8 minute read
Changing Times Call for Changing Practice
Article
Carie Walter
Changing Times Call for Changing Practice
Introduction
For decades in public school education, improving academic performance in the core competencies has been the main driving force for school districts across the country. Year after year, we spend countless hours developing strategic plans and setting academic goals that net the same results, so why are we still doing that? Now more than ever, we need to prioritize mental health as we know students are not able to access curriculum if they are in a constant state of distress. Likewise, staff are experiencing more stress than ever before with increasing demands and maneuvering a greater number of students with social and emotional needs that they feel ill equipped to handle. Have you ever considered implementing Social Emotional Learning with your staff to support the formulation of a solid school culture? Building a strong school culture through Social Emotional Learning starts with the staff in the building, and not just the teachers. The following will outline simple, easy to implement approaches around the Collaborative for
Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Framework covering relationship skills, self-awareness, social awareness, and self-management, beginning with the first day staff meeting to monthly activities that will not only bring staff together, but also transform staff attitudes and perspectives as they go back to their
classrooms and offices (What is the Casel Framework? CASEL, 2021). As a result, you will learn how to seamlessly staff with locations in the building, follow prompts or clues like “this is where you would go to pick up important messages
transition the approaches to student Social Emotional Learning without the need for endless professional development which is difficult for teachers to find time to attend and leads to additional stress on the school culture.
Building Collaborative Relationships
It all starts on day one. Do you sit through hours of meetings listening to someone speak to you or are you the one who is speaking to the group? Consider what it is that you want to convey on the first day. Is it all the policies and procedures that could be read in an email or delivered in another format? The first day should encompass the heart of what makes a school function: building collaborative relationships.
Start by putting your staff in teams and turning your first day meeting into a scavenger hunt. You can incorporate any of the typical first day items into your hunt and attach tasks to each location that promotes teamwork and collaboration. For example, to familiarize left for you,” or “in this room you would be able to find your creative side.” The first clue location is the staff mailboxes. Have notecards for the team to leave positive messages for five staff members as they start the school year. The second clue location would take teams to the art room. Here, the team will collaborate in creating a banner that will represent them as a team and will be hung in the hallways for the school community to see. Now just think how this could apply to students in the classroom. What student would not enjoy a scavenger hunt to discover the classroom rules and procedures instead of reading them from a slide? The possibilities are endless. Be creative and think outside the box!
Creating Self-Awareness by Identifying Your Emotions
Understanding who you are as an individual and being able to identify your own emotions is a critical component in school culture; but more importantly being able to share your emotions
within the culture will lead to a greater sense of acceptance and belonging. An activity to consider would be to start a faculty meeting or class with each participant searching for a meme that represents the emotion he is feeling at that moment and post to a Google Slide that is projected for all to see. As the leader or teacher, validate what you observe through the memes. The more you do this and validate, start asking if anyone would like to share which meme is theirs and if they would care to expand. This is where the magic begins and the culture starts to grow and develop. When acknowledgement is given to others about how they are feeling, comfort levels thrive, barriers break down, and what is learned from a simple meme can be used to support staff and students throughout the day. You can offer to sub in a classroom for a teacher who is feeling overwhelmed or write a personal note to a student who is feeling sad because he had an argument with his friend. Simple activities like these will continue to strengthen the culture.
Expanding Social Awareness
Developing connectedness among the faculty and students through the ability to understand others’ perspectives and having compassion and concern for others feelings is key in expanding social awareness (What is the Casel Framework? CASEL, 2021). Fostering a sense of connectedness can all start with a ball of string and a prompt to build a spider web. Have your group stand in a circle and proceed to toss the ball of string to another person in the circle. The receiving person responds to the prompt and tosses the ball to another person. Once the web is built, discuss how the connections we make as a group helps build a system of support. Now pull on a section or cut one of the strings and have a conversation about how one person’s actions can affect many in the group even if they are not directly connected (Icebreakers-creative youth ideas, n.d.). The prompt to this activity can be personalized to your population and the discussion can go deeper into building social awareness within the group. Examples include, “name a unique quality about yourself,” “tell us of a strength you have that could help others in the group,” or ask how a particular event made them feel. These examples can expand to discussions around diversity, school and community support, and validating others’ feelings.
Strengthening Self-Management by Building Emotional Resilience
Self-management begins with identifying causes of stress. Often, stress can manifest from the “baggage” we carry around and keep bottled up inside. “The Baggage Activity” created by middle school teacher Karen Loewe, asked
students to write down on a piece of paper their baggage after a discussion on what it meant to have baggage. After crumpling all the “baggage” into paper balls, students then threw the paper across the room to be picked up by another student to read (Wunderlich Loewe, 2019). current planning practices that net the same results and disrupt by placing a focus on Social Emotional Learning. Remember building a solid school culture does not happen overnight; start small, be mindful, and do not give up. I started with my staff doing an activity once a month that they in turn did with
As I completed this activity with my staff on the first day of school, things like loss of housing, a recent breakup, and not feeling like they belonged were just a few of the items that were shared. Providing an anonymous forum for people to share their stress and face their worries and fears is the first step in building emotional resilience. The activity also helped participants develop a sense of empathy as they discovered the traumatic events impacting others. Let them know it is okay and as a collective group you are here to support. Your support can be in the form of working with them or providing time to establish personal goals, promoting follow through with a specific action plan, and celebrating successes.
Conclusion
Make this your last year for repeating their students once a month. Within a few months, the ripple effect began to happen and staff started building activities for other staff members and student groups for students. This included the service team delivering java and juice on a cart to all the staff and the students organizing a week to write kindness cards and paint kindness rocks. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to receive positive staff feedback, like “It was nice getting to hear from people and helps getting to know other staff,” “It made me feel included,” “I feel I could use some of these elements,” and “I hope the students like this as much as I did,” or student feedback, like “I really enjoyed the SEL activity today and I look forward to the next activity,” “I’m stressed a lot because my parents divorced so this helped,” “I definitely did feel way more
better walking out with an even better positive attitude,” and “I would love to have these more often than once a month since I feel like it’s good for not only me but a ton of other people?” With consistent and meaningful interaction through any combination of activities connected to the CASEL Framework, you will begin to experience the ripple effect through your building. It only takes a few individuals to start the change. Why wait any longer, start planning your Social Emotional Learning journey today and you too will see the results a positive school culture can have on instruction and student learning.
References
Icebreakers – creative youth ideas. (n.d.). Retrieved February 16, 2022, from https://www.
creativeyouthideas.com/resources/ category/icebreakers/feed/
What is the Casel Framework? CASEL. (2021, October 11). Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://casel.
org/fundamentals-of-sel/what-isthe-casel-framework/#interactivecasel-wheel
Wunderlich Loewe, K. (2019, August 23).
Home [Facebook page]. Retrieved August 5, 2021, from https://
www.facebook.com/502559948/ posts/10151312837249949/?d=n
Carie Walter is a Principal at Central Middle School and has been an active administrator at the elementary and middle school levels over the past twenty years. She started her career as a middle school math and science teacher of 7th and 8th grade students. During her tenure, she completed a Master’s in Educational Administration from Northern Illinois University and has since added an endorsement in English Language Learning.
