10 minutes

There is a mental health crisis among children and youth. Around the world, it is estimated 8% of children between 5 and 9 years old live with a mental disorder, and the estimated number increases to 14% among youth between 10 to 19 years old (Humphreys & Irarrazaval, 2022). In Chile, it is estimated 38% of children between 4 and 18 years old might have a psychiatric disorder (Vicente et al., 2012); and 25% of youth admits to having felt sad, discouraged or depressed the last month (Irarrazaval, 2019). 

There is also a mental health crisis among teachers. In Chile, 9.4% of teachers are on medical leave or have reduced working hours or have quit; situation that would have worsen with the pandemic (CIAE, 2022).

What makes the situation worse in the school field is that teachers admit not having the necesary tools to address socioemotional learning (Berger et al., 2009). In Chile, pre-service trainnig for teacher does not include the development of socioemotional competencies (Milicic & Alcalay, 2020) and when asked about in-service training, teachers most often ask for socioemotional training (Barrera-Pedemonte, in press).

Futhermore, if teachers hypothetically had training, do they have the necessary time to address socioemotional learning with their students? The answer is no. In Chile teachers report working 11 hours overtime their weekly schedule on school related activities (Cabezas et al., 2017), leaving them with no time to add the planning of socioemotional learning activities let alone to prepare material. The national curriculum offers just 0.5 hours a week for courses where socioemotional learning activities could fit in from first to fouth grade, and just 1 hour a week for 5th grade and above (UCE, 2018), insuficient time to implement and evaluate socioemotional learning of their students. 

10 minutes is a socioemotional learning curriculum for children and their teachers. It targets eight socioemotional competencies: (i) emotional knowledge and management, (ii) develop a healthy identity, (iii) establish and maintain positive relationships, (iv) feel and show empathy, (v) establish and reach goals, (vi) responsible decision-making, (vii) contribute to the community and (viii) develop spirituality. Currently we have designed the curriculum for prekindergarten through 12th grade on groups of grades (pk-2; 3-6; 7-10; 11-12). However, so far, we have developed the material and piloted it for the prekindergarten to 2nd grade group only.

10 minutes is delivered through educational material, specifically: a box. The box contains: 

(i) 200 activity cards. On one side of the card, there are 10 minutes student-oriented activities for the teacher to implement daily in class. The different activities require the child to reflect, share, apply or evaluate. On the other side of the card, there is in-service training for teachers on how to develop socioemotional competencies with students, specifically related to the activity of the day. 

(ii) One booklet. The booklet describes the socioemotional learning curriculum, what is understood by each one of the selected socioemotional competencies, why it is important to develop each one of them, and how these competencies look like in different stages of life.

(iii) 30 evaluation cards. All 30 cards are equal. Each card contains an evaluation survey for the teacher to complete with the parents of each child (in the case of prekindergarten to second grade students) on the development of each one of the socioemotional competencies of the curriculum. Both sides of the card look the same, as it is meant for the teacher to register the survey at the beginning of the school year and at the end of the school year for each child.

It is expected each class has their own box, so that keeping track of the activities implemented and the students evaluated is easy for the head teacher.

The novelty of this solution is that teachers do not require time to plan the activities, they do not need time to prepare material for the activities, and more importantly, they do not require any previous training on how to develop socioemotional competencies in children. The evaluation of the socioemotional competencies of each child is evaluated in conversation between the teacher and the parents, facilitating the communication and collaboration between the adults that care for the child.

The 10-minutes solution is complemented with 1-hour solution. 1-hour is a series of 10 hours slots of training for teachers and parents to develop their own socioemotional competencies on the same eight competencies the curriculum is focused on. The novelty of this solution is that it focuses on the system of the child, and not in the artificial system of “schooling” and “parenting” on a separate basis. This strategy re-defines the system that supports children, creates an authentic and organic community, and ensures consistency among the adults that care for the child.

The target population of the solution are students, their teachers and parents from the prekindergarten to 12 grade spectrum. Currently we are only serving the subgroup from prekindergarten to 2nd grade. We are currently focusing on children in Chile, but this solution could be easily expanded to other Spanish speaking countries.

