Their lessons - for example, using a book about a transgender boy to teach about feeling understood - might get the curricuum “banned” in some parts of the country, Brackett said in one email.
His insistence on staying on the political sidelines ran afoul of Simmons and others at the Yale center who viewed his stance as tone deafness toward issues of historical injustice. “The political examples automatically alienate people (Black or white) and we can’t judge people for being Democrats or Republicans,” Brackett wrote Simmons in one of several emails and documents shared with The 74. Her drive for cultural relevance, however, repeatedly clashed with the views of her supervisor, Marc Brackett, the center’s prominent director and best-selling author of Permission to Feel. And help The 74 make an impact.ĭonate now and help us reach our NewsMatch goal.
She pushed to include figures such as former President Barack Obama and girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai in lessons and challenged teachers with bold statements about schools being systems of white supremacy. That’s why Simmons, who became assistant director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence in 2018, worked to make the center’s popular K-12 program on understanding feelings more meaningful for marginalized students.
“There is emotional damage done when young people can’t be themselves,” she said six years ago during a TED Talk that has received almost 1.4 million views.
But it also separated her from her culture and made her feel like she didn’t belong. As schools across the country grapple with issues of historical discrimination, the director of a prominent SEL program argued that some inclusion efforts could get its curriculum “banned,” according to emails obtained by The 74.Īttending a mostly white boarding school in Connecticut allowed Dena Simmons to escape the danger of her poor, Black and Latino neighborhood in the Bronx, New York.
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