Some students may be afraid of risking rejection, failure, or embarrassment; they need to learn to assess if the reward obtained is worth the risk of discomfort, and find their own boundaries in the process.
Key #4: Relationship Skills
...in conversation you have to actively interpret and respond to someone else’s verbal and physical input, as well as your own. It also requires a solid grasp on social norms. You have to make appropriate eye contact, maintain a good physical distance, maintain volume control, be polite (and we all know that varies by situation), ask follow up questions—all while having to process their words in real time and give your own input!
Key #3: Social Awareness
Don’t ever ask, “Do you talk to your mother that way?” First, you never know what response you’re going to get. Second, the answer doesn’t really matter. How they talk to their mom is rarely how they should be talking to you, anyway.
Key #2: Self Management
Too many times I have seen teachers take things personally or respond in an emotional fashion; we are there to show them how to regulate their emotions, not to buy into their chaos and calamity.
Key #1: Self Awareness
As a young child, all the emotions that we experience can kind of blend together. A bad feeling is a bad feeling, whether it’s anxiety, sadness, rejection, etc. Some students, as they get older, never learn to differentiate between negative feelings.
SEL’s Key Components
Social-emotional learning boils down to groups of necessary skills that are often interrelated, interdependent, and—for some—difficult to identify. While this can be tricky, it is critical to identify and address specific skill deficits for our students to continue developing.
Energy Transfer
You will look ridiculous for a while. Your coworkers may look at you like you’re crazy. But what you do when you clearly narrate and reinforce the positive is teach your students to recognize success in themselves.
Three Little Words
Some are hesitant to speak these words at all, afraid that they won’t be perceived as “positive” and facing some sort of backlash. Others throw them around interchangeably, like confetti, in the hopes that something will stick.
The Equation
Things we do, whether with good or bad intentions, control our outcomes... If we are not getting the outcome that we want, our response is the variable.
The Blank Slate
I’ve had people tell me that I trivialize bad behavior. How can I just let go and not address negative actions? Don’t they need to be held accountable for their choices? Doesn’t every instance of undesirable activity need to be addressed? Maybe.