Socioemotional competencies have long been relegated to a private arena where knowledge and skills was acquired implicitly. Over the last 20 years, there has been an increasing emphasis on studying the impact of non-cognitive skills or socioemotional competencies in educational research. The science of learning and economics of education has uplifted the relevance of socioemotional competence both for learning and other societal outcomes such as labor productivity, adult earnings, and civic participation. The knowledge of their impact has led educators to pursue new strategies to support the social and emotional competence of children as well as their academic learning. 

Although there is no clear consensus about what social and emotional skills and attitudes are more important, how they should be fostered, and how they should be measured (Brush, et al., 2022), SEL programs are proliferating worldwide (Bailey, Stickle, Brion-Meisel & Jones, 2019; Schonert-Reichel, 2019; Durlak, et al., in press). Now more than ever due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The emergence of mental health needs in children, young people and adults have reached a crisis (Humphreys & Irarrazaval, 2022; World Health Organization, 2022). SEL programs are increasingly recognized as a valuable tool for enhancing students´ emotional and behavioral health, as well as for preventing mental health issues from developing.

In the short term, on an individual student level, 10 minutes is expected to enhance children's socioemotional competencies, improve classroom behavior, reduce conduct problems, improve academic performance and reduce emotional distress. On a classroom level, 10 minutes is expected to improve school climate and safety, including feelings of inclusion and belonging, connection to school, perceptions of classroom support and quality relationships with teachers.  On a teacher level 10 minutes is expected to reduce teacher absentism and improve wellbeing.

In the long term, 10 minutes is expected to impact every ten minutes in the lifes of the individuals impacting their emotional knowledge and management, their identity as it develops in a healthy and authentic way, the way they establish and mantain positive relationships with others, how they feel and show empathy, how they establish and pursue their goals, making responsible decisions, contributing to the community and helping them develop their spirituality.

We are a team with members with diverse training and experiences. One of our team members is a teacher with more than 20 years of experience leading, designing and implementing socioemotional programs for children and youth in- and out-of-school. Our second member is an educational psychologist with combined experience as researcher, policymaker and educational practitioner designing, developing, and evaluating curriculum and teacher training programs. Our third member is a wellknown artist and author of childrens' books who joined this project to turn the box into a piece of art that deserves a privileged space in the classroom.

There are several reasons we are applying to Solve:

1. Business model - We have asked printing houses for the list price of getting this box, booklet and 230 cards printed. Only the cost of printing the material is around 80 USD for each box and content if we print 1,000 copies. In comparison to the total price of other educational material in the Chilean educational market (books mainly), this material is too expensive (and that is not even considering the work the authors have made). Thus, constructing a business model that is sound and financially sustainable in this market is convoluted. We need guidance to think this through.

2. Financial - We have no experience on fund-raising, let alone on sales. We need support to build such capacity in our team, or to build the capacity to find .

3. Other challenges we foresee are the product distribution, public relations and technology

The novelty of this solution is that teachers do not require time to plan the activities, they do not need time to prepare material for the activities, and more importantly, they do not require any previous training on how to develop socioemotional competencies in children. The evaluation of the socioemotional competencies of each child is evaluated in conversation between the teacher and the parents, facilitating the communication and collaboration between the adults that care for the child.

The presence of the box in the class acts as a nudge for teachers to dedicate 10 minutes daily deliberatively and explicitly to socioemotional development of their students.

Impact goals.

Year 1.

(i) Reach 100 school communities with 10-minutes and 1-hour targeting students from prekindergarten to 2nd grade, which we estimate mounts to 24,000 students and 800 teachers.

Year 5. 

(i) Reach 1,000 school communities with 10-minutes and 1-hour targeting students from pre-kindergarten to 12 grades.

(ii) At the student level: Improve classroom behavior, reduce conduct problems, reduce emotional distress,

(iii) At the classroom level: Improve school climate and safety

(iv) At the teacher level: Reduce teacher absenteeism and improve wellbeing

To reach these goals we will:

(1)  Find funding to print and deliver the 10-minutes boxes.

(2)  Develop the material for the 10-minute box for 3th to 6th grade, 7th to 10th grade, and 11 to 12th grade.

