Reporter: The video was posted on MySpace by lawyers involved, which is... This assault occurred in North Babylon, New York. The victim apparently just 12-years-old. Her attackers are 14-year-old ninth graders at…
Man: A student with a gun at the [inaudible] Academy.
Dispatcher: Okay, where's the student at?
Reporter: He was picked on, bullied, and that may have been part of what pushed him to this school shooting here...
Narrator: While schools across the country grapple with the behavior problems of their troubled students, thousands of individuals are stepping up to help meet those students' social and emotional needs.
Michael: And no matter what we teach your brains, love is more important than knowledge.
Narrator: One of them is Michael Pritchard, a comedian and former probation officer who tours the country listening to the hearts of young people.
Michael: How many of you know a boy or girl here at school who gets picked on, and left out, and never included, and laughed at all the time? Raise your hands, high, high. Look around the room, please. Hands down.
Marilyn: At one point, Michael asks kids to come forward and share how they've been hurt, or maybe to apologize to others. And when he asked them to do that, I thought, "They're not going to do this. I mean, in front of all these kids, they're not going to come forward." I have to tell you, I was amazed at how free they were to come forward and really share their experience.
Student: When I first moved here a year ago, no one really wanted to play with me, and all the fifth graders called me names.
Michael: What was it doing to your heart?
Student: It just made me feel really bad.
Michael: We get sick if we try to hold all that pain in. And then the unaddressed grief turns to anger, and the anger to rage. And it has two directions. Out to the community, or inwards towards the self, and self-destructiveness.
Student: My main thing that's gotten me through all this is empathy. When I was being bullied, I tried to feel how they were feeling, and that's why they were bullying me.
Marilyn: Creating an environment in which kids feel comfortable, in which they are productive, in which they treat one another well, is not a one-shot thing. So our responsibility as adults that work with kids is to reiterate that lesson. And it's been my experience, it takes three to five years to really change a school culture, and it's a learning process.
Teacher: What people say to us, and how other people treat us kind of shapes what we think about ourselves. And I want to share with you a story. "One day Maria woke up..."
Narrator: With curriculum material from programs like "Resolving Conflict Creatively," students can learn social emotional skills in any classroom.
Teacher: "As her sister came into the room and said, "You gonna wear those old rags to school?""
Linda: We are talking about a whole new vision of education that says that educating the heart is as important as educating the mind. And so it's about equipping young people with the kinds of skills they need to both identify and manage their emotions, to communicate those emotions effectively, and to resolve conflict non-violently.
Teacher: So that was Maria's day. How do you think Maria is feeling now if this is what's left of her heart?
Daniel: Emotional intelligence, which refers to how you handle your own feelings, how well you empathize and get along with other people, is just a key human skill. But it also turns out that kids who are better able to manage their emotions, for example, actually can pay attention better, can take in information better, can remember better. In other words, it helps you learn better.
Student: Let's say if me and Gabriela had a problem, then we're going to go inside the "Peace Corner" and express our feelings with a Peace Helper. And I think everybody knows what a Peace Helper is.
Narrator: At PS24 in Brooklyn, students learn to take an active role in solving classroom disputes.
Student: So you had a book first, and a girl snatched it from you?
Student: How do you feel?
Student: I feel mad.
Alexus: I like doing it, cause I like helping other kids, and it's very fun for me, ’cause I get to have fun and then be serious at the same time.
Student: Do you need my help?
Student: What happened?
Alexus: When I do stuff like the mini-lesson, I have to stay focused, and especially like when I'm working with first graders or kindergartners.
Alexus: When the Peace Helpers were helping resolve the conflict, what did you see the Peace Helpers do?
Alexus: I'm still learning, ’cause if I go into sixth grade next year, I need to learn how to control my anger, ’cause I have a serious temper problem.
Teacher: Running game and having game is pressuring somebody. ’Cause you're trying to slick them, right?
Teacher: Focus in on your dot, nothing else, deep breath.
Karol: In our middle schools and high schools, the social development curriculum is taught as a separate class. A student might go to English first period, and social development second period, and chemistry third period. So the student is taking the skills that he or she is learning in that second period social development class, and using those skills wherever else in his or her life is needed.
Teacher: One possible solution is saying, "No," or walking away. Is that real?
Karol: Just like you take the reading skills that you learn in fourth period class, and apply them throughout your life, it doesn't matter if other people in your life have the same reading skills or not, you have the skills.
Teacher: If you've been hurt by someone saying or doing something mean or thoughtless, move into the circle.
Narrator: The success of New Haven's efforts, inspired other districts like Anchorage, Alaska, to take on ambitious programs.
Student: Fall away.
Narrator: This day-long series of games, trust exercises, and truth-telling sessions, called "Change of Heart," is designed to forge a caring community from the diverse group of 2,400 students and staff at East Anchorage High School.
