Episode 5: SEL in China

As Director of Instructional Technology at Nanjing International School, Dr. Shannon Doak serves an international group of students and families. Dr. Doak provides a glimpse into what education looks like in China and shares how his school is emerging from the pandemic to serve the social-emotional needs of its community. Listen now.

Learn more about Dr. Shannon Doak: Dr. Doak’s LinkedIn profile
Learn more about Nanjing International School: https://www.nischina.org/ 

Transcript

Announcer:

You're listening to the Voices in Education podcast powered by Securly, where we hear from new voices and explore new ideas about how we can reimagine education to support whole student success. Education is at an inflection point. As we grapple with complex challenges like funding and enrollment, as well as diversity, equity, and safety, we also have an opportunity, an opportunity to reimagine education. Now more than ever, we know the importance that students' overall wellbeing plays in their success. They need to feel supported and safe and connected to be able to engage in their learning and achieve to their full potential.Join your host, Casey Agena, a former teacher turned instructional coach and technologist, as he interviews inspirational educators, school leaders, wellness professionals, and more to amplify their voices. You'll learn about the innovative work they're doing to support student safety, engagement and overall wellness. And who knows? You may even spark a new idea of your own. Ready to reimagine education? Let's go.

Casey:

Welcome to Episode 8 of the Voices in Education podcast powered by Securly. I'm your host, Casey Agena. And in today's episode, we're here talking with Dr. Shannon Doak, who hails from Nanjing China, and has a really interesting perspective on social-emotional learning and digital mental health. Listen in as Shannon and I talk about the unique place that he comes from across the Pacific and the work that he's doing to engage with his students, inform his parents, and ultimately address student mental health, digital safety, and making sure everyone is knowledgeable in addressing student wellness. Shannon, welcome and glad to have you here.

Shannon:

Great. Thanks. I'm glad to be here, Casey.

Casey:

We had a really great conversation earlier talking about a lot of the similarities particularly around student wellness, mental health issues. What was happening here in the United States was very similar to what you were working with your students and your families, and your teachers even, the past 24 months. Tell us a little bit about your work and how it has impacted particularly around student wellness with your students.

Shannon:

Sure. Yeah. Just like you said, the international school field, if, for people who don't know, is basically a school for expats living in a foreign country. And we've got students from all over the world here at Nanjing International School. We did have a scare kind of at the beginning of the year, there was an outbreak due to some cleaning issues at the airport, and so we had to start online. That was a huge, you could say push, towards ensuring that we are keeping in mind and being mindful about our students' wellbeing, because being online is not easiest, especially the early years.

So the new director of learning and all of that had basically told the parents, "If you want to wait, go ahead and wait for your early years. If you want to wait and don't get online, that's fine. Wait until we're back face to face. And then you can come to school." They really did that. They did a really good job of considering the little kids. But then also our counselors were amazing. They had online sessions after school. I forget what they called them, circle meetings or something like that. Those allowed us to vent, allowed us to breathe, allowed us to go through mindfulness activities. It was really, really useful.

Casey:

For those who don't know, maybe you can help us out a little bit, because we know in China much of the decision making and the policies around school are driven by the government and what is best for everyone in China. So how does that environment impact or did impact you all and your decision making around school health and safety?

Shannon:

It impacted greatly because, because the government has such a large push and pull on anything that pretty much happens in the country, especially with any business that are doing business in China, we have to have a team, a COVID readiness team to talk about what the government restrictions are, what kind of new complications that may happen, and then what the government then says to us about how do we have to comply with these new restrictions kind of thing. So they meet and decide, "Okay, the government said this. This is how we're going to respond to it." And then it impacts how we handle the situation.

Casey:

It's almost similar to the Olympics, where you had this entity kind of running in Beijing, yet there's these policies around in China that are driving the environment, the people, the economy. And ultimately, a two week program like the Olympics has to think about what those policies are and how it impacts all of the different countries and people that are in this kind of "bubble." similarly, I guess, to you all at the international school.

Shannon:

Definitely. The Olympics itself hasn't really impacted us because it's up in Beijing and kind of in its own huge bubble.

Casey:

Right.

Shannon:

I guess you could say like the everyday citizen really has no contact with any of the athletes. China's very good at creating these bubbles and keeping COVID at bay. It's quite interesting, because when I mentioned this scare at the beginning of the year, that was like, I think 10 or 11 cases. I mean, that's what we consider a scare here. If it gets above five or six, oh it's high risk.

Casey:

Right.

