District Welcomes Educational Leader Dr. Marc Brackett

Eastchester was positively abuzz this week when a delegation of educational experts—led by Yale professor Dr. Marc Brackett—visited district classrooms to engage in a dialogue surrounding social-emotional health and learn more about the ways Eastchester schools are promoting integrating SEL into classroom curriculum.

On Wednesday, Brackett—the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence—took a whirlwind tour around the district, visiting elementary school classrooms, speaking with parents, guardians and Eastchester administrators, leading a school-wide assembly for EHS students, and even recording a podcast episode alongside Superintendent Dr. Alison Villaneuva, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, Assessment, and Student Success Dr. William Meyer, and Eagles TV Studio Director Joe Blute to discuss how a deeper examination of moods and feelings can be beneficial to students both in and out of the classroom. 

According to Dr. Meyer, Brackett’s visit was born from a desire to have the author of the newly released “Dealing With Feeling: Use Your Emotions to Create the Life You Want” speak with secondary students about how his RULER program—an evidence-based approach to SEL learning—can be a vital tool for both emotional well-being and academic success. 

“This summer, as we were building out the advisory schedule, particularly around the RULER curriculum, [EHS Principal] Chris Welsh suggested that it would be great to bring Marc Brackett in to help us launch the advisory program,” said Meyer. “The thought was engaging in discussions throughout the day that explored the complexity of pushing into our emotional landscape and not necessarily about reducing moods to “good” or “bad” feelings.

“It’s about how you leverage those feelings as you go through your day,” he continued. “Whether you’re a student, a teacher, a building leader, that’s what allows us to access our best selves.”

Meyer said that the message was an especially important one for Eastchester’s high schoolers to hear, prompting a rare school-wide assembly that saw all of EHS’s nearly 900 students file into the gym to hear from the best-selling author. 

“The value of having Marc bringing everyone together, building out this whole space within the gym to have this experience, it foregrounds this in the minds of the teachers, students and staff,” said Meyer. “You can say something’s a priority, you can tell people that this is something you want to focus on, but nothing speaks more loudly to that than when you do something that clearly prioritizes it and requires tons of time and effort to make happen.”

Brackett, along with his visitors from Hong Kong’s Diocesan Boys’ School and the Bei Shan Tang Foundation, also had an opportunity to see how RULER is currently being implemented in Eastchester’s elementary classrooms. Meyer said it was an honor to provide our international guests with a glimpse of the work being done at Eastchester and noted that it is events like Wednesday’s and the district’s upcoming TedX talk that will help Eastchester cement its place as a district where discussions about exciting new educational approaches can thrive. 

“Eastchester should be a nexus point for conversations and innovations, and all of that work starts with ideas,” said Meyer. “The more we can create spaces for collaboration, where ideas can be grown and incubated, that’s where we can build on the notion of elevating the entire community.”