Bluestein's Creating Emotionally Safe Schools: A Guide for Educators and Parents: A Review

School safety is as much about emotional safety as it is physical safety. This is Jane Bluestein’s thesis in her recent research-based book, Creating Emotionally Safe Schools (2001). This book is a model for educators, as well as parents. It is also a moral imperative. To not concentrate on creating a climate where students feel safe, able to learn, free from harassment and humiliation, and free from normative testing pigeonholing is to deny the fundamental principles of learning and motivation. Physical safety and emotionally safety are inextricably entwined. It may be that a safe emotional climate is the foundation for physically safe schools.

Bluestein offers two compiled and purposefully subjective definitions of emotional safety based on student survey data. The first, a quote by James Delisle, includes such factors as seeing a smile on the teachers face the first day of school; being able to use the word “Neanderthal” instead of caveman without being made fun of; and having a teacher who hands back papers privately. In another definition, Debra Sugar, MSW, says basic affective safety depends on being able to “act without fear;” being able to question teachers without fear of punishment; and “being valued for who I am instead of how well I perform.” These definitions are not clinical, and because of the breadth of factors this work discusses, clinical or more limited definitions might not fit into the array of psychic situations Bluestein attacks.

The author continues by discussing, what affects emotional safety in schools? Bluestein enters the book by describing the very obvious, that there are literally hundreds of broad factors impacting feelings of emotional safety. Doing so pays attention to the individuality of each student and the different thresholds of what emotional threats may look like. This centers the problem from a student’s point of view; because there is no typical student, there is no way to narrow the factors by potency, and no way to rate them, as they are experienced differently by each student. This results in Bluestein treating the array of factors essentially equally, and is the primary problem of the work. Because she will not narrow the topic to mainstream ideas of threat, or discount typically less-intense threats, the book unfolds in countless directions with 80 pages of chapter notes, references, and recommended resources for the reader continue his own research.

This all-inclusive approach of identifying a plethora of factors and speaking to each one is less induction and more literature review. In the end, there is never a clear definition of what emotional safety is, or clear attributions from a student perspective as to what the most salient factors are. What comes out of this review is more of an indictment on educational nuances—teacher idiosyncrasies, and student sensitivities, and a strong argument against any behavior that causes “student upset.” This validates the chronic whining student, as well as the seriously hurting. Putting them all in the same pool seems to betray the idea of screening, on its face, for every child would be at risk for damage. However, pooling the lesser-threat of student discomfort over a long period of time with an intense act of assault treats both equally according to possible outcomes. We know some of those that have engaged in school shootings did so because of years of teasing. This “consequentialism” acts to expand the field and validate each student.


Bluestein includes two appendices: 1) A 6-section, 70-item checklist to “assess” a schools emotional safety; and 2) A brief worksheet as an initial step in assessing goals, needs, and supports needed to achieve goals. As well, the book contains a 67-item list of compromising and/or painful emotional anecdotes that represent “emotional harm.”

Are teachers the primary culprits? Bluestein has chosen to focus on teacher-factors. So, how are teachers hurting students? Of the 67 items in Bluestein’s list of painful student events, 47 are teacher-caused factors. Two examples are, 1) not allowing student input into curriculum or rules, and 2) students witnessing other students being shamed, spanked, or punished.

In another section entitled, Movement and Learning, one student said, “A really great teacher is somebody who lets us do other things like play cards, do sports, or do arts and crafts.” Bluestein argues, rightfully so, that movement is a basic human need (a stronger need in some than others), and that teachers have to incorporate movement, hands on activities, and other modes of expression. Using a child with ADHD as an example, Bluestein argues that extended seatwork and sedentary learning can result in “acute pain.” This brings the matter full circle from one of a philosophy of education to a moral and perhaps medical needs-based pedagogy for those with attention and activity problems. Though seatwork may be counterproductive to positive emotion, it may be a stretch to compare it to something like a nervous breakdown.

Bluestein takes a hard line on traditional school structures that will not change, comparing them to other stressors such as bullying, media violence, and war. After the horror of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, some schooling took place in a bomb shelter. During the Cold War, students managed to proceed with academics while fearing nuclear attack. In the 1990s, the popular culture bombards children with other stimuli: Guns, knives, substance abuse, promiscuous sexuality, and gangs. Is posting an “F” or writing a child’s name on the blackboard really that stressful?