Shannon:

So because they've been working on the zero case policy, it feels very safe. It feels very normal now. We still need to wear mask. We still need to when we go traveling on public transportation, things like that. Going to the mall, you have to show a QR code. If it's green, they'll let you in. If there's a color change, orange or red, you basically can't go into anything. And if it's red, you basically have to quarantine. So there's lots of things going on that kind of dictate what we can do at the school. At the moment, we're not allowed to have large groups in our school. So we actually have a space called the Center that we have been able to work with the government. And that space is basically a public space. So parents can come into that space, but they can't go beyond it. They can't enter the school, but they can enter that, the Center.

Casey:

So a couple of things, how the school year started and this kind of scare, the restrictions in terms of parents and students and the school itself and this restricted area, all of these pieces that are now, scary I guess, and frustrating too.

Shannon:

It is.

Casey:

I think it's just in terms of...well, look back at pre COVID and how school was. How has that impacted students and staff?

Shannon:

I think for the most case, students are very resilient. And this is not like the first time they've had to do this, like going online and transitioning and doing all this stuff. They had to deal with that the first time in 2020. From what I heard, because I wasn't at the school in 2020, I was at HPA in Hawaii, but from what I heard, this transition online at the beginning of the school year in August was actually really smooth. The teachers kind of knew what they were doing. They were more familiar with the software and the platforms that we were using. But because the teachers were kind of like more comfortable with this mode of education, this blended kind of approach or more of an e-learning kind of approach because we couldn't really meet in face to face environment, it was easier for them.

And then not only that. Again, I have to say the admin at this school, they're really, really mindful of people and a work-balanced life. And so once they found out that we were going to go online, instead of starting school right when it was supposed to, they said, "Okay, we're going to wait a week. We're going to give you teachers a chance to get prepped. Then we're going to start." I think, to be honest, it's all about flexibility, people being aware and everyone knowing that we're all dealing with issues. It's interesting because international schools anyway, we get an influx of kids leaving and coming and new people all the time and they're not here that long. The transitions that families have to go through anyway are quite difficult. COVID is just making it more so. So it's just good that everyone is being a little bit more flexible, being more mindful about it, being more kind to each other.

Casey:

You having had experiences both in the US and now in China and you talking about this mindset of dealing with transitions all the time and being flexible, is that similar or different to your experiences when you were working in the US?

Shannon:

Glad to say HPA is also a great school and they hang handled it really well. As an independent day school and boarding school, we had to deal with international students as well. And so we had all of these restrictions in place, but we were able to pretty much complete the entire school year face to face. So again, it was not at all sustainable from the teacher's perspective. Teachers were overworked, admin was overworked, everybody was overworked, but it was the only way we could make it the best learning environment for our students. So people were willing to do this because it was what's best for the kids, which is what teachers do anyway. Things changed the year after, the year I left to come to China, about how they approached the learning and the schedule so that the teachers, it was a little bit more sustainable. But I think it's the same everywhere. People understand the difference.

Casey:

Talk a little bit about that overworkedness and the demand on teachers. As you all know, we're starting to see this. I mean, not only here in the US, but even across the pond. In some of the Europe schools that we're in touch with, teachers are just feeling that burnout. They're so giving of themselves and there's sometimes a lack to kind of think of that self-care as well. How much of that, in terms of that self-care, I know that you talked a little bit about teaching that to the students, but how much of that are the teachers really taking it on for themselves and understanding the self care of themselves? And is that something that you are seeing too much like here in the US where the teachers are really considering leaving the profession?

Shannon:

I have to say maybe not leaving the profession. I would have to say if you compare China of with the rest of the world, we're a little bit more normal. We have face to face classes. No one's forced to wear masks. There's no social distancing issues. It's pretty much like a normal day at school. So that kind of burnout because of the restrictions and because of all of that kind of stuff isn't really happening. However, because of traveling restrictions, we're finding a lot of people who are now wanting to leave. They haven't seen their families in three years. They can't get home. And it's the same reason, we, my family and I came back to China, was because we hadn't seen my wife's family almost three years and we couldn't travel into China. And so it was just like, "Okay, let's go, let's move back."

Casey:

Right.

Shannon:

I think COVID has impacted people's lives and not just in negative ways. I think the positive thing is its kind of pushed technology to the forefront and has opened up new arenas for people to consider as learning spaces, as spaces to have meaningful conversations, as spaces for people to develop that mindfulness about things to bring themselves back into balance. So technology is able to do these things. Being able to connect with family and friends is still possible. If we didn't have this technology and we had to go through all of these things, I think it would've been worse.

