w th others. And that they really feel that they know how to ask for help. Because I think, you k ow, when I look ahead to reall some very concerning exper ences that young adults hav in university and feeling ki d of like many young people get o university and struggle, I f el that we have the most wonder ul opportunity in a small schoo where students are really we l known to us to help them bui d a skill set, and the resilienc and grit to be able to tackl the next phase of their life with lots of confidence and real level of self understan ing.
Natasha Estey:
And I think that's such an important part to emphasise because often we talk about how the IB Diploma Programme prepares students for university but we often look at that through the lens of academically ready for university but I think socially and emotionally ready for university is a huge part of that as well because it's all about like how do you have the resilience to be able to manage time and manage priorities and manage all the stresses that will come with, you know, with a whole new setting and a whole new chapter. So I thank you for pointing that out because I think that's sort of an aspect of that that's equally as important.
Elissa Kline-Beber:
And I really do see that as one of the key benefits of being in a small school. I really think there's so much value in the degree to which our students are known to us and how attuned our teachers are to the nuances that they see. I think it's one of the pieces that's been the most challenging to us, as we've kind of moved between online and in-person education, is missing all of the exposure that we're so used to having with - at least with our senior students. And now, at this particular moment as where we're virtual. But we are really, I think, so fortunate at our school to just have a really intimate understanding of who our students are, what they bring to their school experience, and places that they need to grow and how we can continue to support that.
Natasha Estey:
Yeah, to be known, to be seen for who they are. I know, that came up in my conversation about the Primary Years Programme and how there's an effort to get to know the name of every single child, you know, and to say hello every day and for children to just be seen for who they are. I mean, it's incredible. All of this. I mean, just, you know, even the research that's supporting this kind of work and these kinds of initiatives, and just the way in which the school has embraced so completely the importance of wellness as part of the, you know, the bigger picture. And so at the end of the day, what does success look like to you? When do you know that the programme of wellness as a whole is working as it should?
Elissa Kline-Beber:
I think success, it can't be measured by all students are happy all the time. I don't think it's an aspiration that we could ever hope to achieve. My parameter for success is that our kids know that they really have developed a skill set that they know, again, they know themselves, and they know how to ask for help. And I think those to me, are my parameters of success. So at a different time when we could be together. And I would come into the Wellness Centre and see it packed with students, and feel that we've come such a far way in terms of really breaking down the stigma of asking for help or acknowledging that you may be a student who could benefit from support through the Wellness Centre. I think that's my parameter of success because I feel that wherever that student goes next, they will bring that orientation to the world with them. And I think that any young person's voice in sort of acknowledging that asking and receiving support is a sign of strength. There's just incredible value in that.
Natasha Estey:
And it's also, I mean, and this is truly school-wide, because when I think about, you know, the Wellness Centre, of course, we've got the wonderful space at 1320, but there's also a Wellness Centre at the Junior School too, a space where where students can also come, a very warm and welcoming space. And when you think about, you know, that idea, and it's almost that kind of culture that you're trying to create within the school, where I love that asking for support is not a sign of weakness. And again, when you think about a space, like what we have at our two campuses, someone can just come in there because - for any reason, right? It's not like you have to book an appointment with someone or, like, it's really meant to be a place where you can just kind of come and hang out. Like there's it's an open door, kind of policy.
Elissa Kline-Beber:
Absolutely. And I think that informality and recognizing that stuff will happen during the day and our ability to be responsive to that is, I think that's a gift to kids. And into adults, right? Just to make space for that. I think there's there's real value in that.
Natasha Estey:
Elissa, thank you so much for your time and your candour today. It has been an absolute pleasure to speak with you.
Elissa Kline-Beber:
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Natasha Estey:
I really enjoyed this conversation with Elissa. Some key takeaways for me, are that being a relatively small school, The York School is uniquely positioned to deeply
know each and every student:
who they are, what they bring to their school experience, places they need to grow, and how all the trusted and caring adults at York can support each student in a meaningful way. I was also reminded that being an IB School, The York School often focuses a lot on academics, but preparing students socially and emotionally to take on the world is equally as important. As always, thank you for choosing to listen. And thanks again to our Director of Student Wellness, Elissa Kline-Beber for joining me today. You can learn more about wellness programmes and initiatives and the social emotional learning curriculum in the Junior, Middle, and Senior School divisions by visiting our website. To see these wellness programmes and initiatives and action, search the hashtag#Yorklearns on Twitter, or follow Elisa @elissamsw. I will put links to Marc Brackett's work and the RULER approach in the show notes. Visit YORK Talks online at www.yorkschool.com/YORKTalks. Subscribe to YORK Talks where you get your podcasts and tell other families wanting to learn more about how The York School approaches education. I'm your host, Natasha Estey. I hope you enjoyed the conversation today. Please join us again for more YORK Talks.
