The first-graders formed a circle in their classroom inside the Leadership Academy at Como Elementary.
“Our hands are paint brushes,” Ashley Parrish, an intervention specialist in Fort Worth ISD, explained to the children. Every time Parrish said a color, the children dipped their hands into that hue. This time it was red.
“Then we breathe up — breathe in,” she said, inhaling to show her students what to do. “Put our hands together and way above our heads.”
“And then you breathe out and put your hands down,” Parrish told the children, moving onto another color and restarting the process.
The exercise, called rainbow breathing, doesn’t actually involve real paint. Instead, Parrish was helping the young children learn how to focus their mind on school. The breathing technique is part of Fort Worth ISD’s effort to put social-emotional learning at the forefront of its classrooms after the pandemic disrupted every piece of life.
Many techniques used in social-emotional learning have long been a part of education and predate the term, which was created in 1994. Regardless of what it’s called, students learn life skills that help them control emotions and how to interact with other people, things that educators and experts agree will help children when they eventually enter the workforce.