Permission to Feel
How are you?
Fine.
Good.
Great.
Okay.
Dead inside.
Tired.
Those are typical answers to a very important question: How are you?
Now, look at this chart below. It's called the Mood Meter. It works very much like a graph you would see in math class.
Along the bottom (the x-axis) is a label for pleasantness: the further right, the more pleasant the emotion and vice-versa.
Along the side (the y-axis) is a label for energy: the higher up, the higher the energy of the emotion and vice-versa.
This leaves you with four zones:
Green: pleasant with low energy
Yellow: pleasant with high energy
Blue: not pleasant with low energy
Red: not pleasant with high energy
Each zone is further divided into specific emotion words.
Congratulations, you now have access to the most essential emotional tool from this book (Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett) I spent the last two days of my life reading.
Now, really: How are you?
Which zone? Which word?
It matters. I'm asking. I want to know.
You have the permission to feel what you are feeling.
Share it with someone. In a comment, perhaps.
Also, it's okay if you have to look up the words. I'm trained as an English teacher, and I don't half these words. And, wow, if that's not part of the problem...
Me? I'm in the blue zone. I have been for the past couple of days.
It would be so easy just to leave it at that. But, who does that help? I don't know what to do for myself if I am just "blue." Others won't know how I am feeling if I just say "blue."
Disheartened would be the most fitting word for me.
Do I know what to do? Maybe not. At least I have properly labeled and recognized my emotion.
Other than this chart which has M A S S I V E potential in any and all classrooms, schools, meetings, this book has inspired some ideas in me, and I wanted to share them.
Right now, society is in a rough place. In the middle of a pandemic, we are struck hard with a battle against racism. We are all a part of it. We are all feeling things.
When we return, students will need support - emotional support - more than they ever have. As teachers, we cannot shy away from that.
We cannot shy away from emotions.
We cannot.
We need to give our students and our peers the Permission to Feel.
Because the world is forcing us to feel, and we cannot ignore that.
What happens then?
Post this chart everywhere.
Reference it.
Learn it.
Use it.
I no longer want to walk into the copy room saying "I'm alright" when asked how I am when that couldn't be further from the accurate truth.
I no longer want students to just say they are sad. How can I help them if they are just sad?
Seeing this chart everywhere will allow us to more accurately label where we stand - where we feel.
Creativity
Emotions allow us to invigorate our creativity and not just with art.
Creativity in how to deal with our problems, emotions, and relationships is a type of creativity often ignored.
If we are just "sad," how do we even begin to wonder about how to work through it? But, if we feel lonely, well, now we are getting somewhere.
Vulnerability relies on emotions
I know I just said "work through it," but that's a stupid thought.
Giving people the "permission to feel" is saying that it's okay to be sad. We don't have to work through it. We just have to know what it is.
I sat in a meeting once - one focused around embracing vulnerability in our staff. Someone mentioned that we should be positive, upbeat, encouraging no matter what.
After that point, I spoke up and said: "What if I'm not feeling good? Isn't it better to go into a situation with honesty, if we are looking to foster vulnerability?"
"Be careful of commiserating."
"Do that, sure. But find a way to lead and work through it together."
Without barely acknowledging otherwise, positivity won.
People aren't positive all the time. Why do we have to pretend to be?
"It's okay not to be okay."
If you were to ask any student who spends considerable time in my room - anyone who has sat on my couch, clutching a stuffed animal or sat under my table of pillows after school with me or sat on the ground against the wall when they should have been somewhere else or someone who has walked into my room in tears - I hope they would know this one thing: "It's okay to not be okay."
The idea that this could be blasted to so many more students encourages me, but I can't do it alone. Teaching them such an important emotional skill can't come from one person - one classroom.
Here's another thing I tell my students: "You don't have to apologize for your feelings."
"You don't have to apologize for being sad, angry, upset, frustrated. You should feel those things." Those very same students of mine could tell you that as well.
Hearing it just from me isn't enough.
How do we allow adults and students to learn these things and be open about them?
To me, the first step is giving teachers permission to feel how they really, truly feel. Teachers put on fake faces all the time: the teacher persona we are all taught in school.
That persona doesn't have to be fake, but I see so many cases where it is.
And, let me just say for us all, teachers aren't happy, upbeat, positive all the time. It's too hard of a job.
Why do we pretend that it's not in front of the students we strive to work so hard for?
It's a shield we don't have permission to put down.
"How do we want to feel as a class?"
This idea is modified directly from a strategy in the book: creating a classroom charter.
Teachers often use the first day of class to discuss expectations, rules, blah, blah, blah. The student voices are sometimes heard, sure, but I have never seen a classroom set of expectations relying on how students f e e l in the room.
Here are three questions that have entirely changed my mind how to open my classroom and inspire expectations:
"How do we want to feel as a class?"
"What can we do to experience these feelings as often as possible?"
"What can we do when we are not living the charter?"
Do these address a classroom environment? Do these address how best students can learn? Do these allow students comfort? Do these establish expectations we can uphold with students?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
I think any teacher will tell you that students can't learn if their mental health isn't taken care of first. It's one of the first things I was taught and believe as a teacher
Why, then, are expectations in a classroom not framed around this but around respect, paying attention, following orders?
These questions, asked on the very first day, are a game changer.
These questions, asked by all teachers on the very first day, send shockwaves.
Why not even make a charter for the staff - leading by example?
"We're not counselors."
Except that we are.
A 12-year-old complaining about having too much homework doesn't have to go to a counselor.
A teenager crying about breaking up with their girlfriend doesn't have to go to a counselor.
The emotional problems students deal with on a regular basis need only a small amount of emotional intelligence and a handful of emotional skill.
Everyday classroom teachers can, should - and DO - deal with these things.
Everyone can be trained in the little, everyday emotional skills - even if it's uncomfortable.
Not everyone can be trained like counselors in the big things: abuse, suicide, bullying, restorative justice, mental health, coping skills. And counselors can't deal with all the little things and all the big things.
Imagine the toll.
Teachers are - and can be - counselors. For the little things.
We just don't always have the skills, and, if we are truly going to serve students, we need the skills.
Emotions are challenging, confusing, misunderstood, under-expressed. Ignored.
Emotions are a part of everything we do and every decision we make; seemingly impossible to ignore, and yet we ignore them every day.
Marc Brackett, author of Permission to Feel, inspired these thoughts and ideas.
If you have the time, read this book. Because I doubt my own inspiration has done much to convince you.
I hope that it does someday.
How are you?
You have the permission to feel.
