On a December morning, the schoolyard of EJE Academies Charter School in El Cajon swarmed with play.
The younger kids braved the monkey bars and played clap games: “Lemonade, iced tea, Coca-Cola, Pepsi . . . “
The oldest gathered in quiet circles, occasionally interrupted by a misdirected soccer ball.
Principal Ariana Gonzalez stepped out to interrupt the chaos.
“Buenos días!” she said.
“Buenos días!” hundreds of small voices shouted back.
“Good morning!” she said.
“Good morning!” they chimed.
She gave a morning message on self-discipline. The children discuss.
“I think self-discipline means when you’re like, thinking about what you’re going to say,” one elementary schooler said. “Like let’s say someone is acting mean to you, you don’t try to like act the same way, you try to act like, very nicer . . . “
At EJE, students learn these social emotional skills every day. It’s baked into the curriculum.
In Jennifer Turner’s third-grade classroom, they circled up to share what color they were feeling that day.
One student said he was in the blue zone.
“I’m tired,” he said. “You can see blue in my eyes.”
“Oh, you didn’t have a good night sleep?” Turner said.
“No,” he said.
Celiz Gonzalez said she was in the yellow zone — she felt silly.
The children discussed what they could do to get into the green zone, calm and ready to learn.
They decided to take a “brain break” and danced by their desks.
“Last one, compañeros!” Turner said, yelling after a few songs. “Get those wiggles out!”
Celiz likes circle time.
“‘Cause I like to talk about my emotions,” she said. “And also I like to listen to other children’s emotions to support them.”
In a third grader’s sometimes stumbling cadence, she described how she self-regulates.
“When I have big emotions at school, there’s this place called 'Safe Zone' where like, if you’re like feeling like really sad or something, you can like, sit there,” she said. “And you can just like calm down there and like calm down yourself, and so then, when you’re, when you feel calm, then you can just come back and start learning.”
Turner also teaches them tools like asking yourself, how big is your problem? And the third graders use them — even on her.
“I came in and I told the students, like, 'I’m really frustrated because my car got towed, and you know, I was really angry.' And they’re like, 'how big is that problem?'” she said. “Is someone in danger? And I was like, 'no,' you know, 'it can be solved.'”
Celiz’s mother, Melissa Gonzalez, said Celiz brings these tools home with her.
“Her ability to articulate her emotions has improved a lot,” she said. “And she can sit down and talk and sometimes go on and on a while about how she’s feeling, which is really good.”
At EJE, social emotional learning looks different at different ages. They’ve devoted an entire middle school class to managing stress.
In Cyanne Fairley’s eighth-grade classroom, they brainstormed what they’re most stressed about, and how they might handle it.
Jailynn Maldangesang wrote that she’s most stressed about social media, tests, the online game Fortnite and “drama.”
To cope, she might go for a jog, talk to someone, or take some deep breaths.
“I’m definitely focusing on my breathing and how to stop that stress and that really helps me while I’m doing my homework,” she said.
Research backs what Jailynn described — that social emotional learning improves academic performance. And other things, too, like attendance and behavior in class.
Fairley doesn’t think of it as something extra she’s asked to do as a teacher, but as a foundation of teaching.
“It may seem like a lot,” she said, “but it’s totally worth it. And I can’t expect my students to be in class and willing to participate and to learn if they’re not well.”
She said the need for social emotional learning became even more apparent during the pandemic.
“Because they were at home, they didn’t really get to see their friends,” she said. “They had classes over Zoom, but it wasn’t the same.”
The school created a new role, Dean of School Culture, and hired Paulina Isidro.
Isidro said overall, she’s seen a growing trend of social emotional learning in education.
“But here at EJE,” she said, “the reason why this school was born and built was truly for that — for supporting students that were historically not served.”
School staff said concerned parents created the school 30 years ago, after schools in the area were being shut down because of low performance. But the real issue, they said, was a lack of bilingual education. Many of the displaced students were Spanish-speaking.
It stands for Excellence and Justice in Education.
EJE’s eighth graders, like Jailynn, will have to bring all their tools to their new schools next year to overcome the racial disparities that remain.
The neighboring district, San Diego Unified, fails to graduate Hispanic students at a rate three times that of white students.
