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Social Emotional Learning Issue 2 - Season 4: Big Kids Edition 2 Season 4 : Big Kids EditionSocial Emotional Learning Creator: Gail Joseph Authors: Amber Costello, Sophie Biddle Contributing Authors: Sheely Mauck Designer: Ceci Skolrud Copy Editor: Randi Rohde Circle Time Magazine Issue 2, 2021 For questions or comments contact ctmag@uw.edu This document was prepared with support from the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) and partnership with School’s Out Washington (SOWA) For more great resources on this topic, and to watch the Circle Time Magazine professional development talk show series, check us out at: Circle Time Magazine – Cultivate Learning 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 Contents Notes to Educators Highlights and Key Ideas Youth Voices Social Emotional Learning in a Virtual Space Let’s Talk About It Strategy Spotlight: Filling Your Balloon Pyramids for All Ages Resources for Educators Two-Minute Tips Lesson Plan I Am From Poem Worksheet Dive into Books Library Time Let’s Reflect! 18 19 203 Season 4 : Big Kids EditionSocial Emotional Learning Notes to Educators This season we are looking at high- quality practices for an expanded age range. We’ll be focusing on supporting school-age children in Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELO) programs. ELO programs include places where children are cared for before school, after school, or during summer and school vacations. Many providers serve both early childhood and school- age children. During the COVID-19 pandemic many programs have expanded their services. Some providers are serving school-age kids for the first time; other ELO programs are serving school-age kids all day while also supporting remote learning. This issue will review practices to support both experienced and new ELO providers. In this issue we will be discussing social emotional learning (SEL). The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) defines social emotional learning as the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. SEL skills help us navigate challenges and nurture relationships. This is especially important during the covid pandemic, a time of extreme stress and trauma on top of existing systematic traumas like racism, and individual life experiences. In this issue we’ll be focusing on the SEL skills of self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship skills. We’ll talk about why it is important for children and adults to be aware of themselves and be aware of others. We’ll be exploring all of this in context of anti-racist and culturally responsive teaching. Key objectives in this issue: 1. Understand the importance of adults co-developing social emotional learning skills alongside children. 2. Identify specific activities, strategies, and skills that educators can use to build SEL skills in themselves and children. 3. Understand the connection between social emotional learning development in early childhood through school-age years. 4. Make connections between anti-bias teaching practices and high-quality social emotional learning activity facilitation Season 4 : Big Kids EditionSocial Emotional Learning 4 Definitions and key terms: What is an ELO Program? ELO stands for Expanded Learning Opportunities. ELO programs include places where children go before school, after school, or during the summer. Self-awareness: The practice of cultivating an accurate perception of self and the ability to identify and name your emotions and their influence on behavior. Self-awareness helps us better understand how our culture, backgrounds, relationships, and environments impact our emotions, thoughts, relationships, and behaviors. A strong sense of self-awareness provides us with an accurate picture of ourselves and helps us identify our needs, grow, adapt, and make positive choices for ourselves and others. Social-awareness: The practice of cultivating an awareness of how other people perceive and feel about the world. It’s basically self-awareness applied to groups. Social-awareness is a continuum of skills starting with awareness, respect, appreciation, and, lastly, empathy— especially for those who come from backgrounds and cultures different from our own. Relationship skills: Sometimes called friendship skills, relationship skills comprises relationship building, communication, conflict resolution, and teamwork. Strong relationship skills help us develop healthy, safe, and productive relationships with peers and adults. Self-regulation: With a focus on big emotions and feelings—both positive and negative,— self- regulation is the ability to constructively manage and express emotions, feelings, and thoughts under various circumstances. Highlights and Key Ideas Emotion naming: Also called emotional literacy, emotion naming is the ability to identify and name emotions. Accurately naming emotions helps promote self-understanding, normalizes emotions, and encourages positive and constructive behavior choices. Empathy: The capacity to be aware of, sensitive to, and understand the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of another. Anti-bias: Behavior that actively opposses or prohibits unfair discrimination based on race, religion, abilities, gender, apperance, and other immutable aspects of one’s identity. Being anti-bias includes the values of respecting and embracing difference, while preventing or counteracting prejudice. Anti-racist: One who actively and consciously opposes acts of prejudice against people of other races.. Anti- racism requires conscientious efforts to end bigotry by creating policies, practices, and procedures that promote racial equity. Culturally responsive: Providers who embrace and support children’s backgrounds are culturally responsive. Materials and community resources that make connections to children and families by reflecting diverse cultures, languages, and experiences in the program space are culturally responsive. Children want adults to know: • It is important for kids to have many ways to express their feelings. • Kids like having options (e.g., short