Pride Advisory Classes: Social and Emotional Support for Every Student Video Lecture | Understanding Social and Emotional Learning (SEL): Better Life - Personal Skills

>>Teacher: How are you, sir?
Good morning, good morning, sir.
Good morning.
Good morning, Mr. Sauder.
Morning sir.
>>Student: I believe there is a
correlation between bullying and stress.
For example, when someone's being
bullied, they might lose sleep
because they're stressed about it.
>>Marcus: Absolutely.
What are you willing
to do to foster more
of an anti bullying culture
here at Urban Prep?
>>Teacher: Our hundred percent college
acceptance rate is a direct result
of our pride periods.
We focus on building them character wise
and building their social
and emotional skills.
>>Marcus: It's really difficult to
ask a young man to sit and focus
in a biology class if they're
hungry, if they're worried
about where their mom is, if their
worried about coming to and from school,
and they have to cross gang lines.
When they come to pride class, the idea
is that this is a relaxing environment
where they can talk about issues
that they're facing and also leave
with skills every day to help them
better navigate their situation
in school and outside of school.
>>What we're going to
do today, gentlemen,
is actually go through a few activities
so that we can know the difference
between positive peer
interaction and bullying.
>>Tim: Each of our students is
placed when they're freshmen
in a group that we call pride.
We're Urban Prep lions and
lions travel in prides,
and so we have our students
grouped according to prides,
and they meet in their prides every day.
>>Student: You're with them from
freshman year to senior year,
so it creates more of a
connection, where these are
like actually my brothers, people that
I can lean on if I need something.
>>Student: We all had to apologize
that we weren't trying to
make him feel unwanted.
>>Marcus: Give yourselves a hand.
Let's give it up for the guys.
Great job, gentelmen.
>>We have four pride leaders and
so one pride leader represents each
grade level.
Essentially, we're kind of like
a grade level counselor for them,
the one person in the building that will
remain consistent from freshman year
until graduation, that will know
about their familial situations,
know about challenges that
they've had academically.
>>Teacher: How has the environment
that you have been in affected you?
>>Student: Where I used to live,
people around me set a bad example,
so I used to follow kind of
and I didn't really work hard.
>>Teacher: So what does a positive
environment look like to you?
>>Student: Positive people,
because people really make
up the environment actually.
It's the way that people
react to each other
and treat each other,
and show you respect.
>>Teacher: So, respect.
>>Marcus: So relationships
are the cornerstone of pride.
They young men are able to
develop a bond with their brothers
and their pride families, as well
as with an adult in the building.
All of the pride leaders
have a background or a degree
in the field of social work.
>>Student: Last year when I was having
problems with my father, Mr. Moore,
he came to me, because he
noticed that I had a problem.
>>Lionel: Pride leaders can provide them
not just with an ear, but with a toolkit
on how to deal with these things.
>>Marcus: We have a framework
full of topics and ideas
for our lesson plans for the week.
Anything from safe sex practices,
college preparedness
and awareness, stress.
>>Explain one thing you learned about
stress from this week's discussion
and remember, do not
write your name on it.
>>I asked them, "What
should do with stress?"
and they said, "Get rid of it,"
and then they balled up the paper.
So let's get rid of the stress.
>>Go!
>>We're able to have fun, laugh, be
loud, so that we can actually have
that discussion about stress.
>>Everyone have a snowball?
>>Students: Yeah.
>>Marcus: All right, so open them
up and let's see what we've learned.
>>Student: It's fair to say,
I have learned that stress
affects how much you eat a day.
>>Student: Sometimes stress could
give you some type of body pain.
>>Student: One thing I learned is that I
should be able to feel good about myself
in order to prevent stress.
I believe that I haven't felt good
about myself for such a long time,
that I think that it
is a problem for me.
>>Marcus: As social workers,
we also are given the autonomy
to address the specific
needs of our students.
If I had come in class today prepared
to do an activity regarding stress,
but there had been some community
violence issues that arose last night,
then that's what we would
focus on for that class period.
>>Gregory: Many of you all know
that I had a brother that passed
in February, due to gun violence.
I had to make a decision.
Do I make this anger
constructive or destructive?
>>By facing these issues that many of
them try to suppress, w bring them face
to face with them so that can talk about
ways to deal with these type of things.
>>Deveon: Constructive anger
seems like it would mean,
I'm so angry that this
violence is going on,
so I'm going to go out here and stop it.
It puts a passion to your heart, to
the point where you don't want to quit.
But destructive anger makes
you feel like, "I don't care.
>>Going to pride every
day does something for me
that no academic class could do.
It's like a second home to come
and be able to talk about anything,
so I don't have to hold
things in all day long.
>>Gregory: What is something that
angers you all about society?
>>Student: You can't be judged
on who you are or your character.
People just judge you off of your race,
your gender, the community you live in.
>>Student: When a person tries to
change their gender, they're treated
like a monster, that's my thing.
>>Deveon: If I get angry, I
can just think of pride class
and Mr. Sashington's words,
and it may calm me down.
>>Lionel: If we really care about
academic development, we have to care
about social and emotional development.
You can't have one without the other.
Our students, through our pride
program and through the fact
that we provide them with those non-cog
skill development, they're able to apply
to college and be accepted, and then
once they get there, they persist.
>>Student: There's no limits
to how many things you could do
if somebody is believing in you.
>>Teacher: Thank you.
So when you have that
support system, right?
>>Student: Yes.