Biofeedback

Remember the good ol’ days when the three basic skills taught in school were reading, writing, and arithmetic? Classroom discipline consisted of detention, extra homework, or loss of recess. The teacher likely knew each student’s family, which provided reinforcement of accountability and, ultimately, better behavior.

Today, school dynamics are different. Education extends beyond academics and incorporates “well-being,” also known as social emotional learning (SEL), at all levels. Discipline is now called “management,” and Big Data plays a major role in logging outcomes and interactions. Children are required to participate in surveys and activities that pry into their thoughts, feelings, relationships, and behaviors, aiming to shape them into a desired outcome.

How has the classroom gotten to this point?

Surveys, data, and legislation

In 2015, Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which codified the use of a multi-tiered system to support not only academic needs but also behavioral and social-emotional needs using “evidence-based” assessments. These assessments and screeners aid in identifying students who need support before issues escalate.

Data obtained through state-administered surveys (often called SEL screeners) provides school administrators with vital information to address the Whole Child (emotions, thoughts, relationships, and behaviors). Trauma-informed schools employ frameworks to handle adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, divorce, or depression, in order to create a safe school climate. ACEs are believed to increase the likelihood of students engaging in risky behaviors that must be prevented. Emphasis is placed on program implementation with fidelity and universal “buy-in” for maximum positive impact.

In 2022, Congress expanded this focus on mental and behavioral health with the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). Among other things, the BSCA provides grants for school-based health services and mental health services, including early diagnostic treatment, risk assessments, and vaccinations. Medicaid, a large source of funding for schools, costs federal and state taxpayers roughly $7.5 billion annually to pay for these services.

Classroom management

Policymakers continue to advance legislation aimed at transforming schools into one-stop shops for busy parents, conveniently providing multiple strategies and evaluation frameworks to promote student well-being. One tool gaining popularity is biofeedback.

Biofeedback is a technique using various instruments to monitor a person’s physiological state, providing real-time feedback. Considered “noninvasive”, experts claim the data enables teachers and students to regulate thinking, emotions, and behavior to achieve desired outcomes.

But who decides the “desired outcome”?

Biofeedback is already being used in public schools around the country. In Florida, for example, HeartMath monitors are part of the state’s SEL and mental health programs.

According to the nonprofit organization’s website (heartmath.org), “HeartMath is the only evidence-based … solution that provides school counselors and social workers with real-time coherence biofeedback technology for immediate student regulation across all intervention tiers.”

Here’s how it works: As a part of behavioral modification interventions, the student is connected to a heart monitor, which is plugged into a computer, and a picture or graph is displayed to the entire class using age-appropriate visuals that change as the child self-regulates. The collected data is used to make recommendations to the student’s family.

As one county school administrator described, HeartMath enable students “to visualize what their body is doing when they’re upset,” helping them learn self-regulation.

School administrators claim that biofeedback reduces discipline issues, but parents and lawmakers are concerned about a lack of parental consent.

Parental concern

After discovering that HeartMath was being used by seven schools in her county, Florida state Representative Kim Kendall sponsored legislation to require parental consent for such “student services.”

Kendall said, “Parents are often unaware, and it is not appropriate to implement a program without a parent’s permission first.”

Some frustrated constituents said they had not been provided with any opt-in or opt-out forms.

As one Florida parent warned, “It’s dangerous not to care.”

Kendall’s legislation requires informed and written parental consent, including full disclosure of the information collected on each child. In this tug-of-war of authority, Kendall strongly encourages parental involvement.

“It is critical to ask your children questions and know what is going on,” she cautioned. “Parents have to sign forms for field trips and [for their children] to get their ears pierced, but no form for biofeedback? … How do you identify the child that needs [to use] the HeartMath monitor? Is a parent notified each time it is used? Who oversees the data collection? What data is collected? Where is it being stored? Who has access to the data?”

According to HeartMath’s 2024 annual report, its Student Mental Health Initiative is “reaching more schools across the United States and deepening its impact on student well-being.”

The nonprofit says it is collecting data across all age levels in 14 different states.

Participation is not limited to schools. Various organizations, such as Boys and Girls Clubs and the YMCA, are also using HeartMath.

HeartMath is also not the only entity implementing biofeedback techniques in school. Mightier, another educational biofeedback company, uses programs, games, and incentives to encourage family involvement. Other companies offer multiple technologies for use in schools, including galvanic skin response (measuring sweat gland activity based on anxiety level), heart rate variability (regulating heart rhythms), and neurofeedback (practicing desirable brain wave patterns).

As children are increasingly being treated as data sources in schools, the question arises: What will parents do? Biofeedback programs raise privacy concerns, and parental involvement is crucial.