Social Emotional Wellness School

 

 Traumatic Brain Injury and Education What are some of the causes of Traumatic Brain Injury? How do educators ensure high quality equitable education to students with TBI?   The human brain is a complex system as it consists of many different and connected parts to make the brain function. The human brain is responsible for all human behaviors, emotions and cognition processes.  Most common causes in ages 0-4 are falls and tumbling down the stairs, motor vehicle accidents and child abuse. Working with a child with TBI is different, because the injury occurs within the context of the brain that’s in the process of developing, so the child is still healing from the injury at the same time that their brain is also developing (2018).  Since getting back to school is a concern for most parents and children, teachers should team up with parents to develop a plan on how entry to school should happen. Author Julie Bowen states, “ Because the recovery process can take se...

                      School Survey provides insight at Nevalla Elementary  Most recently, students and families struggled with social issues and loss of learning in addition to the uncertainty of reopening of schools and looked to the school leaders to ensure the safety and emotional well-being of their children. School leaders continued to look for ways to improve their school community.  One way is to rely on data from surveys to improve their school performance. Reliance on school surveys have been increasing since the pandemic. They help gain informational data to assist educators and districts to implement improvement in learning and teaching. School wide surveys allow students, parents and teachers to voice concerns and improve educational and social outcomes. By looking at the resulting data from the surveys, administrators can identify a problem and address those needs.  The identified problem at Nevalla Ave...

   Trick or Treat and Celebration Guidelines? School celebrations bring students together and create excitement for the school day. Halloween seems to be the favorite holiday celebration, but in recent times Halloween has caused a stir within the school communities and their school district. School districts are searching for alternate ways to allow schools to celebrate by encouraging fall-themed school wide events. The reason for this trend is to ensure that all students feel included in the celebration.  Some students do not celebrate Halloween. There is legitimate concern of students whose parents choose to opt-out of the celebrations. Most relate it to a pagan holiday so many Muslim or Jehovah’s Witnesses opt-out but are concerned about losing valuable academic learning time. Students who opt-out of the Halloween festivities, work with the principals or teachers to come up with an alternate activity.  Los Angeles Unified School District officials recognize that n...

  Teacher Burnout and the Time for Self-care The topics of the professional development meetings at most school sites are all typically about the district mandated implemented to-dos to add to the weekly schedules. I left the auditorium at my school-site  once again feeling overwhelmed with an angst of so many things to do and so little time in the day. “Oh yeah, take care of yourself; practice self-care” says the administrators and facilitators of the professional development meeting. But what does that exactly mean? In general, it means eating well, getting plenty of rest and of course exercise. I am sure there are more suggestions however it doesn’t really explain how to do this. Self care in today's teaching world is not a luxury, it is a necessity and we owe it to ourselves and our students the importance of taking care of ourselves. As I spoke to other teachers I gathered information on what are the key stressors and outlined various ways to manage the stress by implemen...