Before I begin, I would like to offer this video which breaks down the Comer Method quite quickly to build an idea of what I will be discussing below:

https://youtu.be/6eprnhrkNEs

For my topic, I have decided to focus on the ideas of James P. Comer, a child psychiatrist whose work focused on poor minority children and their mental health. His work over the years evolved as more research was conducted and made readily available. As I read more about his career, I have established that his stance on education is that a student from a financially disadvantaged background will suffer lifelong consequences if they aren’t adequately supported by not only their family but also at school. His reasoning for this is discussed in the journal he wrote with Hope Hill, published in 1985, titled ‘Social Policy and the Mental Health of Black Children.’ In their work, they discuss how students, specifically Black children, who come from financially disadvantaged homes come from a long line of generational trauma, discrimination, and stress associated with the social policy established in the United States. Black students from poor homes are the products of the country's racist social policy, which lacks the adequate support these students need to succeed. Comer and Hill state that “when the resources needed to ensure a minimum foundation for development are not available, a child is placed at risk for impairments in mental health” (p. 175), which then causes a chain reaction for the generations to come. In order to help these students succeed, Comer and Hill discuss how the United States social policy must implement new research being found today to build these students’ self-concepts. One piece of research that they mentioned in their article is the importance of including “parent[s], [school] staff, and community interaction’ (Comer, 1980; Lightfoot, 1978). Including various parties to support a single student in the classroom is the heart of Comer’s work. He further elaborates on this idea of supporting the ‘whole child’ in his journal published in November of 1998 titled ‘Educating Poor Minority Children.’ In this journal, he focuses on his work to create a school program that not only focuses on the curriculum but also emphasizes the importance of social and supportive Bonds in the classroom. He sees remarkable change happen quickly in the program he curates over the years using research he has conducted. In his journal, he states that between 1968 and 1980, he and his colleagues saw the “academic performance” at the schools “surpass the national average, and truancy and disciplinary problems had declined markedly” (p. 42). The program he curated with his colleagues had many moving parts—the program heavily included teachers, parents, and psychiatrists. The different moving parts ensure that every part of the student's social and emotional well-being is fulfilled. In doing so, the students are able to concentrate in the classroom and learn more material in the long run. Ensuring the whole student is being taken care of before stepping into the classroom ensures their academic success. A photo model can be seen below:

(Comer, 1988)

Comer believes that in order for a student, specifically a Black student, to succeed, they must understand the disadvantages that they have generationally faced indirectly (Comer & Hill, 1985), thus the importance of including parents and mental health professionals (psychiatrist).

To analyze work published in the 21st century, the work written by Maurice J. Elias titled ‘Social-Emotional and Character Development as a Dual Focus in Educational Policy” (2009) focuses on not only the importance of social-emotional learning in the classroom but also character development in and out of the classroom. Elias believes that due to the lack of social-emotional and character development happening in the classroom, we are seeing an “underperformance in education,” which is disproportionately affecting “urban” and “minority students” (p. 832). In their work, Elias focuses on how education goes beyond just textbook material and how students must also learn to be functional humans outside of a classroom.

Overall, I have found a topic I want to focus on for my project. I would love to focus on social-emotional learning in minority groups in the United States. After reading a lot of Comer's work, I can see why he became consumed with his work. I would love to find out how we are able to use a multimodal method in the classroom to teach social-emotional learning, especially to minority groups in the United States.

Resources:

Comer, J. P. (1988). Comer Method. jstor.org. Retrieved January 2023, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/24989262.

Comer, J. P. (1988). Educating Poor Minority Children. Scientific American, 259(5), 42-49. https://doi.org/10.2307/24989262

Comer, J. P., & Hill, H. (1985). Social Policy and the mental health of Black Children. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 24(2), 175–181. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0002-7138(09)60444-1

Elias, M. J. (2009). Social-emotional and character development and academics as a dual focus of educational policy. Educational Policy, 23(6), 831–846. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904808330167

Lightfoot, S. (1978), Worlds Apart: Relationships between Families and Schools. New York: Basic Books

Yale School of Medicine. (2019, October 10). The Comer School Development Program [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/6eprnhrkNEs