Stick and Stones May Break My Bones and Words Still Hurt Me

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

McIntosh County Middle School

First Presenter’s Email Address

atorres@mcintosh.k12.ga.us

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Mrs. April G. Torres is the founder of Ray of Hope Girls, Inc., a Non-profit Organization established to Educate, Empower, and Embrace Young Ladies. She’s a United States Army Combat Veteran, a higher education instructor for 15 years in the discipline of Psychology and a passionate and purpose driven leader. She is determined to build self-esteem and confidence in ladies of various ages, teaching them to thrive in all areas of their lives. She’s currently the School Counselor at McIntosh County Middle in Darien, Georgia

Location

Session Nine

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Relevance

This presentation relates to the heart and health strands. The session will focus on ways educators, community leaders, and agents of change use words that can forever shape the cognitive development, self-esteem, confidence, and mental health of all children.

Brief Program Description

Remember the old saying, “Stick and Stones May Break My Bones but Words will Never Hurt Me”? NOT! Our words communicate our thoughts, feelings and can either Hurt or Heal! As educators, community leaders, and agents of change we must be intentional about the words we use when speaking to children. Our words influence their cognitive development, emotions, and mental health. Speak Life!

Summary

Remember the old saying, “Stick and Stones May Break My Bones but Words will Never Hurt Me”? NOT! Our words communicate our thoughts, feelings and can either Hurt or Heal! As educators, community leaders, and agents of change we must be intentional about the words we use when speaking to children. Our words are powerful and can negatively influence their cognitive, social, emotional and mental health.

Often children bear the brunt of burned out, overworked, underpaid, frustrated educators. Teachers' anger is one of the most prominent and frequent emotions experienced in everyday life. School is the center of many adolescents' lives and considered a safe place for many, but what happens when our most vulnerable population no longer finds the classroom a safe place to go to? What happens to our most vulnerable population when a teacher's words and emotions negatively impact learning in the classroom? It is up to educators at all levels to support and hold each other accountable because teachers and students are intertwined in school environments for many hours a day. As we require students to be respectful, we as educators must be as well. We should all live by the golden rule and that is to treat others as we want to be treated.

In this session, participants will learn three ways teachers expressed emotions affect our most vulnerable population. Frenzel, Daniels, and Buric (2021) suggests emotions can directly transmit from teachers to students, teacher emotions shape the student teacher relationship, and teacher emotions convey messages that impact student beliefs.

Stick and Stones May Break My Bones but Words Still Hurt Me. We can prevent the hurt. Speak Life!

Evidence

The following resources support the proposal.

Ali, M. R., Ashraf, B. N., & Shuai, C. (2019). Teachers' Conflict-Inducing Attitudes and Their Repercussions on Students' Psychological Health and Learning Outcomes. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(14), 2534. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16142534

Anne C. Frenzel, Lia Daniels & Irena Burić (2021) Teacher emotions in the classroom and their implications for students, Educational Psychologist, 56:4, 250-264, DOI: 10.1080/00461520.2021.1985501

Irena Burić, Anne C. Frenzel, Teacher anger: New empirical insights using a multi-method approach, Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 86, 2019, 102895, ISSN 0742-051X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.102895.

Psychology The Science of Who We Are by Shawn Charlton (Author), Ken Sobel (Author), Susan Sobel (Author), 2016-01-01, Fountainhead Press edition,

Roe KM, Mata HJ. The Power of Words. Health Promotion Practice. 2019;20(2):153-156. doi:10.1177/1524839919827900

SatPute, A. B., & Lindquist, K. A. (2021). At the Neural Intersection Between Language and Emotion. Affective Science, 2(2), 207-220.

Learning Objective 1

Understand the power of words and objectively evaluate words we use.

Learning Objective 2

Increase their understanding of childhood development and the relationship of words, emotions, SEL and mental health.

Learning Objective 3

Understand that our emotions can transmit to others, emotions can shape relationships, and emotions convey messages that can affect beliefs.

Keyword Descriptors

Power of words, SEL, mental health, relationships, emotions, classroom culture, cognitive development, teacher's emotions, student outcomes

Presentation Year

2024

Start Date

3-6-2024 11:15 AM

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Mar 6th, 11:15 AM

Stick and Stones May Break My Bones and Words Still Hurt Me

Session Nine

Remember the old saying, “Stick and Stones May Break My Bones but Words will Never Hurt Me”? NOT! Our words communicate our thoughts, feelings and can either Hurt or Heal! As educators, community leaders, and agents of change we must be intentional about the words we use when speaking to children. Our words influence their cognitive development, emotions, and mental health. Speak Life!