Social Emotional Learning & Conscious Discipline

What is the most important aspect of teaching? Making sure they know their math facts? Teaching them about the butterfly cycle? Reading comprehension? What about knowing the history facts about the world wars? While all of those areas are very important to teach our students, I believe the most important thing we can do as teachers starting on day one of each school year is to get to know our students! Not just their favorite food or favorite color but really and truly know them from the inside out. In this post I will be discussing social emotional learning which I will refer to as "SEL". SEL is the ability to manage emotions, solve problems effectively, and build relationships with others. While this is not listed on our required state standards to teach by the end of the year it is critical that we teach our students these very important skills they will need when they step into the real world. How can you incorporate this in your classroom? Well, I'm glad you asked. SEL in the classroom could look like having a calm down corner where students are welcome to go when they need a moment to get away from the negative emotions they might be feeling before they act on them. Teachers can also incorporate daily check-ins. This can be done in various ways... some teachers like to have students post sticky notes about how their day is going while other teachers might meet one-on-one with each student throughout the day to just talk with them about their day. The way you choose to implement it does not matter as long as we are teaching our students how to verbalize or write down their emotions to get them out. Teachers can also implement community building games and activities regularly to build a learning community within the classroom. This also teaches students how to work with others even with those they may not want to work with. This teaches them communication skills and just how to work with others to complete a task.

Conscious discipline (CD) is a way of discipline that takes away all the rewards and punishments like in traditional discipline. When using CD in the classroom, teachers must encourage students to talk about what the problem is and pose the question "Are you willing to go back and solve the problem?" CD also teaches students a calm down acronym "S.T.A.R" which stands for Smile, Take a deep breath, And, Relax. Learning this acronym really puts the student in charge of their emotions and gives them an easy way to cool down when they are upset about something. Teachers should also have sentence starters that resolve conflicts. The teacher can scaffold students by giving them the sentence starter and they are able to complete the sentence to resolve the conflict. Another CD strategy that is super impactful in the classroom is a "Wish You Well" board. The way I have seen this implemented is by having a board of some sort and having clothespins with every students name on them. At the beginning of everyday the students look around the room to see if anyone is absent and they will put that person's clothespin in the center (where there is usually a heart) and everyone will wish that person well. In addition, if there is any student at school who is having a bad day, has a big event coming up, or shares anything they may be struggling with they will also be added to the board and the class will wish that person well. This strategy really creates a caring community within the classroom and shows every student that they are important and that they are missed if they aren't there. I love this activity!

I learned a lot about these two topics. I learned that SEL is super important and that it needs to be taught in the classroom. I learned that teachers not only need to be aware of their students' emotions but they need to teach their students how to be aware of their own emotions and how to sympathize with others. I learned that CD is a way better alternative to the traditional way of discipline that we have all seen. I learned that CD really teaches students to be independent and learn to solve problems on their own. I will be using both of these in my future classroom so that my students will be prepared to step out into the real world when they graduate high school. I will incorporate SEL in my classroom by teaching my students to build relationships with others and solve problems effectively. I will implement CD in my future classroom as well to teach my students how to resolve a conflict on their own and how to verbalize the issue so that the conflict can be resolved. In conclusion, teachers not only should be teaching all the state standard requirements, but they should be taking it a step further and teaching students these real world tasks so they can be a successful adult one day!

Social Emotional Learning Explained