Giving Compass' Take:

• Kristi Robinson, writing for Getting Smart, outlines the practices that faculty and staff at Golden Hills Elementary School do to educate the whole child, and are seeing results. 

• Social-emotional learning instruction is a big part of teaching a child by tending to their needs. How can this instruction help empower students and give them more agency?

• Read about educating the whole child through project-based learning. 

Social and emotional learning (SEL) plays a role in every aspect of education and provides students with necessary 21st-century skills to be successful in their futures. By implementing SEL, educators can encourage behavior like sharing and empathy among their students, while also reducing depression and stress. Student success starts with defining education and getting classroom culture right for the whole child.

Over the past year, we’ve worked to uncover the best techniques for educators and students to truly connect with each other and build strong, positive relationships between adults and students. The amazing staff at Golden Hills, both certificated and classified, have been dedicated to professional development that will help our students be successful.

  • Walking and Talking: The foundation of whole-child education is building a relationship. That means educators getting to know their students on their level. Healthy relationships are supported when both parties feel respected, encouraged, and cared about. When we create a safe learning environment, we see students feel more engaged, motivated and willing to take risks in their learning.
  • Coping with Difficult Situations: While there are so many benefits to ongoing SEL instruction, such as developing self-confidence and increasing awareness of strengths, we’ve found that our students were craving a way to let go of their anger or frustrations from stress. We connect each of the mindsets with our positive behavior intervention support (PBIS) system. By doing this, we’ve started to look at students who have displayed any behavior concerns, such as anger, and find the connection to SEL.
  • Empowering Students to Lead: Every day we have a schoolwide intervention block where students are placed in classes, based on data, to best support an academic gap. Last year we changed one class from an academic class to a social-emotional/leadership class.

Read the full article about educating the whole child by Kristi Robinson at Getting Smart