Casey:

Yeah. Shannon, the education technology piece of your work, where one, you were forced to as a school to go online to start the year, two, the kids themselves having the capacity to say, "Hey, I can work with this app. I can work with these LMS" in your perspective, working in both the US and in China now, similarities in differences in terms of engagement with education technology, the apps, those are all different. What is that kind of digital ecosystem look like at Nanjing?

Shannon:

Okay. Because we are an international school and we're trying to provide a as close to an international educational experience to our students as possible, we basically have in place everything any school or any independent day school or independent boarding school or even public schools would have in place. We have a learning management systems. We have student information systems, email, office suites, things like that. So people can do things. Teachers can teach, students can create. I think the ecosystem's pretty much the same. In fact, we probably still use a lot of the same software and things that everybody else is using.

In China, there's this block and copy thing, but the kinds of things that we're using for international schools, the government understands who we are. They've given us permission to do business here. They give us connection to the world, the internet, all this kind of things. So it's regular educational environment. However, being online, it means the students are on these devices far more than usual.

Casey:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Shannon:

I think this has raised the need for parents to kind of learn, well, what does it look like to be a parent in 2022. I think it just pushes that into the forefront.

Casey:

Let's take a short break to hear a word from our sponsor.

Announcer:

The Voices in Education podcast is brought to you by Securly. Pioneering the student safety movement in 2013, Securly continues to lead the charge in innovative education technology. As the only whole student success platform for K-12 education, Securly helps schools ensure student safety, increase student and family engagement, proactively support student wellness, and optimize student device and technology initiatives. More than 15,000 schools worldwide choose Securly to help them keep students safe, engaged, and well. To learn how Securly can support your school, visit www.securly.com. 

Casey: 

And now back to the interview. You have the devices and the technology for school use, but you have international students and families. They are connecting with folks beyond China and with their families. So there's a constant kind of use and engagement in technology. What role do you and the school play in working with families about setting those expectations, what it means for their children to be online? What role do you all play in that at your school?

Shannon:

So it's important, I think, for us as a school to provide educational experiences for our students. But I also think it's important to provide these same kinds of experiences for the parents, because it's really difficult being a parent in the digital age. Our parents didn't have to deal with this. I mean, the worst thing that my parent had to deal with was maybe like an Nintendo system and all they had to do was unplug it. That's the cord.

Casey:

That's dating yourself then.

Shannon:

Yeah. Just a little bit. And then, oh, I had a game boy. But take the batteries out, done. But they didn't have to deal with that, they didn't have to deal with the potential dangers that the kids face these days. We like to provide like a parent coffee type of event where we talk to parents about how to use media and balances a family, sending expectations and building healthy use, and preventing conflict around this, kind of building that communication or that culture of communication around technology use in the family.

Casey:

Have these issues like cyber bullying or bad messaging or things that are showing up, have a lot of these technology issues shown up? Because as you know, I mean here in the US, there's challenges there of like where kids are going and who they're engaging with. I mean, are you all dealing with those similar challenges working with parents?

Shannon:

Oh yeah, totally. The apps might be different. I think probably the largest group of students that we have in Nanjing, other than we have Chinese students, are on American passports. They have to have a passport from outside of China to attend school.

Casey:

Oh, okay.

Shannon:

But we got Chinese students, we've got Korean students, we've got German students, we've got Japanese students, we've got students from America, from Australia, all of these things. And so the platforms that they use might be different, but the platform is still social media. So it still has all of those negative impacts. There's still cyber bullying. There's still the fear of missing out. This is a real concern. People fear that they're going to miss something. And so the kids are trying to be on that device all the time. But you know what? It's not... And I think this is the biggest thing for parents that they don't understand, is it's not the device that they're addicted to. It's their friends. This is the way that they are communicating.

I communicated with my friends via a telephone. That's all I had. I was at on the phone and my mom would "Hey, what are you on the phone [inaudible]? Can you get off? You're tying up the line" kind of thing. But that was it when we went out, when face to face. But these kids are constantly connected all the time. They're just texting their friends. They're using Discord. Maybe they're using Instagram. Maybe they're using some messaging program, WhatsApp or Line or WeChat. These are all means of communicating. And that's really what they're doing online. But then of course, cyber bullying can become a major issue because of that. And body image issues can all become issues because of social media. So these are all things that, yeah, we're all dealing with it. Definitely. The platforms are different.

Casey:

So you have these times when you have these, I think you said coffee talks or times when parents can come and you host this forum I guess, to share tips or resources. Is this something that is kind of an event piece that you do all the time and parents come? Tell us a little bit about that.