Student: Yes, I trust you guys.
Narrator: It's just part of a concerted effort to address the social and emotional needs of every student in the district. An effort that began with schools in turmoil just a few years ago.
Alivia: You know, you hear those horror stories about like thugs showing up at school, and you having to look behind your shoulder, and that's how it was. There was a lock-down at lunch.
Carol: Alaska, unfortunately, has the highest rate of domestic violence, sexual and child abuse in the nation, per capita. And so a lot of our kids, they're watching violence in their homes. Sometimes they're the ones being attacked and abused. And for them to be able to come into school, which is frankly for many of them their safe haven, and automatically switch that off and say, "Oh, yes, I'm going to really focus on algebra," it isn't even realistic. And so we've got a lot of young people in very great distress.
Narrator: After nearly a decade of studying best practices from around the country, the district adopted comprehensive social and emotional standards with concrete benchmarks for appropriate behavior at every grade level. They designed classes to teach specific skills and developed guidelines for assessment.
Vickie: I'm a Curriculum Coordinator, so I am seen in the same office as the Language Arts Coordinator, the Math Coordinator, the Health Coordinator, etcetera. To show just visually, politically, everything else, that we are going to value this like we value any of our other curriculum. A lot of my job is to look at the already adopted curriculum. And say, "Okay, here's a place where, if I was teaching this reading lesson, I could also hit this social-emotional learning standard at the same time."
Student: I think that he took the one that not everybody was doing. Like maybe everybody was doing a different thing, and he thought that it was wrong, and so he did the other thing. And maybe he was right.
Teacher: Doesn't even have to be right or wrong, just follow your heart. Be true to yourself.
Student: So Mike has eight dol-- is this Mike?
Narrator: In this fifth grade math class, solving problems is a social activity.
Student: Mike started with eight. Kelly had twice as much as Mike. And Joe had half as much as Kelly, which is...
Chris: Every teacher out there has probably said at some point in time, "Turn to your neighbor and talk about this idea. Look at your teammates and talk about this idea."
Student: Why did you do those shapes there?
Student: ’Cause it looked cool. [laughter]
Chris: And really watch. If they are talking about the topic that you've asked them to talk about, if they're actually listening to each other, and using that language and those social skills, then all of a sudden, you have an environment where 30 kids are all learning at the same time.
Teacher: Today Lucia intentionally bumps into Jackson in the lunchroom and makes him spill his food.
Narrator: The Aggressors, Victims and Bystanders, or AVB curriculum has been adopted by all of the middle schools in the district.
Teacher: What are some of the cool-headed thoughts he could have?
Student: He might think that she likes him, and that's why she's being so mean to him.
Teacher: Exactly. I hate to say it, but sometimes at middle school, kids do some really weird things to the kids they like.
Trudy: Today you're going to be interviewing one person. And that one person is also going to be interviewing you.
Trudy: "Scrutinize" will be a word that will be on your next quiz. I want you to really scrutinize them, and think about your impressions beyond just what they say.
Trudy: One of the students wrote about his partner that he interviewed, because this student's parent was a drug addict, and actually caused a great deal of turmoil in the family. And was actually a student that he had sort of looked down on, I think, before. At the end he wrote, "I have a great deal of respect for what this student has been through."
Student: Do you have a job or what's your home...?
Student: Well, I have a disabled brother, and I usually take care of him and stuff.
Trudy: I just think that you need to be in touch with their feelings, their emotions. When I know what's going on, and I acknowledge that, and we deal with it, then we can get on to the job of learning.
Teacher: Two, three...
Chorus: [singing] "The world is full of all kinds of people. Inside our love grows the same."
Michael: We're all under the gun to improve our test results, the academics. But I tell you what, it's a whole lot more fun to start focusing on that connection with kids and helping people feel good about where they are. The other will fall. Our teachers, I think, are much happier. They like their kids!
Teacher: Good job, kiddo. Excellent!
Teacher: Practice being cool-headed this weekend.
Corey: Since my freshman year, the amount of suspensions that have happened at East have gone down dramatically. The amount of fights has gone down dramatically. East, as a whole, is so much better than before.
Corey: The goal is to hit the ball in the air as many times...
Vickie: The advantage of spending time doing this is the pay-off in academics. There's research out now that shows that kids involved in intentional social-emotional learning programs like we're trying to do right here, scored on average ten percent higher on their standardized tests. So what are we giving up? We're giving up higher referrals, we're giving up violence in our schools? What are we getting? Kids who come to school because they want to come to school. And kids who know how to act when they get into the schools. And hopefully kids who will go into their futures with a better chance of success.
Michael: How should we treat each other?
Student: Very well, because if we treat each other really bad, we won't get along or be friends, or like be part of a big family.
Michael: You know what? You go home and you tell your mom-- look at me-- you have [speaks Spanish].
Michael: All right, [speaks Spanish].