In part II, Bluestein charts a blueprint to safety. First among the tools is that schools must foster the idea that it’s OK to fail. She quotes William Glasser, “Failure is a far better teacher than success.” It’s this fear of failure—both of students and teachers—that cripples learning. This need to have all kids on the same page is egalitarian, and it denies the diversity in children that do not fit into the NCLB model for a range of factors. This model is inconsistent with the art of teaching, Bluestein and William Glasser state that it “cripples” children and leaves some no alternative than to be “left behind.”

Bluestein does not adequately make the point that failure is only acceptable “if its on the path to success.” It’s assumed. However, she argues cogently that there are many paths to the same goal, and not all children can—or should—be forced into the same path.

Bluestein turns her attention to bullying and zero-tolerance late in the book. She notes the most common intervention to bullying is punishment, and that it’s ineffective. Bluestein recommends an early-on prevention approach that teaches replacement behaviors. This means that students are given ways to meet their power needs, in lieux of a power struggle. No specifics are given on how power needs can be demonstrated. Secondly, she argues for a focus on empathy. In humanistic terms it might appear to be placation; in behavioral analytic terms I would describe this as differential nurturing. To avoid the ignoring pitfall, teachers must take an aggressive lead in teaching social skills—both for the bully, and the bullied. Often the victims of bullying are targeted because they lack social skills. Providing opportunities for them to be successful and build relationships can deter some bullying. Instead of more rules, restrictions, and punishment for bullies, she argues for more counseling, rehabilitation, community-volunteering, business mentoring and partnership projects, and placement in lower student-to-teacher ratio classes.

This book is a how-to book for those interested in creating emotionally safe schools. The largest portions of this work describe ways teachers can change, thus it’s essentially a pre-service and inservice teacher training tool. Because teachers are on the front line, they have perhaps the most influence in changing the emphasis from sitting still and taking tests to a craft of teaching that uses multiple intelligence activities and measures success according to student diversity, not an egalitarian one-mold-fits-all verbal and mathematical proficiency model. Parents and administrators, school psychologists and teacher unions can do as much to take the “pressure off” kids to sit still and perform, and place them in situations where they can achieve to different expectations.

I think the thrust of this work missed the boat. Bluestein quoted districtwide survey data from Houston schools where 60% of the students felt unsafe. They felt that way due to reasons as innocuous as teachers glancing at students (eye contact when misbehaving) to standing to close to them (proximity control). When it comes down to it, creating emotionally safe schools means teaching students “other-esteem” as well as self-esteem. The former received no attention, accept a sidenote in the bullying chapter suggesting reactive community-service. The students who are clinically emotionally disturbed (no where near the 60% suggested) are probably as fearful of their teachers as most people are of Christians. It’s hyperbole. It’s popular with certain schools of thought with certain agendas, but not exactly accurate.

An analysis of emotional safety issues leads one into a sea of ideas. This is where Bluestein finds herself. Instead of finding four or five categories of danger and describing their effects on student threat perception, she speaks to each fish that irritates, crowds, bumps or otherwise ignores her attempt to swim. “Unsafe” implies a threat. The failure of this book is that a threat depends upon what the student thinks is a threat. This book begs for realistic clarification to include teacher and clinical perspectives.

Much of this work sounds like the old open-classroom movement repackaged. It’s an effect of what liberal educators see as a recent conservative reaction to old-guard pedagogy. What I love—and dislike—about this work is that it treats the negative emotions in an all inclusive way. On the one hand, who doesn’t want to motivate kids, eliminate embarrassment and humiliation, reduce the use of response cost and coercion, either by seduction (bribery) or force? Students need opportunity to learn. Bluestein is arguing for elitism—the idea that all students aren’t the same. I like her brand of it. Elitism isn’t constrained to mathematical and science giftedness, but includes artistic, musical, and naturalistic intelligences—intelligences ignored by many administrative, teaching, and political elites that support pigeon-holing students according to restricted, normative test scores.