breaks, downtown) between breathing exercises, physical activities, and the arts to process their emotions. • Kids want more time to express their feelings in after school programs. • Kids need trusting relationships with adults and peers for emotional support. What you can do as a provider: • Ask children how they are feeling. • Get to know them. • Give children time to do activities that allow them to relax. • Encourage children to ask for help if they need help talking about their emotions. • Post inspirational words, pictures, and other positive things around your space. • Don’t pressure children to talk about their feelings, just learn to slow down and let them know you are there for them. • Build shared emotion language in your program. Suggestions from our junior hosts and their friends to help kids calm down: • Talk with trusted adults or peers. • Do an activity that they enjoy (e.g., art, games, be active). • Introduce a meditation or breathing activity. • Read or share inspirational quotes. A key tenant of a high-quality ELO program is centering youth voice. This season, we are lucky to have two Jr. Hosts to help us hear directly from children about the topics we’re exploring. Our Junior Hosts Gabby (age 10) and Cydalise (age 12) asked their friends, Olivia (age 9) and Wesley (age 13) questions about understanding emotions. Below are some of their questions and responses. Q. What do you do when you’re having challenging feelings? Olivia: “I go to an adult that I trust, parents, grandparents, and even my dog. They can help give me ideas on how to handle my feelings.” Q. Can you give us an example of one way you calm down? Cydalise: “My mind thinks a lot and I need to calm down my mind by meditating, or [I] take a nap.” Olivia: “[I] Take a white board and write down the negative feelings and [then] erase them.” Q. How do adults help you process and understand your feelings? Olivia: “[I] Talk to adults and they ask me lots of questions. I tell them all of what I am thinking. My dad told me a metaphor that I finally understood and it was, ‘How do you eat a whale?’ So take one step at a time to process confusing feelings and emotions.” Q. What advice would you give to teachers to help talk about emotions? Wesley: “I know a lot of people like me and they are embarrassed to talk to teachers and they are not going to want to talk about their feelings. I know I should go to a counselor to talk but I didn’t. I recommend that if you see a child who looks like they are maybe feeling bad about something, or sad, then approach them because they might be too scared to go to you. ” Cydalise: “It is about not pressuring kids to talk about their feelings. If teachers can learn to slow down and be more discreet, don’t try to @ children or use slang with children.” Season 4 : Big Kids EditionSocial Emotional Learning 5 Youth Voices Pause and Reflect • How did you process your emotions when you were a child? • How do you process your emotions now? • What options do children in your program have for expressing their emotions?Season 4 : Big Kids EditionSocial Emotional Learning 6 The Tacoma Whole Child Partnership aims to foster collaboration between schools and ELO programs to support SEL development. Venalin (Ven) and Sergio are ELO Site Directors with the Tacoma Whole Child Partnership. They joined us at Circle Time Magazine to discuss their experience facilitating SEL activities in virtual programs this past year. Ven and Sergio highlighted the importance of maintaining a safe environment and building nurturing relationships, and shared tips on how to do this in a virtual space. Three SEL Facilitation Tips: 1. Greet every person by name as they enter the space • Whether they’re walking into a room in person or signing on to a video meeting make sure you greet every person by name and welcome them. 2. Regular icebreakers • Start every session off with a quick, fun icebreaker or check-in question. 3. Emotion check-ins • Build a shared emotion vocabulary. Some programs use the “Zones of Regulation” tool. You can also use diverse feelings words on a regular basis. Ask children: How are you feeling today? If they’re upset or dysregulated, ask them if they’d like to brainstorm some regulation strategies with you. • In virtual settings you can provide a google form for a more confidential check in with children. Social Emotional Learning in a Virtual Space Ven and Sergio also encouraged providers to integrate SEL themes into all daily activities. SEL skills can be woven into almost any lesson plan. For example, any chance to reflect on yourself, share that reflection, and hear others share as well, builds both self-awareness and social-awareness. The I am Poem lesson plan, shared later on in this issue, is a great example of integrating SEL development into a language arts activity. As providers we must always strive to create anti-bias, anti-racist, and culturally responsive programs. We’re all at different places on this journey. Sergio encourages providers to,“Go into this work with an open mind, just be wholehearted on a base level, realize that as we enter this field there are inequities in persons and they are amplified in a virtual setting. It’s about identifying those gaps of inequity and trying to fill them.” Ven added, “I think we are teaching children to be able to acknowledge themselves and know themselves and know others, but then also be able to recognize the injustices going on. Teaching them and making them equipped to stand up for others, being able to actively stand up for themselves...I think that it all fits together.” Season 4 : Big Kids EditionSocial Emotional Learning 7 SEL Skills and Anti-Bias, Anti-Racist Teaching Practices Let’s Talk About It behavior should not be the point of growing SEL skills. SEL skills are valuable for many reasons. Strong SEL skills are linked to positive learning, health, and social outcomes in children and adults. 