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Posts from the ‘SEL’ Category

Jun 5

Creating Milestone Experiences

During this week, students in Kindergarten and 1st grade at my daughter’s school participate in a special, off campus trip that is unique to their grade level. These trips provide experiential learning opportunities for students tied to the school’s core curriculum. As the students get older, these milestone trips increase in complexity (and days away from home), challenging students in different ways. The classroom teacher reminded us, parents, how this was a special moment for students to experience by themselves. So, I will have to (patiently) wait until she gets home to find out how everything went!

These type of milestone activities are important for children and youth; they mark the end of the academic year with a meaningful experience and offer students an opportunity to use many of the skills they learned during the year. What a great chance for students to practice their social and emotional skills in a new environment! Researchers have found that field trips effectively support student learning and increase student interest and motivation. Unfortunately, financial limitations force schools to make difficult decisions about how to allocate scarce resources and, in many cases, field trips are not prioritized. If that’s the case in your school, don’t worry! There are other things that you can do to create milestone experiences for students, to celebrate their growth and close the school year on a high note.

Creating milestone experiences

A milestone is a significant event in people’s lives, and often marks the start of a new chapter. These meaningful events help us grow or change who we are as a person in some significant way. In the school context, milestone experiences should have these ingredients:

  • Engage the whole child. It should be an opportunity for students to use, share and celebrate their unique talents, especially those that they may not use in the classroom. A milestone experience should also provide a space for students to integrate and apply what they know in unique ways.
  • Challenge students. The experience should help students move out of their comfort zone, into the stretch zone. Educators can create a safe space that gently pushes students to go beyond comfort and conformity, so meaningful learning can happen.
  • Build community. Milestone experiences should offer students an opportunity to connect with their peers and teachers at a deeper level. Remember when we discussed the importance of emotions in learning? Optimal learning integrates feeling and thinking.

Are you getting excited to create milestones experiences for your students? Great! These are a few examples that can be done without leaving school.

  • Organize an “awards ceremony” where every student is honored for something positive, both academic and non-academic. Students can recognize and celebrate their own work and accomplishments, and that of others. This event will help students close the year with a sense of accomplishment and a positive perspective on everything that they were able to do as a learning community. Include families and other educators in this event!
  • Community service project. Have students identify a need in the community or the school, then plan and support students to execute the project. School-wide yard sale, painting a mural or gardening, there are so many ways for students to contribute their talents and knowledge outside the classroom!
  • Student/Teacher unconference. Teachers and students could plan short lessons on things they are interested in outside of school (music, art, dance, woodwork, crafts). Then, create a schedule with all the sessions. Students and teachers, maybe even families, can sign up for those sessions that they are interested in.

Milestone experiences are a meaningful way to mark the end of the school year, gently pushing students outside of their comfort zone and celebrating the learning community educators create with their students. They will also create special memories that you can cherish as you close the year, and start enjoying your well-deserved break!

 

 

 

Jan 10

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Taking SEL Home

When I pick up my daughter from school, I often ask her these questions: What made you laugh? Who did you help? Were you brave today? Her answers give me insights into how her day went, what she enjoyed doing and how she felt at school. She doesn’t always want to talk about how school went, but it is important for me as a parent to initiate that conversation and create the time for us to check-in. Sometimes she will ask back, how was your day Mom? And that gives me a chance to tell her about what I do when she is at school. My hope is that I am building a space where she can feel safe talking about the silly moments, and also the challenges that she will inevitably encounter. Since this is her first year in elementary school, I’d like to support her in navigating this new environment. Her teacher is great at communicating any social and emotional challenges, and has given us ideas for things we can do at home based on her observations. We greatly appreciate you Ms. B!

Most educators who value the whole child would like parents to be partners in growing the minds and hearts of their students. They’d like parents to reinforce at home the social and emotional skills they nurture in the classroom. The reality is that most parents want the same thing! But they need a little guidance from teachers about what is being done in the classroom and how they can support their children at home. In an ideal world, schools would have a parent education program where parents would come together and discuss real-life situations, brainstorm best ways to handle them, practice the skills educators are teaching in the classroom, and… the list could go on! Unfortunately, many schools don’t have a fully developed parent education program, but that shouldn’t stop teachers from building a connection with parents.

