John yang: Nationwide, schools are looking for better ways to connect with students and support their emotional wellbeing.

A recent Yale university study found that social-emotional learning programs -- or s-e-l -- can improve students' sense of belonging and boost academic performance.

While black and brown students are more likely to report feelings of isolation from their peers, many s-e-l models don't reflect their lived experiences.

A Baltimore based organization called "We do it 4 the culture" is changing that.

It uses hip hop and storytelling to help students learn empathy and express themselves.

Ali rogin spoke to Jamila Sams -- the founder of "We do it 4 the culture."

Ali rogin: Jamila, it's so nice to talk to you.

Many teachers say that the pandemic exacerbated many students' feelings of loneliness.

So what were you hearing from them that made you realize that there was a gap in social emotional learning that?

Jamila Sams: What we're seeing in terms of the research around social-emotional learning and what happens when social- emotional learning is not centered is that since the pandemic, about 61% of our young people are saying they do not feel a sense of belonging in school.

And that's on a national level.

Currently, the United States is experiencing its lowest academic levels in 30 years.

And so when we think about social-emotional learning, the art of not only naming our emotions, but managing our emotions and leveraging our emotions for positive change.

When students do not feel a sense of belonging, when they do not as though their identities and their cultures are being centered in an academic space, then they become disconnected.

And as a result, those are some of the statistics that we're dealing with right now.

Ali rogin: And your program is now in more than 150 schools across 16 states.

Can you walk us through what a typical lesson looks like?

Jamila Sams: Absolutely.

So we try to anchor content that students are already engaging with, and we try stay up to date with youth culture, pop culture, hip hop culture.

And so a typical lesson may involve looking at some lyrics from Kendrick Lamar and analyzing the lyrics to find the social-emotional learning competencies that exist within those lyrics.

So for example, students may find lyrics that relate back to self-awareness, self-management.

Lyrics may have a social awareness lens, and so they're able to extract that.

And so what we try to do is take content that they're already interested in, and what that does is it helps them to kind of take down their guard, and open up and share their stories with their peers and adults.

Ali rogin: And I want to ask a little bit more about that because hip hop has been such a powerful conduit for this learning.

How did you decide that this was going to be the the structure around which you were going to build this program?

Jamila Sams: Yeah, I am what I would deem to be a certified hip hop head.

I've always loved and anchored hip hop culture.

I feel as though it's something that you live, not just something that listen to.

And so hip hop has always been a space for emotional regulation, storytelling, and critical reflection.

So we do it for the culture, didn't create something new.

All we did is that we translated a language based on experiences that young people already have.

And so when students feel as though they can take down their guard, they're able to talk about things that relate to them, but then they're to anchor it in something that they're already familiar with.

Then that's where the magic happens.

They take down their guard, they open up, they share their stories.

And what they find is that they have so many things in common with their peers.

Adults are finding they have things in common with their students, and it just helps to build a strong community in classrooms.

Ali rogin: You mentioned earlier these competencies of social emotional learning.

They are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

Why is a focus on these skills particularly important for black and brown students right and brown students right now?

Jamila Sams: Those competencies are competencies that we all have as human beings.

Um, and they're centered, uh, for all students.

There's something for all of us.

Social-emotional learning is not just for students, it's for adults as well.

Uh, but as it pertains to students that have been typically marginalized, when they are faced in situations like where we're facing right now, politically, where dei is under attack, social-emotion learning is under attack, anything that really anchors.

Young people's cultures is being in question.

Black and brown students need to be able to have the tools to deal with the adversities that are being directed towards them.

And so when you have self-awareness and you know your history, you know who you are, you know, who you belong to, then you have the confidence to be able to speak up for yourself.

You have the confident to be to ask questions.

You have a confidence to able to push back when everyone is telling you that, you know you're not worthy.

And so that is why those emotional skills are so important because we want our young people to feel equipped to be be able to deal with the intentional harm that is often directed towards them.

Ali rogin: Jamila Sams, the founder of we do it for the culture.

Thank you so much for speaking with us.

Jamila Sams: Thank you for having me.