1 However, teaching these skills shouldn’t be distorted to be used against people, especially children, as a method of monitoring and controlling emotions and behavior. We live in a world where there is a racialized and gendered context of which children are “allowed” to express certain emotions. Practice checking in with yourself about this. Be curious about what emotions from which people make you uncomfortable. Practice sitting with that discomfort rather than trying to get the other person to stop having their feelings. As a facilitator, ask yourself about your intentions when sharing emotion management or processing techniques. Recognize that self-regulation techniques should be shared as a way to channel anger and grief in healthy ways, versus simply controlling children’s “bad” behavior. Every single one of us must continue to explore and grow our own relationships with SEL skills and anti-racism work. You can check out further reading on this topic in our Resources for Educators section, where we share work by Dena Simmons and Cierra Kaler-Jones on SEL and racial justice. Various forms of social and emotional learning (SEL) skills have long been part of all cultures across the globe. Strong SEL skills are needed in order to be an active, healthy member of any community. In the United States there was a long period of neglecting SEL skills in children and adults. Recently, our culture has shifted to recognize the important impact that SEL skills have on the wellbeing of individuals and communities overall. SEL curriculums have been rolled out in school districts across the country. These curriculums include ancient practices from indigenous communities and communities of color such as meditation, listening circles, and yoga. It is important to acknowledge and share about the cultures from which these practices originated. Social emotional learning skills are, at their core, grounded in our social groups and histories. SEL that isn’t culturally situated and rooted in social justice isn’t really SEL at all. Teaching SEL skills out of the context of social issues can turn SEL curriculum into another tool of systematic oppression. In order to sell SEL curriculum, many companies—or even well-intentioned individuals—may promise that teaching SEL skills will reduce challenging behavior and increase a teacher’s control over their classroom. This may be true in some circumstances, but it may not be true in others. Controlling children’s Pause and Reflect • Why do you offer SEL activities? • Who benefits from these activities? • What is the impact on the children? 1 Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (2020). Benefits of SEL. https://casel.org/impact/Season 4 : Big Kids EditionSocial Emotional Learning 8 Strategy Spotlight: Filling Your Balloon Creating shared vocabulary for discussing experiences and emotions helps build SEL skills. Shared vocabulary helps us be seen and understood by others. This SEL practice helps us grow healthy brains and improves our social connections. One strategy reviewed by featured guest Bryan Manzo is called “filling your balloon.” This strategy can be used with preschoolers all the way through high school and beyond. “Filling your balloon” is based on the idea that our feelings, emotions, and behaviors either create or dissipate energy in our bodies. To introduce the balloon concept, start by saying that one way to measure emotions is through invisible energy in our bodies, like air in a balloon. Bring a balloon and demonstrate by blowing some air into the balloon. Ask children, What happens when a balloon gets too full? It pops! If a balloon isn’t filled up at all, it is deflated and no fun. When we think about self-regulation we’re trying to think about finding that zone where our balloons are full enough that we’re lively and engaged, versus deflated or ready to burst. Talk with children about what fills their balloons and what deflates them. Brainstorm ways you can let a little bit of air out of a balloon that is nearing being too full. If appropriate, considering blowing up the model balloon and popping it with a thumbtack to demonstrate how an overly full balloon leads to an explosion. Be considerate of the children in your program—people with post traumatic stress could be harmed by an unexpected loud sound. Make sure children know to expect a loud sound and let them decide to cover their ears. Refer back to the balloon analogy on a regular basis to establish shared vocabulary for talking about emotions and experiences of emotions. One regular check-in question might be “How full is your balloon today?” Below are some more balloon check-in questions. Balloon reflection questions: • How full is your balloon right now? • What can deflate your balloon? • What puts energy into your balloon? • What can you do if you feel like your balloon is about to pop? • What can you do if your balloon feels deflated? “It’s a really great tool for kids and adults together to have the shared language as early as preschool all the way up to college.” -Bryan Manzo, School CounselorSeason 4 : Big Kids EditionSocial Emotional Learning 9 Pyramids for All Ages Let’s take a look at the Teaching Pyramid, a multi-tiered system of support framework often used in early childhood settings for high-quality teaching. Next we’ll consider the Social Emotional Learning Pyramid of Program Quality, a framework often used in school-age and youth care settings to measure staff practice and instructional quality. The Pyramid Model (Teaching Pyramid) The Teaching Pyramid shows that intentionally and regularly offering opportunities to grow social emotional skills supports children’s healthy development and learning. Children thrive when they have access to social emotional learning opportunities in context of a safe environment and nurturing relationships. The Social Emotional Learning Pyramid of Program Quality The Social Emotional Learning Pyramid of Program Quality, as a whole, could really be housed in the “all” and “some” parts of the Teaching Pyramid. The practices captured in the SEL Pyramid support a high-quality learning environment with structured opportunities for children to develop SEL skills. ALL SOME FEW Adapted from the David P. Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality. (2020). 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