Creating a Calm Classroom: Tools for Supporting Students’ Positive Responses to Negative Self-Talk

By Jen Fischer

Educators know better than anyone the challenges facing young people today, so when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other major entities release studies regarding the high rates of anxiety facing youth today, educators are rarely surprised. Recent reports also show that more educators than ever are bringing meditation and other calming tools into their classrooms to support their students. 

Creating a positive classroom environment is a key aspect of supporting social-emotional learning among students and helping them navigate challenging feelings and emotions, especially in their adolescent years. Starting the school year by sharing calming tools with students and making it clear that these tools will be accessible to them throughout the school year can be helpful for cultivating a calm classroom. 

Most educators open the school year with ice-breakers so students can get to know each other and may even bring in team-building/comfort-building opportunities such as board games or improv games. It can also be important to normalize self-regulation and self-understanding in your classroom space. This opens up students to the use of calming tools and techniques in the classroom without shame or embarrassment. For classroom discussions, we've put together these helpful Facilitation Guidelines that might be useful. Top tips from these guidelines that we receive positive feedback on from educators include: 

• Reminding students to speak from their experience and not that of others; 
• Emphasizing the importance of whole body listening; 
• Acknowledging points of view or voices that may be absent from the space; and
• Leading with positive intent and promoting a culture of curiosity and inquisitiveness. 

Introduce Students to Calming Tools and Techniques

It can be helpful at the beginning of the school year to introduce students to these tools and techniques and establish your classroom parameters for using them throughout the year: 

• Doodling as a calming practice. Starting class time with a doodle can be very calming for students. Many individuals found this valuable during the Zoom-heavy early days of the pandemic, but it remains a valuable practice. 
• Take a five senses check-in break when the classroom energy needs to shift. Introduce students to this technique through using the five senses short video available from Mood. Let students know this is a tool that is always available to them. (They will easily be able to do it without referencing the video after a few experiences with the video.) Mood Tools help tweens and teens cope with everyday stress and anxiety by offering a vast collection of proven, easy and engaging strategies they can use every day.
• Integrate journal writing or poetry writing into the classroom. This writing should be for the students with an emphasis on self-expression and release, rather than grading and assessment.
• Teach students to "calm down with color." This is another Mood Tool that we find students really appreciate.
• Integrate stretching or short walking opportunities or other movement breaks into your learning time if possible. 
• Introduce students to butterfly tapping. I recently used this with students who were beginning to panic and worry. It effectively helped them ground themselves and move on to the next activity required of them. 

Learn Together 

• Bring more Mood Tools into your classroom through short, pre-made lessons on self-regulation, anxiety, negative self-talk, etc. Lessons include effective techniques students can use to improve through social emotional skills. Visit Mood Classroom to get started and become a Mood Classroom Pilot. 
• Watch Golden Age Karate together and engage students in conversation about the ways that youth can use their skills to support others. Often anxiety grows out of a sense of helplessness. This short film focuses on a teenage boy who uses his talent and passion for karate to help others. The free Journeys in Film discussion materials (set up as a short handout or Google slideshow) help students understand their own strengths and abilities, which can reduce anxiety and stress. 

About Journeys in Film

Journeys In Film is a nonprofit organization that seeks to help students develop deep knowledge of global issues and current challenges, mitigate existing attitudes of cultural bias and racism, cultivate human empathy and compassion, and prepare for effective participation in the world economy as informed global citizens. Journeys partners with Share My Lesson on webinars and shares educational content on the Share My Lesson site. Please follow us on Share My Lesson to be the first to learn when we share new teaching resources. 

About Mood 

The Mood Tools help tweens and teens navigate difficult emotions with a robust toolkit of straightforward, engaging, and relatable mental health content and features. At the heart of the app are animated, easy-to-use tools and strategies that help kids cope with a broad range of moods and feelings. The Mood Tools are built upon evidence-based modalities like dialectical behavior therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy, then distilled into age-appropriate, bite-sized content in partnership with child psychiatrists, educators, parents and teens. Teens and parents of tweens can download the free Mood Tools app to help them cope with big feelings and everyday challenges for a lifetime of emotional health, well-being and resilience.