Tag: pandemic

How the Social Styles List Can Transform Your Classroom

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Free Resource for Effective Classroom Management

Without a doubt, high school classrooms today are more diverse than ever—culturally, emotionally, and socially. As educators, you likely face students with varying communication preferences, personalities and “social styles”, making it challenging to foster meaningful relationships and manage your classroom effectively. Importantly, one-size-fits-all approaches to classroom management don’t work anymore. When you’re striving to build an inclusive and supportive learning environment, you need better tools.

An illustration of a classroom of students that look different from each other. A group of diverse students are working together on a project, symbolizing collaboration, innovation, creativity, teamwork, and education.

This is where my free Social Styles List comes in. In particular, it’s designed to help you easily identify and understand your students’ communication type. These are “styles” present in most classroom settings. Understanding the styles helps you create better connections. and guide classroom interactions in a way that feels authentic and supportive for each student.

Why Knowing Your Students’ Social Styles Matters

Image shows animal illustrations from Carson and Sands Medicine Cards.
From Medicine Cards by David Carson and Jamie Sams

Understanding social styles can be a game-changer in your approach to classroom management. Students often express themselves in ways that reflect their social and emotional tendencies. By recognizing these tendencies, you can:

  • Create more effective lesson plans tailored to different communication styles
  • Mediate conflicts before they escalate by addressing the root of the issue
  • Build stronger relationships with students by connecting in ways that resonate with them
  • Foster a positive, collaborative classroom culture where students feel seen and understood

Furthermore, how do you know what social style each student leans toward? That’s where my Social Styles List can help!

What You’ll Get with the Free Social Styles List

The Social Styles List provides a simple breakdown of the four main social styles: Analytical, Driver, Amiable, and Expressive. Each style comes with a description of common traits, behaviors, and interaction preferences.

Imaage shows a picture from the aws Studios.art mental health skills building "Circle of Community" resource.

This List is a sneak peek into my comprehensive Circle of Community which is an activity to help you implement these strategies and build stronger student relationships.

How This Resource Solves Common High School Classroom Issues

Current high school teachers are facing challenges like low student engagement, increased social anxiety, and classroom conflict stemming from differing communication styles. In addition, many students are struggling to express themselves. This is further underscored by disruptions caused by the pandemic.

Image shows the opt-in form to sign up to get a free copy of the Social Styles list.

The Social Styles List offers a solution by helping you:

  • Identify students’ communication preferences so you can tailor your approach
  • Understand what drives different social behaviors in the classroom
  • Minimize miscommunication that leads to conflicts or disengagement
  • Cultivate a classroom environment where each student feels valued and understood

Take the First Step Toward Better Classroom Management

Ready to get started? Download the Social Styles List for free and begin using it in your classroom today! It’s a practical tool you can start using right away to improve your relationships with students and help them connect with each other.

Also, if you love this List, you’ll find more resources in my Circle of Community activity. In addition, it is also available as part of my Classroom Management / Relationship Building Bundle. These resources provide deeper insights and actionable strategies to strengthen your classroom community.

Getyour free Social Styles List today!

This resource can help you build stronger connections with your students. This creates a classroom environment that promotes learning, growth, and mutual respect.

Have you used Social Styles in your classroom?

How did it go?

Let us know in the Comments section below.

Back To Basics: Practical Mental Health Information

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aws Studios is proud to celebrate May as Mental Health Month! The following is an article from Mental Health America:

Mental Health Awareness

Since the start of the pandemic, more people are talking about mental health. An increasing number of folks are starting to see it for what it is: one important component of your overall health and well-being, just like your physical health. But mental health conditions, resources, and conversations can still feel complicated and out of reach.

An image of an applique of hikers resting and viewing the distant mountain landscape signifying the importance of self-care, rest and relaxation for mental health.

Be Informed


Are there common warning signs for mental health conditions or crises? Specific factors that can lead to mental health conditions or even crises? What resources are out there – and how do I know if they’re right for me?

another image signifying the importance of rest and relaxation with an abstract collage of a beach scene with sand, waves, beach chairs and umbrellas.

Many people are learning about mental health topics for the first time. Having a widespread understanding of the topic can help you be more informed if you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health condition or crisis. Around half of people in the U.S. will meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in their life, so everyone should know what to look out for.

