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Letter: School curriculum needs a fourth “R” — relationship skills

Moderator Vijita Patel, left, joins Parkland High School students Lewis Mizen, second left, Suzanna Barna, third left, and Kevin Trejos, right, in a moment of silence at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Saturday, March 17, 2018. Student survivors of a Florida high school shooting took their message calling for greater gun safety measures abroad for the first time on Saturday, sharing with educational professionals from around the world their frightening experience. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)

In the last 20 years the level of positive “affect” (feelings, expressions, behaviors) has, in apparent manner, changed for the worse. No longer does still water run deep, but, if compared to a lake, it is wider in factual accumulation, but shallow in the acceptable depth of relationship skills. If this drain/drift continues, the new normal of concern, compassion, empathy, manners modesty, humility will collectively become self-absorption. One can point to a number of indicators; not the least being the combination of rage and indifference that is leading to mass killing.

We need, within all our schools, a specific and continual portion of curriculum: a fourth “R.” Not just reading, writing and arithmetic, but relationship skills. As a clinician and educator, I would assure you that curriculum units exist and, if taught at continuous levels of education, would remedy most all in need of personal support. Such focus would at the least clearly identify those who cannot be treated and need more specific intervention. It would not require an armed teacher, but one with the tangible tools to identify, intervene and create a positive “educational” learning experience: an ability to successfully relate to life experiences the student might confront.

Ronald John, Sandy