Professor prepares future teachers with tools for well-being

Assistant Professor of Education

Alessandra Ward, a former elementary school teacher, believes that social and emotional learning (SEL) is crucial to academic success, personal growth and well-being for K–12 students. During the fall semester, the professor taught “Transformative SEL,” a new course specifically designed for Wheaton students who are considering a career in education, but also open to others. Wheaton magazine editor Sandy Coleman asked her about the course.

What is social and emotional learning?

“According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [the nation’s most prominent SEL organization], social-emotional learning is ‘the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals; feel and show empathy for others; establish and maintain supportive relationships; and make responsible and caring decisions.’”

Why is it important to gain an understanding of SEL—especially now?

“With so many children and adolescents experiencing social isolation, the pandemic highlighted for so many how social and emotional learning is crucial for students’ well-being. In the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and others too numerous to name, and the nation’s long-overdue reckoning with issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, a transformative approach is essential.”

How is the course transformative?

“Transformative SEL is a particular lens on the topic, originally developed by [psychologist] Robert Jagers and colleagues, that centers on equity and justice. In the course, we talk about how we learn to recognize and act on issues of injustice, how structures and systems influence individuals’ behavior, and how our cultural practices affect what we care about and how we express ourselves. We examine how things like race, income level and gender shape social-emotional development and how to create environments that help everyone feel like they belong.”

How can the course benefit students from a variety of majors?

“This is a foundational course in education, which means one of our focuses is learning how to support K–12 students in their social and emotional development. We learn the basics of lesson planning, how to teach SEL in ways that are antiracist and culturally responsive and how teachers can engage with families and communities to collaboratively support students’ SEL. These skills are particularly helpful for future educators, but also can be useful to students who take other kinds of leadership roles with their peers, children and adolescents.”

What do you hope students gain most from this course?

“I hope that every student who takes this course, regardless of major or interest in education, walks away with a deeper understanding of their own social and emotional development, including how it was—and continues to be—shaped by constructs such as race, culture, class and gender, and a greater respect for ways of interacting socially and emotionally that are different from their own.”

Faculty

Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, professor of religion, was interviewed for the podcast “Judaism Unbound, Episode 319: Culinary Midrash,” in March 2022.

John Collins, professor of physics, co-wrote the article “Formulation of Radiative and Nonradiative Transitions of a Polyatomic System within the Crude Adiabatic Approximation,” published in August 2022 in Optical Materials X .

Jonathan Chow, assistant professor of political science, wrote the chapter “Catholicism and Human Dignity in the Philippines” in Human Dignity in Asia: Dialogue Between Law and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Tommasina Gabriele, professor of Italian studies, won the 2022 Forum for Modern Language Studies Prize Essay Competition presented by the Forum for Modern Language Studies. The award was for her essay “Queering the Textual Politics of Alba de Céspedes’ Prima e dopo” for the theme “Challenging Literature.”

Scott Gelber, professor of education, wrote the article “‘We Are Gonna Miss Too Many of Them’: Rurality, Race, and the History of Grow Your Own Teacher Programs” in the American Journal of Education, published in November 2022.

Christopher Kotyk, assistant professor of chemistry, co-wrote the article “Mechanochemical synthesis of thiolactams and other thioamides using Lawesson’s reagent” in the journal Results in Chemistry in September 2022. Matthew Goodwin ’21 and Meggin Costa ’20 also were co-authors.

Ellen McBreen, professor of the history of art, contributed two essays to Matisse in the 1930s (Yale University Press, 2022). She also was a featured speaker at the Irma and Herbert Barness Endowed Lecture “Matisse, the Model & the Studio” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art via Zoom in November 2022.

John Miller, professor of economics, continued to write his column “Up Against the Wall Street Journal ” and feature articles for Dollars & Sense Magazine. In 2022, he wrote: “The Fed and the Racial Wealth Gap: Will a Fed racial inequality mandate improve monetary policy?”, “New Tools of the Fed: How monetary policy has changed since the financial crisis,” “The Great Resignation and the Labor Shortage: What makes 2022 a great year for a job makeover?,” “Inflation is Surging: round up the usual scapegoats,” “Two ‘Bad’ Tax Ideas Are Better Than One: Why we need to tax stock buybacks and close the carried interest loophole” and “Globalization in Crisis: Is neoliberalism on the ropes?”

Montserrat Pérez-Toribio, associate professor of Hispanic studies, co-organized and co-directed The Sixteenth Biennial Symposium of GEMELA: Women’s Words

Beyond Borders, held at the University of Valencia, Spain, in October 2022.

Tommy Ratliff, professor of mathematics, collaborated on the analysis and article “Newly gerrymandered districts might hurt Democrats less than you think,” published in the Monkey Cage blog in The Washington Post in September 2022.

A. Javier Trevino, professor of sociology, co-edited Leon Petrażycki: Law, Emotions, Society (Routledge, 2022).

Aubrey Westfall, associate professor of political science, wrote The Politics of Immigration in Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2022).

Alumni

Steve Desroches ’96 wrote “The Art of Drag: A History,” a comprehensive story about the century-long history of drag queens in Provincetown, Mass., for Provincetown Arts magazine.

Benjamin Fields ’22 received a 2022 SETI Forward Award, which recognizes outstanding undergraduate interns studying astrobiology and SETI Institute research.

Alexandra Marshall ’65 wrote the memoir The Silence of Your Name: The Afterlife of a Suicide (Arrowsmith Press, 2021).