Unpacking SEL: Building Friendships From a Distance

This article is first in a series that will examine social emotional learning at OHS. Hannah Yang (‘20) will compile student thoughts regarding the four major student supports categories and, from these results, offer suggestions for how OHS can continue to improve its wellness programs.

Student at Pixelfest 2020 with Director of Student Support, Dr. Tracy Steele.

A comprehensive Wellness program to replace the previous Physical Education program! Interest-focused homerooms discussing a myriad of topics from Digital Humanities to Marine Biology! The continuation of support programs such as Pixel Pals, which connects new OHS students with student volunteers! OHS has done a great deal to augment the social emotional learning (SEL) that can take place in our digital corridors, and at a school where stress culture is so prevalent, it is indeed necessary to take steps to make sure that students feel like they have an emotional as well as an academic support system. 

In the 2017-2018 academic year, OHS joined a two-year pilot program with the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) and Panorama Education, which administered annual surveys in order to “gauge student perceptions of social-emotional skills and competencies.” The results of these surveys have introduced numerous additions to our wellness programs in the past. Results from the 2017 survey introduced upperclassmen topic homeroom options, the Student Showcase at Graduation Weekend, Wellness Coaches, and new student travel opportunities.

According to the CAIS report, our growing entourage of SEL programs has led to improvements across all four student supports categories: Engagement (from 64% in 2018 to 66% in 2019), Rigorous Expectations (from 82% to 85%), Sense of Belonging (from 20-39th percentile to 40-59th percentile), and Teacher-Student Relationships (from 76% to 81%). These results are promising, and OHS scores highly amongst peer schools, placing in the 80-99th percentile for most categories. 

However, we still have a long way to go. In a Pixel Journal survey regarding the efficacy of OHS SEL programs, only 61.5% of all students surveyed believe that OHS does a good job supporting their social and emotional needs. The number is likely unsurprising for many students, who have sat through stilted homeroom discussions about growth mindset or submitted half-hearted Wellness reflections.

Though I urge students to take SEL programs as an opportunity to engage in thoughtful reflection instead of participating in the bare minimum, I do agree that there is unfulfilled potential in OHS’s facilitation of SEL.

Some might argue that our school’s online format is an inherent barrier to constructing a support system. However, we found that 84.6% of students believe that it is possible for online schools in general to effectively support SEL, and 15.4% of those students even agreed that the online format is not a serious limitation on SEL at all.

Photo from Pixelfest 2020.

Perhaps OHS isn’t hitting the points that matter most to students. When asked which OHS offerings were beneficial to their social emotional learning, students’ top five choices were “Graduation Weekend or Summer @ Stanford,” “support from friends at OHS,” “meetups during the school year,” “office hours,” and “clubs and circles”, in that order. In contrast, specific efforts to promote SEL, such as Wellness workshops, homeroom discussions, classes such as Designing Your Life, and the Wellness/PE program received almost no votes. Further, 100% of OHS students who participated in the survey voted that the most important factors for their social and emotional well-being are “close friends” and “academic or extracurricular passions”, with “in-person friends,” “sense of belonging in their school community,” and “support from family” being the next most important factors.

It’s clear: students feel that their emotional well-being benefits most from close relationships with their peers, whether online or offline.

How can OHS help students to build their own peer support systems? Students responding to the survey suggested that the school should offer “more meetups.” However, part-time student Aditi Talati ‘20 confessed, “When I started going to OHS I went to a lot of the official meetups, and a lot of them were pretty awkward,” adding “eventually I realized that most of the older OHSers mostly made plans on their own.” It’s true that at larger annual events, such as MIT Splash and Graduation Weekend, most students choose to spend time with their friends instead of participating in school-arranged activities. This suggests that meetups are valuable opportunities to develop existing friendships, but they aren’t necessarily the best place to make new friends. 

Overwhelmingly, students agreed that their closest friends at OHS were those they had become friends with in-person, usually during Summer @ Stanford (S@S). Two weeks may seem like a short time, but S@S allows for far more meaningful, organic interactions than a two hour meetup could. Students spend all day together in class and during their free time. However, due to its timing, location, and price tag, S@S is inaccessible to the majority of students.

Ideally, OHS could recreate the S@S environment online — that is, facilitate the creation of spaces where students could ‘bump into’ each other, unscheduled, and start conversations with their classmates. 

Many open-to-all, large Skype group chats such as “Hallways” were intended to provide casual interactions between peers. However, these often become inactive throughout the school year, as it’s difficult to sustain lively and personal-feeling conversation in a 300-person group chat. While clubs are, in theory, a great way to meet people with similar interests, most students don’t interact with club members outside of meetings and activities. For the most part, school activities such as assemblies and workshops face a similar issue of failing to spark lasting interactions and friendships. These unfortunate realities make it unsurprising that only 65% of CAIS respondees (202 students) agreed that they “have good friends [at OHS].”

OHS can do its best to create opportunities for students to meet one another. But in an environment where students are not continually interacting with one another, it’s easy for people to drift away and isolate.

Dorm Pride at Summer @ Stanford 2019.

While I hope that OHS’s administrators will read this article and continue to think of ways to promote more meaningful student interactions, I also believe that more students need to recognize that it is partially their responsibility to form genuine friendships. Whether by committing to the clubs that you join, scheduling calls with your friends, or sparking discussion in a class group chat, it is possible to make OHS an environment where you are engaging with your classmates all day.

Creating such an environment for yourself is not as convenient or easy as it would be in a brick-and-mortar school, but the skills you will build in the process are unique and valuable. Not only could you meet some of your best friends at OHS, you’ll learn to put yourself out there and to take initiative within your community. You’ll be an expert in maintaining communication over long distances and converting from one timezone to another. I strongly believe that one of the best lessons OHS teaches is how to foster genuine, long-lasting friendships from a distance. In college and adult life, when people are busier and scattered all around the globe, OHSers know not to give up: you’ll already be accustomed to overcoming arbitrary barriers to friendship.

Developing positive relationships during high school is important for student well-being, and OHS should continue to work towards ensuring that every student can feel a sense of belonging during their time here. But it’s also true that if each OHSer proactively seeks to connect with others within our remarkable community, they might find that their extra efforts equip them with skills and mindsets that will help them to maintain these friendships and build new ones in college and beyond.