(The Center Square) – In an old-fashioned free-range childhood, children develop social and emotional self-regulation skills by negotiating. Without coaches to set rules and referees to enforce them, kids have to cooperate if they want to play kickball in the street or build a fort in the backyard.
Now, school curriculums include SEL, or “social-emotional learning,” to compensate for children who have lost those opportunities.
SEL has become a lightning rod in the culture wars over public education, with concerns from conservative sources over the potential for misuse as a path to progressive indoctrination.
But the premise can be as simple as the Peace Table at Marysville’s Cascade Elementary School.
Rep. Carolyn Eslick, R-Sultan, discovered the Peace Table on a school tour focused on the building’s physical condition. She was met in the hallway by fifth-grader teacher Paige Elwell, who invited her into her classroom to see the social conditions.
Elwell showed her the table where students in conflict sit down and resolve their own problems. Eslick was impressed by its simplicity.
In an interview last week, Eslick said, “It gave me hope because it’s all about prevention” of mental health and addiction problems.
Cascade Elementary has adopted the Peace Table in all K-5 classrooms.
Eslick invited Elwell to present the process to the House Education Committee as a practical way for students to put into practice the skills information taught in the school’s “Second Step” SEL curriculum. Eslick introduced the idea as a way to interrupt the bullying cycle and promote self-resiliency.
Committee Chair Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle, welcomed Elwell to the committee’s March 5 work session.
“Name-calling starts everything,” Elwell.
Students submit a simple referral slip to a teacher or administrator about a problem on the playground, school bus, or anywhere else they encounter conflict.
“They aren’t in trouble,” Elwell explained.
Students have to include both the problem and a solution on their referral form. Teachers set the children down at the peace table the same day. They discuss their problem and solutions using a scripted conversation guide, write out their own contract for future behavior and sign it.
According to Elwell, it’s a way for students to practice self-regulation. They know that if they break their contract, the next step is disciplinary action from the school administration. Elwell said there’s a flurry of referrals in the first few months of school, and it tapers off to nearly nothing by the middle of the year as students figure out how to resolve issues themselves.
“I’ve had one referral in my classroom since January and here it is March 5th,” Elwell noted.
Eslick was delighted to add this work session to her list of three “wins” this year, supporting her focus on preventing small problems from becoming larger. In addition to the House Education work session, she named her work on 23-hour mental health triage centers and on a working group to look at barriers to increasing access to quality child care.
“We really do have to surround our children with a village,” Eslick said.
She hopes the Peace Table process will be adopted in other Washington schools and is supporting efforts to promote it.
