Lakes Region schools "Choose Love"

GILFORD — Scarlett Lewis is enduring the unimaginable. Seven years ago, her son, Jesse, was murdered, along with 19 other children and adults, while attending school. He was just seven years old.

As horrific as Lewis’ experience was – Jesse was attending first grade at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connectictut – stories like hers have become far too common.

In fact, violence at schools has become a regular part of the national news cycle. The publication Education Week counted 24 school shootings in 2018. That’s one every other week.

How does a parent respond to such a living nightmare? In Lewis’ case, she capitalized on the national attention focused on the Sandy Hook killings. She accepted help from experts around the country to develop a K-12 curriculum, called “Choose Love,” which is designed to train students and adults to recognize their feelings and emotions, and exercise their ability to choose how to respond.

Gov. Chris Sununu has championed the Choose Love curriculum, which is offered at no cost to New Hampshire schools. More than 300 schools have since downloaded the curriculum. Gilford is one of the school districts that is adopting Choose Love this year. Shannon Desilets, who works for Sununu in promoting the curriculum, spoke to an assembly of Gilford educators on Wednesday.

“Our thoughts impact our feelings, which impact our behavior,” Desilets said, describing the “cognitive triangle,” part of an area of thought known as social-emotional learning. Social-emotional learning teaches children and adults how to understand and manage their own emotions and impulses, and how to do the same with those around them. If the Sandy Hook shooter had been instructed in such a way, the tragedy that took Jesse Lewis’ life might not have ever happened.

In a video that Desilets showed during her talk, Scarlett Lewis explained that after her son was taken from her, she set herself on the task of finding a solution.

“I didn’t have to create a solution, there already is one. It’s called social-emotional learning. Social-emotional learning prevents violence,” Lewis said.

Desilets, who has been touring the state to give such presentations to school districts, said that the Choose Love curriculum shouldn’t be thought of as an additional thing that teachers have to do; rather, it integrates itself into the culture of the building. In short, the curriculum encourages people to have “more thoughtful responses than reactionary. We can’t always control what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond,” Desilets said.

In the video, Lewis said that creating the curriculum, and traveling around to visit places that are using it, has kept her close to Jesse.

“I feel like I meet Jesse a lot in schools. I look into a child’s eyes and see Jesse looking back at me,” she said.

Gilford isn’t the only Lakes Region school using the Choose Love curriculum. Last year, Inter-Lakes became one of the first in the state to adopt it. During the 2018-19 school year, Inter-Lakes guidance counselors began weekly classroom visits for grades 1-9, delivering lessons about one of the four cornerstones of Choose Love: courage, gratitude, compassion and forgiveness.

This year, Inter-Lakes is expanding the program to start with kindergarteners and go through 10th grade.

Holly Vieten, guidance director at Inter-Lakes, said Choose Love touches on anti-bullying, school safety, personal empowerment and resilience. She said students seem to thoughtfully digest the lessons, and that for some of them, the unit on forgiveness was the most challenging. Many students chose to seek out their guidance counselor for one-on-one talks about forgiving someone in their own lives, or even being forgiven themselves.

“It’s not about just saying, ‘I’m sorry,” Vieten explained. “In order for myself to move on from it, I need to let go of what I’m holding on to so I can take back my personal power.”

Adults have also shared with Vieten the impact the program has had on them. The classroom teachers are in the room when the guidance counselors deliver their Choose Love lessons, and although the language is geared for a younger audience, she has found that those lessons can also cause grown-ups who happen to be nearby to have a revelation.

Vieten said she doesn’t want to stop with students. She wants to find ways to deliver the Choose Love lessons to parents and other adults within the Inter-Lakes towns of Meredith, Center Harbor and Sandwich.

“We would like to spread this message more to the community. There’s much more work to be done.”

It’s hard to watch as there’s one school shooting after another, especially for people who go to a school building every day. In the same way that developing Choose Love helped Lewis to honor her son, Vieten said delivering the curriculum has made her feel like she is helping to prevent a future tragedy.

“This curriculum helps us feel like we can be part of a solution, and that’s important,” she said.