Giving Compass' Take:

• This teacher offers insight into five strategies that support SEL in K-12 schools based on her own experiences working with this instruction at a Washington school.

• Can schools sponsor teacher training for SEL as part of development programs?

• Read about why SEL programs need to be carefully measured.

These days, words like bullying, isolation, suicide, peer pressure, and anxiety are more and more commonly used among students, parents, and educators. As educators, we hear these words and experience the reality of each. I’m reminded of a time when the expression, “Can’t we all just get along?” was first spoken during the height of gang wars in Los Angeles, when I was a new speech language pathologist in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

More than 30 years later, I now work at a 700-student elementary school in Washington state and I have a caseload of 50 students consisting of varying disabilities. Here, the topic of social-emotional learning (SEL) and those super-charged words are at the forefront of my caseload.

Here are five ways our school has developed better SEL skills in our students and how you, too, can build positive social-emotional learning into everything you do in small group settings with all students.

  1. Address ALL students you encounter with eye contact in conjunction with saying their name.
  2. Ask relevant questions that are specific to their interests.
  3. Affirm by saying five positive comments to every negative comment spoken during your sessions.
  4. Align your words and material to specify the focused target.
  5. Allow yourself to think outside the box.

Read the full article about strategies that support SEL by Jennifer Ross at eSchool News