There are several things you can do to get your parents on board with your SEL program and practices. Here are some ideas:

  • Include your SEL focus or standard in your regular communication with parents. For example, if you send a monthly calendar home, include your SEL goals and the competencies you’ll be addressing with students. Include one or two activities well loved by students that they can practice with their parents.
  • Highlight students’ use of social and emotional skills when you meet with parents, in addition to providing updates on their academic growth. Having a conversation with families about students’ competencies will show them that this content is part of your classroom. It will also give you an opportunity to learn about parents’ approach and how they talk to their kids about these skills.
  • Celebrate students’ social and emotional growth and let parents know about it. Human beings tend to focus on those things that need to be improved, and sometimes we forget that there is so much we have already accomplished! Let parents know when you see their child develop socially and emotionally.  Are they better able to handle a conflict with a peer? Have they reduced visits to the office? Can they let somebody else lead a group? Parents love to know that their child is improving!
  • Provide parents with resources to help them with challenges typical of their child’s age group. If you have taught the same age group for a while, you can probably anticipate the social and emotional issues that students will need to navigate during the school year. What about supporting parents with these common challenges, so they can be more effective at home? For example, many students pushback when parents try to help them with homework. Is there anything you can provide parents to make it easier (or less painful!)?
  • Model and keep an open communication with parents. As we’ve seen in other posts, we need to model the skills we want our students to develop. That is also true for working with parents, even when we have difficult conversations! Use your empathy skills and optimism, enlist parents to help you, and be open to their support.

Having a strong home-school connection yields many benefits for teachers, parents, and students. When it comes to the social and emotional development of students, educators can “take SEL home” by communicating with parents about the classroom’s SEL goals and focus competencies, celebrating and discussing students’ social and emotional growth with families and providing resources, whenever possible, so parents can be more effective. Try these strategies and let me know how it goes! And if you have different ones, please share in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!

Nov 16

Where did trust go? Strategies to earn your students’ trust

After several months into the school year, you might find that you have established positive relationships with most of your students… but maybe not all of them. Although, as educators, we care deeply about our students, there are certain relationships that may be more challenging and require a bit more work. In my experience, there is one ingredient that allows for honest communication, a sense of respect towards each other, maybe even a shared purpose. Do you know what it is? It’s trust. Trust is at the heart of any successful relationship. Read more

Sep 27

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Preparing for Difficult Conversations

There is no education without ethics. This is the way my former Philosophy professor, Joan-Carles Mèlich, started each class. As I was getting trained to become a teacher, this was a powerful reminder of the responsibility I had as an educator with my students. I had to carefully consider how my relationship with children and youth could serve as a tool for positive change or, on the contrary, as a way to maintain the status quo. As educators, we have choices in the ways we discuss expressions of racial and religious hatred, like the recent events in Charlottesville (US), or analyze the response to NFL players kneeling during the US anthem. There is no education without ethics. Read more

Jun 30

Ready For Summer?

I’m heading to Spain this summer to visit my family (short trip to Portugal to attend the 6th International Congress on Emotional Intelligence and present my latest research with school principals). I look forward to seeing my kids playing on the beach where I grew up and nurturing their love for swimming, sand and ice cream! I also look forward to spending time away from my computer, reconnecting with family and friends, and getting (re)energized. Summer is such a special time of the year. It brings the necessary pause from the daily routines, the opportunity to rest and recharge, and the mental space to look into the future with optimism and hope. Read more

Apr 18

3 Key Lessons on Empathy

I did the last internship for my teaching credential in a rural town in Nicaragua, volunteering at a local NGO – Los Pipitos – that supported children with disabilities. During my time there, I worked alongside a promotora de salud (community health professional), Martha; the most patient human being I have ever met, I learned everything I know about empathy from her. Read more

Mar 23

The Secret Sauce for SEL

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process through which students, teachers and families learn and practice the skills of emotional intelligence. As a process, implementation of SEL might look differently in different schools with unique needs and students. Although there are certain key ingredients to create an evidence-based, sustainable SEL program, the way in which schools, teachers and students make these ingredients come together will vary. Teachers’ readiness, leadership support, students’ social and emotional needs and existing resources, among other factors, will influence how schools go about making SEL “work” in their communities. This is both a challenge and an opportunity. Read more

Mar 9

Are You Listening?

When I was a kid, I became fascinated with the story of Momo by Michael Ende. Have you read it? Momo is a little girl of mysterious origin with an extraordinary ability to listen – really listen. I remember reading the book and wondering, how does she do it? Can I really listen that way too?

She listened in a way that made slow-witted people have flashes of inspiration. It wasn’t that she actually said anything or asked questions that put such ideas into their heads. She simply sat there and listened with the upmost attention and sympathy, fixing them with her big, dark eyes, and they suddenly became aware of ideas whose existence they had never suspected. Momo could listen in such a way that worried and indecisive people knew their own minds from one moment to the next, or shy people felt suddenly confident and at ease, or down-hearted people felt happy and hopeful. Read more

Feb 16

Focus on Yourself to Nurture Positive Relationships

The relationships that children and youth establish with adults are critical for a healthy social and emotional development. When students and teachers establish positive, caring relationships, students are more likely to use their teachers as resource to solve problems, engage in learning activities, and better navigate the demands of school (Williford & Sanger Wolcott, 2015). Researchers have found that high-quality relationships between students and teachers are linked with students’ academic and social-emotional outcomes. Read more

Feb 2

Ready for School?

A few weeks back, I registered my daughter for kindergarten in the local school district. It was a moment filled with different emotions: excitement for the new experiences she will have, worry for the challenges, and also a bit of sadness because she is no longer my little “baby”. A moment of true self-awareness! Read more

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