Many of our students experience high-levels of stress. These days, of course, that’s particularly the case for many English learners and others in the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Having documents has not stopped thousands in similar situations from being taken into custody by immigration authorities. And even if students were born in the United States, many have family members who are at risk, and students themselves are in danger of racial profiling.

Today, educator Elise White Diaz offers a strategy for how teachers can support students experiencing stress. She’s specifically talking about English learners, but I think her suggestions can be applied to help any student.

Emphasizing Co-Regulation

Elise White Diaz is the author of Discover, Connect, Respond: A Practical Approach to Trauma-Informed Instruction and an educational consultant with Seidlitz Education:

A classroom vignette: Yvette’s story

Yvette—Mei Li’s chosen “American” name—sits quietly at the back of the classroom, eyes on the board. Four pink mechanical pencils are neatly lined on her desk. After instructions, the class begins working, but Yvette does not move.

Her teacher approaches.

“Yvette, are you good? Do you know what to do?”

Yvette nods, glances at her classmates, picks up her pencil, and lowers her head. When a disruption pulls the teacher away, she makes a mental note to check in with the ESL teacher, puzzled as to why Yvette—"reclassified” years ago as a fluent English speaker—appears not to follow verbal directions.

What the teacher cannot see is that Yvette’s brain is no longer on math. Earlier, classmates mocked the smell of her lunch. Already navigating peer relationships through an accent and cultural invisibility, her nervous system is in survival mode. Her thoughts spiral—not about the assignment but about avoiding humiliation. When the teacher asks if she is OK, Yvette nods, not because she understands but because compliance feels safer. Her silence is protection, not confusion.

Why This Matters

Teachers need ways to connect with students across language and culture and determine whether disengagement reflects stress rather than language proficiency. Learning depends on regulation: Students must be calm enough to access higher-order thinking in the cortex rather than operating from survival responses.

For some culturally and linguistically diverse students, shutdown behaviors are often misread as limited English skills, causing educators to overlook the role of stress and belonging in learning.

Introducing the S-Connect Routine

The S-Connect Routine is a simple, classroom-ready tool to help teachers pause, gather information without assumptions, and communicate across language and culture. It provides a structure for connection, understanding, and co-regulation—helping teachers guide students out of survival mode and into readiness for learning.

The routine has four steps teachers can use when a student shows signs of stress (fight, flight, or freeze). For multilingual learners at the beginning stages of language production, it can be delivered verbally in simple language, written as a brief note, or through a translation device.

Step 1: See

• Name the observable behavior without judgment. Example: “Yvette, I see that you’re looking at the board and haven’t started yet.”
• Invite the student to share: “What’s going on?” Perhaps this happens through a quick written note on her desk, for her eyes only.

Step 2: Sounds Like

• Repeat back what the student says verbatim to help them feel seen. In Yvette’s case, this happens in note form: “It sounds like you are having trouble focusing right now because you are having a rough day.”
• Follow with: “Is that right?”
• This slows the interaction and communicates understanding across language differences.

Step 3: Suggest

• Offer an emotion word to help the student name their experience. Perhaps, for Yvette, it’s: “Are you feeling discouraged?”
• Many students—particularly from hard places—have limited emotional vocabulary.
• As Dr. Dan Siegel notes, “When we can name it, we can tame it.”

Step 4: Support

• Ask “How can I help?” Yvette responds that she’d like to go get a drink of water to clear her head and then come back to work.
• This shifts problem-solving ownership to the student, increasing agency and self-efficacy rather than teacher-directed compliance.

Why It Works

Traditional behavior management often prioritizes compliance. The S-Connect Routine emphasizes co-regulation—helping students feel safe enough to think, communicate, and learn. Over time, it builds emotional awareness, resilience, and stronger teacher-student relationships, especially for multilingual learners navigating stress across language and culture.

Your Turn

• Try the S-Connect Routine the next time a student appears disengaged.
• Notice how the interaction shifts from correction to connection.
• Reflect with a colleague or instructional team to refine your approach.

A printable lanyard version of the routine is available here.

Thanks to Elise for contributing her thoughts.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on X at @Larryferlazzo or on Bluesky at @larryferlazzo.bsky.social

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