World-renown teacher’s ideas could have impact at home

LYNN – The Lynn Business Education Foundation hopes an internationally-known educator’s philosophy of “social emotional learning” can steer local students away from anti-social behavior, including gang violence.David Osher is an education researcher and author who has worked for the United Nations, including a recent stint in rural Cambodia where he said hard-working teachers, despite being underpaid, do their best to help students learn.Osher said the best schools in Cambodia or the United States are ones where students and teachers feel safe and where teachers support as well as challenge students.”Kids need a place where they feel physically and emotionally safe. The more teachers support kids, the more kids will take risks,” Osher said.The Foundation invited him to speak at the organization’s annual dinner Wednesday at the Porthole Pub because Foundation President Gale Thomas and other members think Osher’s ideas can be applied to Lynn’s schools.The Foundation wants to launch an initiative in four local schools modeled on Osher’s ideas. Teachers would learn Osher’s concepts during summer training sessions then pass them on to colleagues during the school year for eventual adoption throughout the public schools.Thomas said the training initiatives build on classes in preventing anti social behavior the Foundation jointly offered this month and in August with the Lynn Teacher Union. Sixty teachers have taken the classes.”It’s important to prevent anti-social behavior. Children who are anti-social have been shown to have low academic skills,” Thomas said.The Foundation is making plans for the initiative after a year that saw it offer teacher training programs and financial literary training for students. It also sponsored several school-specific programs, including a science oriented one that filled the Ford School gymnasium with an inflatable whale.Creating “safe, cooperative environments where everyone feels a part of the school community” is the best way to improve academic test scores, Osher said.”The more you use positives and the less you use negatives, the more you will get results.”Osher does not talk about disciplining kids or spending more money on security in schools; he talks about hiring more school counselors and making sure students have the same counselor over the course of the academic careers.He said educators must look beyond schools to the communities around them to begin addressing significant obstacles children face in becoming good students.”Too many kids are exposed to poverty and to trauma. What we know is trauma does all kinds of bad things to the ability to focus and memorize.”School Committeeman Vincent Spirito suggested Osher might be pleasantly surprised by how many of his concepts are already in place in Lynn’s schools.”The thing we’re lacking is more money,” Spirito said.