Students Learn to Work Together in Social Skills Class

As the two students stand in front of the class, they begin reading what they’ve written on the piece of orange construction paper.

“PROS: good small talk and we were there on time. CONS: be more quiet during the movie and organize rides home,” says one of them.

The students and student leaders clap for the people who have completed their stepping out project, where they went to the movie theaters without their parents to practice a social situation with a friend.

Even though this may seem like an easy feat for some people, as Social Skills teacher Maureen Johnson pointed out, “something that’s so small to an average person is such a huge deal to someone else.”

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The Social Skills class was brought to East four years ago by a past transition specialist Julie Paradise. It’s modeled after the class Interpersonal Skills at SM South. The purpose of Social Skills is to bring together regular education students and special education student leaders to discuss social skills and practice them in a comfortable, everyday environment.

There are 10 student leaders in the class of 35. To apply for social skills, applicants first fill out a questionnaire with questions like “How do you see diversity?” and “How would you handle this situation?”. Then, there’s an interview with the teachers where they ask about things like your comfort level and assertiveness.

Every year about 15-20 students apply for a student leader position, and most of the applicants are accepted. Johnson stresses the importance of student leaders in the classroom.

“An adult speaking to a high school student about something that has to do with social skills is not as meaningful [coming from] as a peer who they see as being popular or cool,” Johnson said.

On Monday of every week, student leaders turn in journals full of notes with observations or questions they have about the prior week’s class periods. Things like asking for advice on how to handle a situation with a student or suggestions for topics to be discussed in class are things that teachers often see in the journals.

Another assignment that students and student leaders have are “stepping out projects”. The purpose of the project is to do a social activity with a classmate outside of school such as getting ice cream or going to the movie theaters. Next, the classmates make a poster about their experience, noting pros and cons of their activity such as good table manners or punctuality, and present it to the class.

Even though there are similar classes around the district, Johnson said the lesson plans are all different.

“The hardest part is that there’s really no textbook for social skills. It’s really an abstract concept which, for students, is a hard concept anyways,” Johnson said.

Since there are no books the students can read to learn social skills, every class period presents completely different topics and situations. On an average day, the teachers bring up a topic that they feel needs to be covered for an in-depth conversation; anything from table manners to personal hygiene to effective decision making are discussed in the classroom.

The class sits in a big circle promoting a casual and open environment. While some students contribute to the conversation more than others, the teachers try to stay away from interfering with the flow of the conversation. Instead, they guide the conversation with questions and hypothetical situations while the students are the “conductors.”

After this part of class, the students break for second lunch. Lunchroom monitor  Chip Sherman has observed the class during his shift.

“I just thought that was so cool seeing those kids helping them; everything from helping them eat and cut their meat or just talking to them and being their friend,” Sherman said.

When the students return from lunch, they have a different topic. The teaching of this topic often involves a role-play, which is one of senior student leader Madison Haverty’s favorite activities. Around Homecoming time this year, students did a role-play of how to act during a date, complete with how to stay composed while you’re picking up you’re date and how to be respectful when meeting parents.

“It was pretty informative to everyone in the class about manners that are required, and how to be respectful, and eye contact and having a good hand shake,” Haverty said.

Another way the class has practiced their social skills is during “Restaurant Month.” The purpose of Restaurant Month is to practice table manners, money managing skills and small talking in a public setting. They chose Planet Sub, BRGR, and Waldo Pizza as places to practice their restaurant skills, because each place has a different setting and atmosphere.

While Social Skills does fun activities like Restaurant Month, the class is still a learning experience and challenging for both students and student leaders.

“The biggest challenge is making sure that I’m equal with the amount of time I spend with each kid and just making sure that I’m always branching out to different kids,” Haverty said.

Johnson emphasizes the importance of practicing social skills outside of school.

A program that meets outside of school and includes students with and without disabilities is Pack of PALS. The name is an acronym for “Pack of Positive Attitude Legion of Support.” Though it’s technically not an East program, many of the students and student leaders in Social Skills are a part of this program.

The pals and peers meet about once a month to do an activity like dinner and a movie or attending a JV basketball game.

According to PALS Vice President of Communications Betsy Blessen, PALS is a program that brings together kids with and without social skills.

“The mission is to have kids that go to East be able to interact with kids in social skills to do normal activities that kids get to do outside of school like go to games or go to the play,” Blessen said.

Freshman Mitchell Earley is a student in Social Skills and also a member of Pack of PALS. While he likes the class Social Skills, he really looks forward to PALS events. His favorite event is to go to Power Play. Mitchell’s mother, Teresa Earley, suspects Mitchell likes PALS so much because he gets to be independent.

“I’m always taking him skating or to the movies or out to dinner. So this way he gets to go out with friends without me, and he really enjoys that,” Teresa said.

Some of the pals have graduated from East and moved on to and even past Broadmoor Technical Center, but stayed a part of the program.

Former Social Skills class student and Pack of PALS member Lane Sturgeon graduated from the Broadmoor service last year. Sturgeon took the class Social Skills the first year it was offered. Her goal was to make new friends with kids without disabilities.

“They brought in kids that didn’t have disabilities into the classroom and they got to interact with us and it helped us out a lot,” Sturgeon said.

After Sturgeon graduated from East, she moved on to Broadmoor.

Sturgeon said being in the class Social Skills was “beneficial” to transitioning to Broadmoor because the teachers told the students about the Broadmoor service, letting them know it was an option for available for everyone.

Since she’s left Broadmoor, Sturgeon is cooking more often, learning how to drive, and looking for a job at a crafts store.

“My parents see a different side of me now,” Sturgeon said. “They see me more communicating now. . .I’ve grown out of my little cocoon that I kept myself in  . . . I grew out of it through social skills and pals.”

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Q&A with former Social Skills student and Pack of PALS member Lane Sturgeon

Why is it important for kids to have access to Social Skills? So that way we can learn to communicate with more people and meet new friends. It helps not just with school but out in the community, too. Before, I didn’t really know how to talk to people all that well.

How do the student leaders enrich the class? Well when I was going to East, we didn’t have student leaders. But I think that it would have made it a lot easier for people to understand us and more special ed kids would’ve been nominated for like, Homecoming king and stuff.

What is Pack of Pals like for you? For the last five years, Pack of Pals has been awesome. I’m just so grateful for it because it’s such a unique program. I have the best five pals. Emily Kerr is my favorite one in the world; she came to my show and cheered me on and it was just really, really special.

What’s your favorite thing to do with Pack of Pals? I like most of

them except roller skating, because I’m really bad at that. Most of all I just like to make friends, like I’ve made over 100 friends.

So what are you doing now? Social Skills introduced me to the Broadmoor transition services. We started a Social Skills class there but it wasn’t as fun. We had to write a lot of papers and stuff like that. But I’m working on getting my driver’s license right now; that’s really exciting. And I’m looking for a job! Probably at Hobby Lobby because I love crafts. I’m also searching for my birth parents with my mom. That’s one thing, I have the courage to do that because of Social Skills class.