Member Assistance Program’s Let’s Talk About It
“Teaching middle school is like teaching 5-year-olds and 18-year-olds all at once,” said Agata Mojica, a social studies teacher at PS/IS 128 in Middle Village, Queens. “It’s a fragile stage.”
That’s why Mojica was happy to take 20 of her students to the sixth annual Let’s Talk About It event on April 23 at a Commonpoint community center in Bayside, Queens. The event, a collaboration between the UFT’s Member Assistance Program (MAP), the MindUP social-emotional learning program and the UFT Teacher Center, convenes hundreds of middle school students each year for a relaxing day of learning and sharing about mental health. This year, Mojica’s students joined about 480 of their peers from eight middle schools in District 24.
“It was a really good feeling to be there,” said Mojica. “Middle school is the moment when we have to give students these social-emotional learning activities to ground them and give them a sense of respect, hope and care.”
The social-emotional learning activities at the event included skits and guided discussions, led by UFT Teacher Center facilitators, that focused on themes like kindness, gratitude, emotional awareness, resilience and empathy. As students fanned out across the beautiful Commonpoint grounds for small-group discussions, they relaxed on custom UFT-branded blankets that they took home at the end of the day. Between and after sessions, students ran around outdoors, enjoyed the sun over breakfast and lunch and danced to live music from a Brooklyn Conservatory of Music band.
Tina Puccio, the director of MAP, was surprised to hear the students ask the band to play “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses.
“They all went crazy for that song!” she said with a laugh. “I loved the fact that while the music was playing, the students were throwing their stress balls around and just being kids.”
This relaxed playfulness is exactly what Puccio hopes to see at a Let’s Talk About It event.
“Social dynamics in middle school can be tough,” she explained. “When we bring them all together in a big group learning the same things with peers from other schools, it removes some of the social hierarchies.”
Joseph Natale, a school counselor and UFT chapter leader at IS 61 in Corona, Queens, shared a story about one of the 95 students he and his colleagues brought. In the student’s small group, they discussed strategies such as drawing, talking to a friend or listening to music to handle overwhelming emotions. The next day, a situation at home was making the student feel stressed — so they went in their room and listened to their favorite music.
“It calmed them,” Natale said of his student. “Now that kid probably had a decent night’s sleep. If that didn’t happen, they’d come to school tired the next day. It’s all connected.
“Academics and emotions go hand in hand,” Natale added. “Just as we teach math and science, we need to teach kids how to deal with the stressors of life.”