Baltimore educator’s family tragedy leads her to refocus her teaching on mental health

Cat Locke Jones wants to know if anyone in her classroom takes naps. She’s asking the 36 seventh graders crammed into a tiny classroom how they turn off negative thoughts and emotions after a bad day. Her go-to fuel is apple juice and naps.

One boy says he pours all his emotion into pitching a baseball, giving it his all on the field. Another of her students escapes in music, and a third says, “I love writing down how I feel.”

11-year veteran The educators’ task is to teach 107 seventh-graders at Hampstead Hill Academy to analyse literature and write well, filling gaps in their knowledge about the world in the process.

But on that spring morning at her school near Patterson Park in East Baltimore, Ms. Locke-Jones, who students call Rojo, instead devoted her English class to a lesson in mental health.

Since the pandemic began, teachers around the world have been told to prioritize students’ social and mental health over teaching, but they often say it’s difficult to balance catching up on students’ academic work with looking after their mental health.

Baltimore’s Teacher of the Year is finding that balance. Locke Jones said she’s preparing her students for their futures in life, and in the process, they might become healthier and better learners. “Emotions are like a burden if you don’t release them,” she told her class.

She asked her students what would happen if they continued to suppress all their emotions: Would they go away or would they get stronger?

Locke Jones began taking the lessons after the devastating death of his brother’s suicide in 2018. Sean Locke was an outgoing athlete at the University of Delaware.

“Sean was my best friend. We talked on the phone all the time. He was the kind of person you would call when you were bored or had chores to do,” she said. She believes he repressed his emotions and essentially hid his pain from the world. “I didn’t know the signs of depression or anxiety. Sometimes, I look back and wonder, … Was he trying to tell me something and I didn’t give him the space?” she asked.

Now, she is creating a space in her classroom where her students not only feel safe but also brave enough to open up about their struggles. “Sean’s death made me reflect on myself as a teacher. I have to be a place my students can come to when their voice is shaking….If my brother was wearing a mask, what are they bringing into the classroom every day?” she asks.

Growing up in a household with six siblings, Locke Jones was tasked with helping her younger siblings with their homework. Now, at 33, she imagines all the kids in her class as one big family. At the start of each term, she asks each student to write and share their biography. She also writes her own, a way to foster family ties.

She hopes her students will go home each day and tell their families about the interesting things their teacher did and what they learned that day.

“Family is a value of my class,” she says. “I want to feel like I’m an extension of their home.”

Locke-Jones also has a family at the table: She and her husband, also a teacher, have three sons, and she is pregnant with a girl.

Locke-Jones said she understands why teachers are anxious about teaching all of the curriculum material.

“I think a lot of times people don’t create space for the conversation,” she said.

But the lesson on semicolons can wait, she said.

Locke Jones Principal Matt Hornbeck said his school has the third-highest passing rate on state tests in seventh-grade English. According to state data, the city’s seventh-grade English passing rate is 29 percent, the state’s is 47 percent and Locke Jones’s passing rate is 82 percent.

Additionally, more than a quarter of her students achieved advanced grades, nearly closing the achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and white students, and between economically disadvantaged and non-economically disadvantaged students.

She did this in a diverse school where 39% of the students were economically disadvantaged and 18% were immigrant English language learners.

Student Maria Fernandez finds expressing herself through writing helps her. She says that her teacher, Locke Jones, gives each student special attention. “It makes me feel like I’m a part of the class. In other classes, I’m there but I’m not really there, but in her class, I’m really there,” the 13-year-old said.

Hornbeck says what makes Locke-Jones stand out is her ability to teach writing while giving kids easy-to-follow instructions. “She’s way outside the norm,” Hornbeck says. She knows how to motivate and cajole. She talks to her students, not belittles them. She plans her lessons meticulously. “She knows exactly what she wants to do with each kid,” Hornbeck says.

Locke-Jones will compete against 23 other teachers from other school systems to be named Maryland’s Teacher of the Year, and Hornbeck is betting she’ll win.

Locke-Jones said his focus on mental health also extends to the work he does with SL24, a foundation his family set up after the death of his brother – Sean’s shirt number was 24.

The family held a basketball tournament to raise money for the foundation, but the money raised was enough to buy the house Sean lived in during his college years. Sean’s House is a place for students to get coffee, do their homework and talk with other students. “One of the programs we do at Sean’s House is to train high school and college students to have courageous conversations with their peers,” Locke Jones said.

The home and the annual fundraisers have allowed her to channel her love and grief for her brother, she said. “Great grief means there was great love, and you need a place to channel that love.”