Nora Malone
Editor
The start of this school year brought many changes. The end of Lunch and Learn was certainly the one that garnered the largest reaction, but that wasn’t the only new thing this year. Social Emotional Academic Learning (SEAL) lessons have also become a staple of ACHS’ 2022-2023 school year. These daily lessons focus on social and emotional health. They provide students with important information and allegedly assist them with internal growth. However, anyone who has taken part in these lessons knows they fail to meet that standard.
The administration marketed SEAL lessons, which take place during the brand new Titan PRIDE block, as “30 minutes for students to focus on mental health.” Marketing featured the word ‘Yale’ as much as possible, but just because something was thought up by an Ivy League school doesn’t mean it’s useful.
SEAL lessons are frequently boring and simple, repeating mantras that students have had shoved down their throats since elementary school. The importance of regulating emotions was offered up on a platter of pastel fonts and BitMojis. And more often than not, there aren’t new lessons each day. Teachers are provided a weekly link to the same presentations. If they’re lucky, they may be offered a video that takes forever to load due to the school’s egregious WiFi. And, at this point in the year, my teachers no longer do them.
The administration hems and haws about why they’ve been put in place, but every student knows. Instead of dealing with the systemic issues plaguing the school system, Central Office wants something that’s easy and lets the blame stay on the students. Yet again, violence is taking place? A statement can be made referencing these lessons and proclaiming the school system is doing its best. Alexandria City Public Schools looks down on ACHS, and everyone knows it. The shame they have for us manifests in their focusing on petty solutions marketed to parents rather than acknowledgement and rectifying.
SEAL lessons are founded on a good idea. Mental health is commonly overlooked in school systems, especially ACPS. However, slideshows cannot be the only means by which student mental health is acknowledged. Mental health services in schools must be personal and unique to each student, and with a school of ACHS’s size, that’s practically impossible. There is no one solution, and that’s why the administration is choosing SEAL. To actually help the student body would take time, people, and money: all things ACPS does not have.
As more conversations are had surrounding student mental health, more and more schools have instated fake-out programs, like SEAL, but all it does is place the blame on students. These new systems are simply facades that ignore the violence, death, and systemic issues that contribute to student behavior. They tell students that they must be the solution, while the people that built the systems do nothing.
Photo Courtesy of ACPS