Shannon:

So right now this year, because of the restrictions that we're having in place about in-person type of gathering, we've been able to have one gathering so far. We had about, I don't know, 30 people in attendance. It was mainly myself and the primary school principal. We kind of presented a few ideas and I had parents chime in. We're having another one. This one's going to be basically about cyber bullying, kind of in-depth. The first one was more about finding media balance, setting up family media agreements, talking to your kids, being involved, giving them parenting tips. This next one's going to be more about cyber bullying and the best approaches to it, the social media apps that the kids are using and what security measures are there to help with cyber bullying, blocking and reporting and so forth. So, yeah, that's the kind of thing that we do.

Casey:

In terms of just resources for yourself, are you pulling that from anywhere or is there some guide from a curricular standpoint or some resources that you look at that says, "Hey I'm looking at this. I'm reading this. This really makes sense for my parents and the coffee talks that we'll have."

Shannon:

Totally I've actually been using for the last, I'm going to say seven or eight years, Common Sense Media as fantastic resources for parents, for teachers. They even have an awesome digital citizenship curriculum. But the parent resources are basically my foundation. So I use that. And then of course, because we're in China, I have to take certain things out and put other things in. But it's a strong foundation that what Common Sense has put together. So I'm a big Common Sense Media fan, but I've also used ISTE things. Google has some great cyber bullying, they call it Be Internet Awesome. I mean, there's just so many cool things to help kids and the parents learn about dealing with the digital world and how to navigate it.

Casey:

Yeah. I love that you said foundational, because even halfway across the world, where I'm at, you're able to kind of, one, access these resources, but two, augment them in a way that makes sense for the country you live in, the community you serve, the types of parents that are there, and of course the students and their savviness and adapt it and adopt it in a way that makes sense for them. There's so many resources that parents can go to and as many of the listeners here who are educators can go to as well.

Last piece here. We had talked a little bit about this idea of phishing. Not fishing with F and the fishing pole, but P-H phishing and this digital security as kind of this really item that's kind of popping up with so much communication particularly with the parents and the students and the teachers that you work with, inbound/outbound, different countries, staying connected to people that they love, and they care about. Tell us about engagement and highlighting at your school about this digital security around phishing.

Shannon:

So I think it's important for everybody to realize that a really high percentage close to 90, maybe a little bit less than 90, but 90% of all successful cyber attacks are due to human error and usually something that is socially engineered and requires someone to click. This phishing idea is probably kind of the last line of defense. We have all these things in place. We have firewalls. We have filters on our email systems. We have ATP. There's so many things that we have in place to keep things safe. But if one person clicks, down goes our house of cards.

I'm working with a company called KnowBe4. I've learned a lot from them. I think the main thing that I like about them, they always say "Your last line of defense is your human firewall." And I love that because that really puts the emphasis on the users. So I've been basically testing my users by sending them fake phishing emails and seeing how many people click and so forth and doing the kinds of testing that says "Gives us some data" to go, "Hey, oh, we had a pretty high click rate there. Maybe we need to do some training." So then we do some training on phishing and red flags to look for and things like that. And I think it's important to share these kinds of information with the parents as well. So I've been also writing in the weekly bulletin, digital safety and security tips. So I share those as well. This is how we approach it.

Casey:

It goes back to what you had said I think in the very beginning where there's a comfort for students when you had to go online to start this current school year, yet continuing with that idea of self-awareness, self-worth, decision making, not only in the classroom but in the digital spaces as well, how much of that is really rested on the social learning, the emotional learning, and bringing it together on SEL and thinking about yourself, who are you out there, what's coming in. I mean, all of that is really kind of connected in your work. Even though there's some transient families and how the international schools are run, there's still also that constant too of Chinese families who are there with international passports and whatnot. And so you have a really unique school that you have. It's really awesome of the work that you're doing.

Now, I want to highlight some different things that Shannon has shared with us. One, even halfway across the world, that emphasis on social-emotional learning and that student wellness piece and particularly in his work as a director of technology, thinking about their digital security, thinking about cyberbullying, thinking about those dealings. So I want to thank you Shannon for sharing a little bit about your school and yourself and what you do, for lending your voice to Voices in Education, and for you all out there for listening in. Thank you, Shannon, for joining us today.

Shannon:

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Announcer:

Thanks for tuning in to the Voices in Education podcast powered by Securly, where we hear from new voices and explore new ideas about how we can reimagine education to support whole student success. If you enjoy today's episode, we hope you'll consider subscribing to the podcast and sharing it with others who would benefit from listening. Even a small act of support helps us reach more people and make a bigger impact. For the resources from today's episode and additional details about the podcast, please visit www.securly.com/podcast. And until next time, thanks for listening.