Everyone should have the support needed to thrive. Communities that have been historically and presently oppressed face a deeper mental health burden because of the added impact of trauma, oppression, and harm. There’s often no one single cause for a mental health condition. Instead, there are many possible risk factors that can influence how likely a person is to experience a mental health condition or how serious the symptoms may be.

Know the Risk Factors


Some risk factors for mental health conditions include: trauma, which can be a one-time event or ongoing; your environment and how it impacts your health and quality of life (also known as social determinants of health like financial stability and health care access); genetics; brain chemistry; and your habits and lifestyle such as a lack of sleep.

An image of pool water signifying importance of bringing calm and beauty into our lives for better mental health.

Questions to ask yourself

Of course, understanding the risk factors for a mental health condition can be more difficult when it’s your own mental health. Take time to ask yourself about your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to see if this is part of a pattern that may be caused by a mental health condition. Here are some questions to get you started:


• Have things that used to feel easy started feeling difficult?
• Does the idea of doing daily tasks like making your bed now feel really, really hard?
• Have you lost interest in activities and hobbies you used to enjoy?
• Do you feel irritated, possibly to the point of lashing out at people you care about?

Our society focuses much more on physical health than mental health, but both are equally important. If you are concerned about your mental health, there are several options available. You are not alone – help is out there, and recovery is possible. It may be hard to talk about your concerns, but simply acknowledging to yourself that you’re struggling is a really big step.

Mental Health Awareness Resources


Taking a screen at mhascreening.org can help you to better understand what you are experiencing and get helpful resources. After that, consider talking to someone you trust about your results, and seek out a professional to find the support you need.

While you may not need this information today, knowing the basics about mental health will mean you’re prepared if you ever need it. Go to mhanational.org/may to learn more.

Another Why “There’s a Mental Health Crisis Among American Children”

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Something’s Missing

In the NY Times article, “There’s a Mental Health Crisis Among American Children.  Why?: And the pandemic is not the only reason,” I noticed a missing “why”, a big one.

Tingley lists many reasons why we have a mental health crisis in this country. These include issues with data collection, the ability for more children to receive adequate and early mental health care. She also points out how the pandemic has added to  the crisis. But, she adds “rising numbers” of children and youth with mental illness was happening before Covid19. Less than 15% of these youth received treatment. 

A Lack of Mental Health Education

A picture showing to little girls hugging to emphasize the need for more mental health education.

As a mental health educator, the “why” there’s a mental health crisis in the US that I see missing is the lack of mental health education.  The NYT article and others about the state of mental health in the US usually  emphasize the issue of accessing treatment as the number one reason.  But treatment for mental illnesses is a “downstream” strategy, a way to administer to those who are ill.  They are often emergency life-saving measures.  On the other hand, mental health education is an “upstream” strategy.  Its purpose to arm individuals with the things they need to know and do to maintain mental health and prevent mental illnesses and the need for treatment as much as possible. 

Making Mental Health Skill Building Fun and Easy

Because of the lack of mental health education, states like New York and California have made or are making it a law. These laws work to ensure mental health education happens in schools.  It’s too bad we need laws to make mental health education take place.  Teaching and learning the skills of mental health isn’t hard.  And it can be fun!  In my last post, I talked about learning the social and emotional skill of acknowledging fear. Embracing a “little fear” helps us move beyond anxiety to a place of thriving.  For all healthy skills, it helps to understand why we need the skill and why it works.  To learn the skill of acknowledging fear, it helps to understand how our brains work when we’re experiencing it. 

Fear is a powerful emotion.  In its basic form, it keeps us safe.  And in our early human development, tuning into fear was essential for survival.  The thing is, even now hundreds of thousands of years later, fear still wants to react in its primal way.  A lot of fear we experience isn’t a life-or-death. Because of this,  we need to embody the skill of calming our primal brain areas down and tune into the areas that provide a more modern, logical and practical  approach.

I like how Dr. Steve Peters explains this in a simplified and fun way. Helping to clarify the complexity of brain science, Peters breaks it down. He conveys how our “emotional thinking machine” “The Chimp” needs to placate “The Human,” the area of thinking and planning. Says Peters, “You are not responsible for the nature of the dog but you are responsible for managing it, keeping it well behaved.”  Just as “you are not responsible for the nature of your Chimp but you are responsible for managing it.” And that’s a mental health skill! 

