La Pietra's Purpose Learning Coordinator presents at SOTF Conference

October 28th, 2021

La Pietra's Purpose Learning Coordinator Alia Pan presents on social emotional learning
at the Schools of the Future Conference

As a RULER school, a program used to teach social emotional learning, La Pietra has adopted an "emotions matter" mindset. This means that all emotions, even uncomfortable ones like anxiety and uncertainty, hold value. By seeing emotions as information rather than distractions, they are no longer threatening. It's a concept that gives students permission to feel, understand and work through those emotions, and ultimately help them to better learn and problem solve.

This was the topic of Dr. Alia Pan's presentation at this year's Schools of the Future Conference. Her talk, "Planning for Uncertainty: Where PBL Meets SEL," focused on how we can recognize uncertainty and translate that uncomfortable feeling into producing quality work. In short, using emotions to drive creative problem solving.

"I love RULER specifically because it taught me that when I have a student who appears too tired or bored or angry to learn, there are thousands of potential reasons why that student is struggling," La Pietra's Purpose Learning Coordinator said. "I very well might be the cause, and if so, I can figure out how to be a better teacher. Or the cause might be completely outside of my control."

Dr. Pan went on to say that RULER has helped her see past a student's seemingly disrespectful behavior and recognize that they're actually just terrified of making a mistake.

My goal as the Purpose Learning Coordinator at La Pietra, and just as a teacher, is to connect my students' passions to a sense of purpose and increase their distress tolerance so that they're able to sit in uncertainty for longer than they feel comfortable.

- dr. alia pan

As a fellow at the Global Action Research Collaborative on Girls Education, Dr. Pan has been researching ways to take the social emotional learning from La Pietra's advisory groups and integrate it into her English classes. Her hypothesis is that by making space for students to learn and practice self-awareness, we can help them move from uncertainty to creativity and problem solving.

"The act of calling our emotions by their proper name is liberating," Dr. Pan said. "It gives us information and it allows us to use our emotions, even unpleasant and unwanted ones, to our benefit rather than being at the mercy of everything we feel."

Dr. Pan's talk had three objectives: Learn and practice recognizing uncertainty within ourselves and our students, develop self-awareness by understanding the causes of uncertainty, and to help students strategize ways to use uncertainty to fuel learning.

Dr. Pan explains how La Pietra has adopted an "emotions matter" mindset through RULER Program

So how do you understand and make space for uncertainty? The first step is admitting you have a problem, and the second step is recognizing that this feeling of uncertainty is a signal and now you have the opportunity to behave in a new, creative way. The recognition of opportunity is called self-awareness.

Yale researcher Dr. Jessica Hoffman defines self-awareness as the ability to recognize and label one's feelings accurately and to understand the cause of that feeling with accuracy. Dr. Pan teaches her students this skill by opening each class with the Philosophy for Children practice of sharing a rose and thorn: Each student shares something that is making them feel pleasant and something that is making them feel unpleasant.

"I find this exercise invaluable because it helps me take the temperature of the room, it gives us as a class time to practice recognizing and labeling our feelings, it helps students to accurately understand the cause of that feeling and finally it helps me learn more about my students' passions and interests," Dr. Pan said.

Through practices like this, Dr. Pan is able to intentionally create space in the classroom for all emotions, creating an environment where uncertainty can fuel creativity.

Mahalo to everyone who joined Dr. Pan for this presentation! We hope you left with new strategies and skills to help your students embrace the unknown.

Middle schoolers talk about presenting at the Schools of the Future Conference

Middle schoolers Emilia K. (6th grade) and Alison N. (8th grade) also represented La Pietra at the Schools of the Future Conference. The two students were part of a series of presentations on Philosophy for Children Hawaii, or p4c.

A job well done to all involved in the conference for representing our school so well!