Marine Corps Base Quantico -- “Wouldn’t the world be a better place if at 1500 everyone had warm cookies and milk and took a nap?” Col. Joseph Murray, Marine Corps Base Quantico Commander, asked the audience at the 2016 Education Symposium, held Mar. 16 at The Clubs at Quantico and sponsored by the MCBQ school liaisons.
He was quoting from the 2004 book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. A school that provided soul food like warm cookies and milk to its students would be one that promoted social and emotional learning instead of just academic learning—and this was the theme of the seventh annual symposium, which was attended by local educators and Marine Corps VIPs such as Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Ronald Green; his wife Andrea; and D’Arcy Neller, wife of Commandant Gen. Robert Neller.
“This is about rediscovery of things we all know but have been pushed aside,” said Dr. Maurice Elias, professor of psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey and vice-chair of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. “In the pressure to achieve high test scores, we’ve lost the idea that our kids have a right to a supportive, nurturing environment created by caring adults.”
“And that should not depend on zip code or where the school is,” he added, acknowledging that the average military child moves six to nine times throughout his or her school career.
Elias said that for children to develop resilience to this transitory lifestyle — and to any challenges life may throw at them — it is critical that schools provide sustained nurturance and coordinate nurturance support. He said that parents spend on average only 42 minutes a day interacting with their children, so school is critical.
Schools can become nurturing environments by making every child feel welcome, by teaching children to understand and accurately define their own feelings and those of others, by fostering flexibility and curiosity, and by getting students invested in the classroom and school through peer support, buddy systems, collaborative rule-making, and letting their opinions be voiced and heard.
“We need to prepare our kids for the tests of life, not a life of tests,” Elias said.
Elias’s talk was followed by “Voices of the Military Child,” a panel of sixth and seventh graders from military families who attend base and local community schools.
Moderator Dr. Kathleen Bihr, Vice President and Executive Director of the Tiger Woods Learning Center Foundation, asked the students what is the best thing about being a military child.
“Military discounts!” joked one. Others said they appreciate the opportunity to live in different countries and the special commonality they feel with kids they meet in Department of Defense Education Activity schools.
The students said the hardest thing about being a military child is moving, trying to answer the question “Where are you from?,” having parents leave and miss birthdays and special occasions, and having to take on extra responsibilities when a parent leaves.
“What’s something you wish you had that civilian kids have?” Bihr asked.
The answers were “a forever home,” “long-lasting friends from kindergarten,” and “all my friends in the same place.”
Audience members asked the students for their advice on how schools can take care of military children. The students answered that schools can be patient with new kids, be mindful of giving them extra stress (such as excess homework), give them time to calm down if situations get overwhelming, and employ caring guidance counselors who check in often and encourage participation in extra-curricular activities.
The final presenter of the day was Dr. Paula Rauch, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and founding director of the Marjorie E. Korff PACT (Parenting At A Challenging Time) Program Cancer Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, who spoke on “Building Student Resilience.”
Rauch is the co-author of a book called Raising an Emotionally Healthy Child when a Parent is Sick. She noticed that many of her books were being sold in Texas and learned that it was because the Military Child Education Coalition was recommending it.
Military children whose parents deploy often face the same challenges as the children of critically ill parents and can benefit from the same coping strategies, Rauch said. She used the metaphor of development being a steep uphill climb. Every child carries a backpack, but you don’t always know what is in the backpack weighing him or her down. Caring adults are the trail guides — and when a parent is incapacitated for any reason, adults at the child’s school are the next most important person.
A challenge becomes a trauma when there is no caring adult to help a child sort through an issue.
“Open communication is key to preventing trauma,” Rauch said. “Confusion is the enemy of coping.”
She said that it’s important to welcome all questions warmly and to encourage the child to elaborate on the question.
“This is a tremendous event,” Murray said of the symposium. “The education of our children is like the steel folded into a sword. It’s the basis for the rest of their lives.”
— Writer: auphausconner@quanticosentryonline.com