Yale Child Study Center Community Spotlight: Meet Almut Zieher

Initially, I wanted to support students in ways I was not supported as a student. My childhood was interrupted, at about 4-year intervals, by international and national moves that made me an outsider at school. So, I became a teacher and founded a charter school focused on social and emotional development. I taught there for almost five years, getting a master’s degree in special education along the way. Despite this, I realized first-hand that teachers do not get the preparation and support they need to meet their own and their students’ social-emotional needs, let alone to engage in effective social and emotional teaching.

In my quest to do better myself, I also realized that we do not understand enough about teachers’ social and emotional learning or about how to support them in responsive social and emotional teaching. These realizations, along with increasing burnout and frustration with my inability to embody the teaching practices I knew my students needed, pushed me to pursue a doctorate in educational psychology. After being a teacher, I wanted to support teachers in ways I was not supported as a teacher, so I pursued my PhD in educational psychology and became a researcher.

I am most proud of my school-based work, particularly the development of the "Framework for the Pedagogies of Social and Emotional Learning" and the "Mindful Qualities of Teaching" while at YCSC. I was working on developing two measures—the "Compass" checklist of social and emotional teaching and the "Objective Awareness and Mindfulness Measure"—and the framework and mindful qualities provided the theory for each measure’s structure. What I had not anticipated, and what I am most proud of, is that the framework and the mindful qualities served as a bridge between complex theory-based ideas and practical implementation processes.

The framework made the complexities of how to systematically implement social and emotional curriculum accessible to teachers who often feel under-prepared for and overwhelmed by implementing social and emotional learning. Similarly, the mindful qualities provided an access point for teachers to cultivate mindful attention and attitudes through informal, low-lift ways to help them engage more responsively with students while attending to their own well-being. I am so proud of this work because I have found meaningful ways to support teachers’ social and emotional development and practice

I like to engage in do-it-yourself or animal/nature-based activities when I am not working—though truth be told, even then I am working, since these activities give my mind the space and time to move freely and that is often when the creative juices flow. Currently, I am rebuilding the shell of a Toyota Dolphin Camper. Many people ask me where I will take it first when it is finished, but the purpose of rebuilding it is not in taking it somewhere—though surely, I will enjoy that as well—it is the activity itself that feeds me. The hands-on and physical nature of the work and the problem-solving of physical challenges (e.g., how do I get this rotten wood out without damaging the good piece next to it and without removing the roof that is keeping everything dry) provides a nice contrast to the very cognitive and theoretical work I do during my working hours.

Sadly, it seems my time at Yale may be drawing to a close. Though I am not sure whether I will stay in academia or move into practice—I cannot be too picky in the current job market—I am committed to bringing all I have learned and gained during my time at Yale to my next position. No matter what position I find myself in next, my professional goal will remain the same, to support educators in ways I was not supported as an educator so they can support students in ways I was not supported as a student. I am excited—and, understandably, a little bit anxious—about the next phase of my professional life.