Happy, sad, angry, and tired are all moods that people feel. Sometimes people are unaware that they are feeling these emotions or decide to brush them off by saying that they’re “fine” or “okay.” That is why the mood meter was brought into school. It’s there to assist students in identifying emotions and the reasons behind them.
As previously mentioned, the high school has recently adapted the mood meter. It is used to help students express and acknowledge what they are feeling. The meter has four different zones with a range of emotions in each one. Green is for calm, blue is for sadness, yellow is upbeat, and red is for stress or anger. There are also arrows going up and down the meter that represent energy level and arrows side to side that represent pleasantness. The meter was brought into the high school by teacher, Ms. Velasquez, who has been a staff member at the high school for two years. She uses her skills to improve student behavior and help regulate their emotions in order to get through the day. She previously taught at McKinley Middle School, where the mood meter was introduced to her by the assistant principal at the time, and she has carried it with her to every school she has been to since. She has said that she loves the meter and she believes that everyone should have one. She even uses the meter at home with her children.
Currently, Velasquez has about nine students that she sees daily, and she will always begin her class with the meter to see how they are feeling. It keeps her students well aware of their emotions, but also guides her in assisting with problems that they come across. Velasquez’s students face a wide variety of challenges spanning from issues at home to issues with other students. When talking about how the meter helps her solve issues she said, “[The meter] helps get to the bottom of an issue faster because they can come in and communicate their emotions and how they got feeling that way.”
Valesquez doesn’t keep the meter to herself though. She has taken the initiative to introduce it to the adults in the high school. Velasquez hosts a circle group for teachers where she uses the meter to gauge how they are feeling and then teaches them how to do the same with students. Now, thanks to her, the meter has been introduced all over the school in multiple different classes and in the break room where teachers can express how they’re feeling to their co-workers.
So far, the mood meter has been a great addition to the school and Velasquez’s class. It helps people recognize, manage, and communicate their emotions. Also, it helps Velasquez understand her students’ feelings so that she is able to aid in solving their issues more effectively and efficiently than before. The meter has proved to be a very effective tool for Velasquez, and the hope is that the same success will carry over to other teachers in the building.