(3) Hire three specialists to assess whether the material is inclusive of individuals with disabilities, from different origns, and genders, and to provide suggestions if need be.

(3)  Implement a randomized controlled trial to assess the causal impact of 10-minutes and 1-hour targeting students from 3th to 6th grades on student-, classroom- and teacher-level outcomes. The design of the study considers a group of schools only receiving the 10-minutes box, a second group receiving the 10-minutes and 1-hour intervention and a group of schools receiving a delayed intervention considering both the 10-minutes and 1-hour programs once the experiment finishes.

(4)  Develop a monitoring and evaluation application to assess children’s socioemotional competencies in the long run.

Impact indicators:

1. Amount of schools’ communities using 10-minutes

2. Assessment of classroom behavior, school climate and safety reported by teachers

3. Student’s feeling of inclusion and belonging to the school community

4. Perceptions of classroom and school support among members of the school’s communities

5. Quality relationships between teachers and with teachers

Over the last 20 years, there has been an increasing emphasis on studying non-cognitive skills or socioemotional skills in educational research. An applied and in-context reference to the terms is socioemotional competence (SEC hereafter), defined as “the capacity to coordinate cognition, affect and behavior so that individuals can thrive in diverse cultures and contexts and achieve specific tasks and positive developmental outcomes” (Mahoney et al., 2021).

Research has uplifted the relevance of SEC both for learning and other societal outcomes. Figure 1 presents the interplay between these core themes. Paths A and B illustrate the impact of SEC on learning and other societal outcomes. Findings from neurobiology substantiate Path A examining how environmental factors such as poverty, exposure to stress or experiencing trauma, affect children's development of brain systems that support neurocognitive functions such as language, memory and self-regulation and therefore affecting their behavior, lifelong learning, and health (Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007; Twardosz & Lutzker, 2010; Noble, 2014; Thomason & Marusak, 2017). Findings from economics of education argue for Path B. Their evidence consistently indicates positive relationships between SEC and societal outcomes such as educational attainment (Farrington et al., 2012; Levin, 2012), labor productivity and adult earnings ( Heckman, Stixrud & Urzua, 2006; Murnane et al., 2001), and civic participation (Almlund, Duckworth, Heckman & Kautz, 2011).

Figure 1. Interplay between SEC and learning and societal outcomes (adapted from Lechner, Anger & Rammstedt, 2019).

The knowledge of the impact of SEC on learning and other societal outcomes has led educators to pursue new strategies to support the social and emotional competence of children. Socioemotional learning (SEL hereafter; Path C in Figure 1) is the process through which individuals acquire SEC.

With the increase in SEL programs, research evidence is also expanding in terms of short- and long-term impact, equity and efficiency. There is enough evidence to demonstrate that social and emotional skills are malleable and teachable (Jones & Kahn, 2017). The meta-analysis of Durlak and colleagues suggests that children participating in SEL programs significantly improve social and emotional skills, improve attitudes about themselves, others, and the school, improve classroom behavior, and improve academic performance, reduce conduct problems and emotional distress (Durlak et al., 2011).  A meta-analysis of follow-up effects of SEL programs found the impact on academic performance, emotional and social skills and attitudes is long-lasting (Taylor, Oberle, Durlak & Weissberg, 2017). This same study presented evidence to sustain that the benefits of the programs were the same regardless of the socioeconomic background of the children, the students’ race, and the school location. The value of a SEL program should also be viewed in terms of the relationship between the benefits it generates and the costs it has; SEL programs have proven to be very efficient with benefit-cost ratios of 11:1 (Belfield et al., 2015). 

The core technology of the 10-minutes solution is a box with cards in it.

The box has real analogous presence in the classroom. The presence of the box in the classroom acts as a nudge for the teacher to dedicate a daily moment deliberatively and explicitly with students to develop socioemotional competencies.

We are often asked: Why don´t you make an app? Well, we do not want teachers to be standing in front of the students with a phone in between. We want analogous technology.

Professionals from the editorial world have asked: Why don´t you make a book? Well, there are thousands of books, and they all end up in the bookshelf. We want something that can stand alone in the teacher’s desk. More so, we want cards independent from each other so that the teacher can (if wanted) select any card randomly.