Dimensions of a Very Big Picture

Creating Emotionally Safe Schools: A Guide for Educators and Parents
by Jane Bluestein, Ph.D.

Book Description

Something is terribly wrong with our schools. How did a place that should be a sanctuary for kids becomes a source of fear and intimidation? What has happened?

In Creating Emotionally Safe Schools, Jane Bluestein offers a plan to return schools to havens of nurturing and learning. She examines environmental, historical, developmental, psychological, sociological, interpersonal, instructional and administrative factors that contribute to the emotional climate of an educational institution. This is a comprehensive view of what makes a school feel the way it feels, and what we can do to make it feel safe for every child-and every adult-who walks through its doors.

Emotional safety has many dimensions, such as: the impact of the family and early development, childhood stress and coping, the changing role of the school, acceptance and emotional support, respect and belonging, temperament and labels, gangs and violence, instructional strategies, learning styles and multiple intelligences, teacher training and support, and the inherent need for a sense of community.

The message Jane Bluestein brings is positive: information, programs and solutions are available that can ultimately make our schools inviting, inspiring, and, yes-safe.

Includes:

• Comprehensive list of references and resources

• Complete index

Part I - Dimensions of a Very Big Picture

Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.
Colleen Wilcox

The starting point for a better world is the belief that it is possible.
Norman Cousins

Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be Chaos.
I Ching

There's this commercial that begins by showing us a couple standing on top of a medieval castle. As the camera pulls back, we see that the castle is actually a chess piece on a board between two people riding on a train. The camera pulls back again and we see the train through the window of a house-as part of a model railroad in a family's playroom. Each time we step back, we realize that each world-within-a-world, complete as each seemed to be, is simply a part of a much larger reality. The continual change in perspective is both breathtaking and brilliant, an important reminder about how an image or event can, in fact, simply be one small facet of a far bigger reality.

So it goes with safety in schools. Invariably, whenever somebody brings up the topic, the conversation seems to focus on one little piece of this reality-usually a headline-grabbing instance of violence or vandalism. However, if we apply the “big picture” perspective to this issue, we realize that the more extreme breaches of school safety are only a very small part of a much larger issue. Unfortunately, despite our efforts to place these events in a larger context, we can easily become fixated on the intensity of a terrible moment, and lose our sense of the multidimensional reality in which the events occurred. When our focus narrows to one little corner of the picture, we can neglect the millions of other details that are also a part of the scenery, much less how all these threads are woven together or how they impact one another. When our vision fails to go beyond the immediacy of the moment, our lack of perspective can have serious consequences, particularly with regard to how we respond to the event and the solutions we propose.

Certainly safety is an issue whenever violence occurs. But it's also an issue for the student who is terrified of being called on to give an oral presentation to the class, the kid anticipating being harassed or attacked on the playground, or the child who knows that the end of the school day leads back to an unstable or violent home. It's an issue for kids who don't test well, for kids who learn best by touching and moving, and for kids whose strengths lie in areas the schools neither assess nor value. It's an issue for the child nobody notices, the child nobody will play with, the child who camouflages inadequacy with a string of achievements. It's an issue for nonlinear thinkers and for students who look “different.” It's an issue for parents, particularly when their kids are having-or causing-problems. And it's an issue for teachers who are faced with increasing demands and inadequate resources, who are held accountable for many things over which they have very little control, and whose work often fails to generate the respect and compensation it deserves.

For the most part, we haven't placed a very high premium on providing emotionally safe learning environments for kids or adults. Even when we acknowledge its importance, safety can easily become a casualty to traditions that make assessment more important than learning, or those that value subject matter over students. We sacrifice safety when we fail to notice a child in distress or ignore the hurtful behavior of one student to another, when we use tests or grades to punish, when we ignore academic needs in favor of curricular mandates. Emotional safety is undermined by sarcasm, impatience and contempt, by “gotcha” discipline policies, by pop quizzes, by teachers who yell or humiliate.

In fact, emotional safety is an issue in so many situations in school that any improvement effort worth its salt-as narrowly focused as that effort may need to be-will necessarily take the “whole” into account. Yet how often are policies implemented or programs adopted before their potential impact on the emotional climate of the school is taken into account? It's one thing to expect our schools to produce every type of outcome under the sun-from higher academic performance to good citizenship-and quite another to create the type of environment in which these reasonable expectations can actually unfold. In the absence of a safe learning environment, a great deal of energy is expended in an effort to create safety, self-protecting by any means necessary, and not always in the most constructive ways. Learning is undermined and teaching is far more difficult than it needs to be. So we deal with the symptoms and react to the events, but until we quit dancing around the core issues and the dynamics that keep feeding the beast, we will continue to be disappointed when quick-fix surface solutions fail, one after the other-or make the problems even worse.

So here's the deal: Let's look at the big picture and some of the factors that play into making a school climate what it is. And let's look at some of the ways that kids and adults need to feel safe before we zero in on one little corner of the room and imagine that if it's clean, the rest of the house will be just fine. Yes, it's big, but it's doable. Maybe all we need to do is step back and take in the immensity and complexity of it all, for therein lie potential and magnificence. And in the end, what could be more worthwhile?

© 2001 Health Communications, Inc.

About the Author

Jane Bluestein, Ph.D. is an expert in the field of parenting with more than 20 years professional experience. A dynamic and entertaining speaker, she presents engaging and accessible training programs to groups around the globe. Dr. Bluestein currently heads Instructional Support Services, Inc. a consulting and resource firm that provides staff development and parent training programs worldwide.