It's great how you've abandoned that strict lesson plan and let the students talk about what really matters to them instead of just making them listen to a bunch of rules or boring lectures, letting them bring up their own issues like who they are or what they're dealing with every day has probably made everything much less awkward and more real than reading some notes, maybe if more teachers did things like this school wouldn't seem so much like just following orders and would be more about talking and figuring things out together.