So, yes, we may be in a mental health crisis. But we don’t need to wait for laws and our schools to put a dent in that crisis. Mental health education can be provided now.  As parents and adults, we can help build the skills of mental health in our children. And, more importantly, for ourselves – in fun and engaging ways.  That’s what my picture book, “Adventures with phearnik!™”  is all about.  It’s a fun way to learn how to keep your social relationships and emotions healthy! 

What about you?  Could you use a fun way to help your child not be so fearful or anxious?  Could you yourself use the same!?  “Adventures with phearnik!™” can help! 

Overcoming Anxiety During the Pandemic

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sunrise in the preserve

My 2020 and 2021 collages, “Sunrise in the Preserve” and “Sunrise near Bellacina” are currently showing in the Venice (Florida) Art Center’s new “Near and Far” show (running now through February 11, 2022).  The two works together in a series of three (including “Sunrise on the Bay”) tell the story about how creating art during the confines of the covid19 pandemic helped me maintain and, possibly, strengthened my mental – social and emotional – health. 

Isolated in the first many months of the pandemic in 2020, I found solace in my small studio.   The unassuming, demure space provides me with plenty – the secure comfort I desire for my creating.  Ever since I was a little kid, I have always enjoyed the confines of small, big-enough-for-only-me spaces.  The enclosed spandrel (the space underneath the stairs leading up to the second floor of our house) was my indoor playhouse.   Every morning after breakfast, I couldn’t wait to play under the stairs with my dolls, in my own private, cozy representation of my family’s kitchen, complete with a 1950’s toddler sized white metal kitchen sink, stove and refrigerator.  It was the safe sanctuary that my natural introversion craved.

Like the enclosed spandrel, my two, small, big-enough-for-only-me studio spaces (one in upstate NY and the other in Venice, Florida) provide me with the safe and secure calm I desire for my creative focus.  In this soothing space, I  relax and, along with my collage practice, destress.  It was in my Venice studio where I “got through” the early pandemic months (and the later ones too) with peace and relaxation. 

sunrise near Bellacina

Creating collage – the cutting and securing paper or fabric to a ridged surface – helps me manage my mental wellbeing.  Scissors and X-Acto knives (slim, small knives with similarly slim razor blades for cutting my materials) are, for me, therapeutic.  The concentration and attention required to accurately slice fabric or paper flows through my body. It calms my arms, hands and fingers down into a focused peacefulness.  Again, the concentrated practice allows me to exhale my stress and tension.

sunrise on the bay

Collage also satisfies my desire for a challenge. It provides me another way to take care of my mental health.  Stimulating our brain with challenges and problem solving helps to improve our  mindset. This helps to make us feel more positive about the future.  It helps to build confidence and gives us something to focus on. Problem solving takes our minds off the things that cause anxiety.  Creating a picture that represents a story with Impressionistic-like simplicity is my challenge and goal.  But the pandemic in early 2020, created an additional challenge. The challenge of trying to find materials needed for my collaging (remember, at first, stores closed completely)! 

my work desk in my demure studio!

One of the reasons I made pictures of a sunrise was because the only ridged surface I had at the time to build my collages on was a piece of florescent orange cardboard leftover from another project (I totally can’t remember what that was)!  The bright orange became the  perfect background to represent the dramatic streaks and peaks of the morning’s rising sunlight.  Another challenge was obtaining colored paper to cut and collage the sky and foreground.  Again, the only thing I had on hand were magazines.  Even though magazines are not the best choice when considering a picture’s longevity and its archivalness,  the “Venice Magazine” about Gulf Coast living,  provided me with a broad selection of colors; the heavier cover paper becoming my favorite choice to weave into my sunrise representations.

Many artists relate their practice to helping them with strengthen their mental health. During the scariest early days and months of the pandemic, my “art saved me” (as it often does).  It provided me a way to escape from the worries of what the virus.  My secure and safe studio gave me focus. It illuminated a silver lining to my isolation – that of creating three related collages.  Even the show’s opening night helped me grow my social health. My husband and I met another artist and his wife who also live in Venice.   The four of us closed the reception down. We were the last to leave. We enjoyed a conversation of getting to know each other, exchanging numbers and promises to get together again.

How about you?  Did/do you find solace  during the pandemic creating art and or crafts?  How does art or craft making affect your mental health?  Have you noticed ways art helps to strengthen your social and emotional health? I would love to hear from you in the “Leave a Reply” below.