Supporting social emotional wellness within the school community

 

 Supporting Social Emotional Wellness within the School Community

What can administrators and teachers do to increase academic achievement as well as improve social emotional wellness? 

How can administrators and teachers build upon their student interactions to influence behavioral, emotional and cognitive engagement? 

Social and emotional learning is a learned ability to recognize one’s own emotions and thoughts and how they relate to their personal identify within the family and school community. Self-awareness comes when students are able to identify those emotions that are inside them. The emotions and thoughts influence their behavior and self-awareness. In order for students to recognize the emotions that influence their behavior, they need to be self-aware of their actions. Self-awareness is helping a child understand who they are what they're good at what their strengths are what makes them special and unique things they like to do and it might be different than other kids. 

Supporting social emotion wellness increases their personal self-awareness to recognize what's happening inside their bodies and around them and that's important because they can make a connection between their decisions and their emotions. Once students recognize their connection between emotions and decisions, they can be really empowered to change. 

Administrators and teachers can model social emotional wellness through their own self-awareness. By identifying feelings aloud while in the classroom adults can facilitate discussions with students on how they feel and why. Another way to facilitate is through literature. Sanford Harmony literature has an alien puppet named Z, to go with their books. General education 

teacher Maria Ramirez introduces Z the alien. The alien Z does not know how to interact with human children. Modeling her fear Ms. Ramirez makes a frightened face and tells the students, “I am scared of him” and “he looks different than me.” This interaction with the students proceeded a discussion on how the students feel inside their bodies. Using open-ended questions, Ms. Ramirez was able to increase the academic vocabulary within the book as well as promote social emotional well-being with peer interactions. 

Music and movement also plays a factor in promoting social emotional wellness within the school community. According to researchers Harvey, Lamboure, Green, Gibson, Lee and Donnelly (2018), physical activity is linked to so many health and cognitive benefits. The authors described that physical active lessons enhance the students behavior engagement and enhance learning. Based on their research, classroom-based physical engagement is positively correlated with academic success (2018). Movement within the classroom support a healthy school environment and meets the diverse needs of our students today. 

Administrators and teachers build upon their student interactions to influence behavioral, emotional and cognitive engagement through reflection. Reflection can create a sense of achieved accomplishment and pride. It gives meaning to the experiences and reviews what goals were accomplished. Setting a special time aside reflecting on what happened, what it was like and what they would do differently creates an acknowledgement of gained skills which build confidence. Bassot (2016) stated, “Clarity comes from reflection and spending time thinking through what you hope to achieve will be important, particularly when it comes to managing large pieces of work” (p.11). Mindfulness and self-awareness also play a key role reflection. Learning to manage and identify our emotions is key to supporting emotional wellness within the school community. One way is to incorporate mindfulness reflection in your daily 

life. It is living in the present moment with non-judgmental thoughts that help recognize our intents and goals professionally and for students to support social emotional wellness. 

References 

Bassot, Barbara (2016). The Reflective Practice Guide. Routledge. 

Harvey, S. P., Lambourne, K., Greene, J. L., Gibson, C. A., Lee, J., & Donnelly, J. E. (2018). The effects of physical activity on learning behaviors in elementary school children: A randomized controlled trial. Contemporary School Psychology, 22(3), 303-312. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-017-0143-0 

Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59-109. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/school-engagement-potential-concept-state/docview/214138084/se-2 

Lesson observation Interview, Maria Ramirez 2022 

Sanford Harmony