"Ever since her school adopted social-emotional learning in 2021, Ms. Julie routinely began the day by directing her Salt Lake City fifth graders..."

"... to sit in one of the plastic chairs she’d arranged in a circle. 'How is each of you feeling this morning?' she would ask.... One day, she cut to the chase: 'What is something that is making you really sad right now?'... [O]ne boy began mumbling.... 'All of a sudden, he just started bawling. And he was like, "I think that my dad hates me. And he yells at me all the time"'.... Another girl announced that her parents had divorced and burst into tears. Another said she was worried about the man her mother was dating. Within minutes, half of the kids were sobbing. It was time for the math lesson, but no one wanted to do it. It was just so sad, thinking that the boy’s dad hated him. What if their dads hated them, too?.... A second mom at the school confirmed to me that word spread throughout the school about the AA meeting–style breakdown. Except this AA meeting featured elementary school kids who then ran to tell their friends what everyone else had shared...."

Writes Abigail Shrier, in "How Bad Therapy Hijacked Our Nation’s Schools/Forget the Pledge of Allegiance. Today’s teachers are more likely to start the school day with an ‘emotions check-in.’ Abigail Shrier on the rise of ‘trauma-informed’ education" (The Free Press).