The world wide effects of Covid-19 include increased stress, disappointment, and frustration for parents, teachers, and children. There are been huge changes in nearly every area of our students' and children's lives. While this pandemic was not planned or anticipated, the situation does provide an excellent learning opportunity to effectively use good coping strategies.
Managing emotions and developing the ability to interact with others in effective and productive ways is part of social and emotional learning: a 21st Century skill. There is no better time to learn and practice using good social and emotional skills.
These are some questions we will discuss: "What are these skills?" "Why are they important?" "How can we help develop these skills?"
As defined by The Collaborative for Academic, Collaborative, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), an organization devoted to transforming American education through social and emotion learning, the five parts of social emotional learning are:
Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness is the ability to accurately recognize one’s emotions and thoughts and their influence on behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism. A self-awareness coach presented ten examples of self-awareness:
Self-Management is the ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals.
According to Andrew Miller, an experienced teacher and educational director and consultant, teachers [and parents] have many things to manage over the course of a day. Students can be given some responsibilities over their management at school and at home. Students may need some guidance with self-management. Task lists can help.
It is also important to remember the best help for self-management is engagement. Daniel Pink said, "Management is good if you want compliance, but if you want engagement, self-directed is better." If students are able to create their own goals and have some control over directing their own learning, they are more engaged and more likely to develop good self-management.
Another way to increase engagement and allow students the opportunity to self-manage is to allow the students time to work on a project of their choosing--this could be either something for school or the home. Guidelines can be given that they need to use certain skills and the students should know they will need to "present" their project to the class or family at a certain time.
Social Awareness
Social Awareness is the ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.
Students can practice the social awareness needed to problem solve and for conflict resolution. These activities can help parents and students understand social awareness and practice these skills.
Relationship Skills
Good relationship skills are the ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed.
Relationship skills can be complex to learn, develop, and practice. Some examples of good relationship skills are:
Responsible decision making is the ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of self and others. Basically, all consequences are considered before a choice is made.
In order to be a responsible decision maker, individuals must have the following abilities:
Here are some resources and activities that can help develop these skills at home:
Free Social Emotional Learning Activities
12 Games for Social Emotional Learning
Social Emotional Resources for Middle School
This website maintained by Scholastic has great personality profile worksheets that can help middle schoolers develop skills for anger management, setting boundaries, and resolving conflicts.
Teaching Youth Skills for Workplace Success
The Department of Labor has put together a curriculum to help students develop networking, communication, teamwork, professionalism, problem solving, and critical thinking skills.
Which skills do you feel are most important to learn? How can we better help students learn social and emotional skills at school and support developing these abilities at home?
Managing emotions and developing the ability to interact with others in effective and productive ways is part of social and emotional learning: a 21st Century skill. There is no better time to learn and practice using good social and emotional skills.
These are some questions we will discuss: "What are these skills?" "Why are they important?" "How can we help develop these skills?"
WHAT IS SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL LEARNING?
This is a 3-minute video introduction to Social-Emotional Learning:Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness is the ability to accurately recognize one’s emotions and thoughts and their influence on behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism. A self-awareness coach presented ten examples of self-awareness:
- You’re able to recognize, monitor, and modulate your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
- You’ve worked on resolving the difficult issues from your upbringing.
- You’re comfortable in your own skin.
- You’re able to build positive relationships with others.
- You can empathize with others.
- You treat people with kindness and respect.
- You don’t fly off the handle.
- Your general mood is positive and upbeat.
- Difficult situations don’t destroy you because you’re aware of your abilities to overcome them.
- You feel, think, and act in ways you can be proud of.
Self-Management is the ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals.
According to Andrew Miller, an experienced teacher and educational director and consultant, teachers [and parents] have many things to manage over the course of a day. Students can be given some responsibilities over their management at school and at home. Students may need some guidance with self-management. Task lists can help.
It is also important to remember the best help for self-management is engagement. Daniel Pink said, "Management is good if you want compliance, but if you want engagement, self-directed is better." If students are able to create their own goals and have some control over directing their own learning, they are more engaged and more likely to develop good self-management.
Another way to increase engagement and allow students the opportunity to self-manage is to allow the students time to work on a project of their choosing--this could be either something for school or the home. Guidelines can be given that they need to use certain skills and the students should know they will need to "present" their project to the class or family at a certain time.
Social Awareness
Social Awareness is the ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.
Students can practice the social awareness needed to problem solve and for conflict resolution. These activities can help parents and students understand social awareness and practice these skills.
Relationship Skills
Good relationship skills are the ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed.
Relationship skills can be complex to learn, develop, and practice. Some examples of good relationship skills are:
- Communicate Clearly. This includes both verbal and nonverbal communication. An understanding of body language, facial expressions, and gestures can help communication be understood correctly.
- Listen Well. Some listening skills are appropriate eye contact, regulating thoughts to limit distractions, utilizing facial expressions, and providing responses.
- Cooperate with Others.Cooperation helps students learn to be flexible and aware of others and their opinions, listen well and problem solve effectively.
- Resist Inappropriate Social Pressure. This inappropriate behavior could be anything considered unwanted, unsafe, or unethical behavior.
- Negotiate Conflict Constructively. Students need to know how to calmly discuss a problem, brainstorm solutions, and come to an appropriate decision.
- Seek and Offer Help when Needed. Students need to know how and when it is appropriate to ask for or offer help.
Responsible decision making is the ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of self and others. Basically, all consequences are considered before a choice is made.
In order to be a responsible decision maker, individuals must have the following abilities:
- Identify the Problem. Students must be able to recognize when they have encountered a problem. Some students may have difficulty with this ablitiy due to language or social communication difficulties.
- Analyze the Situation. Once they are able to identify the problem, they must be able to analyze the situation from many angles including how and why the problem arose.
- Solve the Problem. Students can now develop methods and practice solving the problem. They need to identify options and the consequences for each option. Creativity is needed in these steps as each individual and their circumstances are unique.
- Consider Ethical Responsibility. Students must examine any ethical or moral obligation they feel toward the problem and possible solutions. For example, a student may look at someone else's paper to get a better grade on a test, but they would need to consider any ethical or moral repercussions of cheating.
- Evaluate and Reflect. Evaluating how they completed this process can help the student as they attempt to solve future problems. Reflection allows students to note any necessary changes and use them the next time they problem solve.
WHY IS SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING IMPORTANT?
The following video--available in both English and Spanish--explains what social emotional learning is, why it is important, and how schools and parents can support each other.
English
Spanish/Espanol
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
It's important to remember that developing social and emotional skills is a process. Some children learn these skills more naturally and easily than others. However, everyone, including adults, can improve their abilities in this area.Here are some resources and activities that can help develop these skills at home:
Free Social Emotional Learning Activities
12 Games for Social Emotional Learning
Social Emotional Resources for Middle School
This website maintained by Scholastic has great personality profile worksheets that can help middle schoolers develop skills for anger management, setting boundaries, and resolving conflicts.
Teaching Youth Skills for Workplace Success
The Department of Labor has put together a curriculum to help students develop networking, communication, teamwork, professionalism, problem solving, and critical thinking skills.
Which skills do you feel are most important to learn? How can we better help students learn social and emotional skills at school and support developing these abilities at home?
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