What is Social Emotional Learning?
Social/emotional learning has
everything to do with emotional intelligence and how our heart and brain are
connected. Students in school spend
everyday learning lessons about math, science, history, reading and so on. But rarely do teachers who teach these
subjects tap into how students feel about these subjects on an emotional
level. How can math be emotional you
wonder? Simple. Remember pounding your head when you would
erase wrong answer after wrong answer on a math worksheet? I can.
What I did not know at the time was what learning math was doing for the
rest of my brain. If I had a bad day at
school and was punched in the face by a bully, I was less likely to remember
what the teacher taught in math class.
The connection between what we feel emotionally and what we learn is
clear. When the emotional center of your
brain, the amygdalia,
turns on, in a student the reasoning center and learning center can turn
off. They become so upset that the
emotional moment consumes their thoughts and hinders learning. Teaching students to communicate about how
they feel, not only makes them feel better, but also opens the floodgates for
other school subjects to enter their mind, because their brain is free from
emotional turmoil.
How
do we teach it?
Social and emotional learning has a curriculum and standards
just like any other subject in school.
Most teachers are unaware of this.
Schools health teachers should familiarize themselves with this
curriculum, but other teachers can too and should. Simply taking a few minutes at the beginning
or end of the class period to “talk” can give kids an opportunity to politely
voice a frustration or incident that caused emotional pain. Allowing for stories of success can also have
equal value. A teacher can make connections
to how students treat each other and how that may lead to poor performance in
school. Having students answer this
question will allow the teacher to gain influence with the student and open the
door to their heart and how they feel.
Focusing on these 5 competencies can allow teachers to build trust and
foster a healthy learning environment:
Tips
for teachers:
Integrate Social/Emotional Learning skills into
the daily curriculum.
Exhibit pro-social and emotionally intelligent
behavior to your students. Be a role
model.
Value social and emotional intelligence in your
students as highly as you value their cognitive development.
Be alert to teachable moments that occur
naturally in the classroom; for example: moments when you notice a shift in
mood, a conflict, a caring act. Don’t
just yell, explain a better option.
Don’t just applaud, explain why, and speak to them how you would want to
be spoken to. Please don’t use baby
voices or speak slowly to get a point across.
Talk to them like an adult. Most
adolescents want to be, so talk to them like one.
Investigate successful programs.
Look for ways that technology can enhance and
ignite discussions in classrooms on social-emotional competencies, such as
videos, media stories/current events and reality television programs.
Create student led groups where issues are
discussed and solutions to problems are found.
Believe it or not students sometimes want to help other students.
Allowing them to do so is vital to their emotional development. And yes, any teacher can do this.
What
are the benefits?
The simple act of talking about an emotional episode can begin to help the student break free from the knots that are created in the brain and heart. It also creates the one thing I think lacks among students in school and their peers, and it’s called empathy. It’s simply the act of understanding and putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. The connection to future success and mature emotional awareness is clear. The sooner students feel emotionally aware of themselves and their surroundings, the sooner they can succeed. A professional future is important and an emotional future caries equal if not greater value.