Perry Street Prep 3

"Don’t be afraid to connect with your students at an emotional level; discuss your feelings and show your emotions."

An interview with Samanthia Campbell, Jordan Jackson and Monique Watkins

What does social emotional learning look like in your classroom?

Warm classroom climate, student choice, lots of specific praise and discussions, student leadership and responsibility, supportive teachers and lots of happy children who encourage and praise their classmates and give each other hugs when they become overwhelmed or emotional.

Can you speak to the value that SEL has in your classroom? Why is it important to you?

In my opinion, children learn all they need to know in Pre-K and Kindergarten and this has nothing to do with academics; it is the social-emotional skills that help them learn how to cope with feelings, set goals, make decisions and get along with others. These kinds of social and emotional skills are essential for success in school and in life. And these skills can be and should be taught every day.

What does your teaching team do to ensure all kids are growing their social emotional skills?

We watch our language AND ACTIONS: Teacher language is a very important part of SEL. Teacher language should encourage students to monitor and regulate their own behavior; we speak and act with warmth and support. We see ourselves as influential models when it comes to social and emotional skills. We know that our students can learn from us about positive ways to encourage others, display empathy, or solve conflicts.

Student leadership and choice: We give our students many opportunities to lead, to choose how to complete an activity and we follow their lead. This is not an easy skill to have as a teacher, it involves letting go of the plans you have for that beautiful craft and just allowing them to be their own kind of creative. This might also include allowing students to choose their own jobs, which center to play in and for how long, voting for the morning song or what to have for a snack; but also giving students choices for ways in which lessons and activities can be completed. Providing choices in the classroom increases students' sense of ownership over their learning and develops their responsible decision-making skills.

Many classroom discussions: We encourage our students to talk about everything. We teach attentive listening, raising a quiet hand, waiting their turn, when to speak and how to listen to classmates. These discussions and skills engage students' social and self-awareness and enhance their ability to get along with their classmates.

PSP3 teaches skills and reinforces them!

What advice do you have for teaching teams who want to improve their SEL practices?

First, you need to make a conscious decision to start seeing social-emotional learning as an important part of your instruction and necessary to your student’s success.

Next, begin to encourage social interactions in your classroom and create means and procedures where students can feel responsible, loved and supported.

Don’t be afraid to connect with your students at an emotional level; discuss your feelings and show your emotions then work them out how you would like your students to. For example, you can get upset over something that happens in the classroom, however instead of getting mad and yelling at the class say “Ms. C is mad right now, so I am going to take some deep breaths to calm my body then when I am calm we will talk about how to fix this.”

Finally, pay attention to your classroom climate, student engagement, how you give feedback (is praise specific?, am I overpraising) and your student’s response to feedback (are they beaming, did they flinch with that comment; how do I fix this?)

I do believe that effective AppleTree teachers already have been doing most of these things in their classroom all along. We now have to make a conscious decision to grow our practice in SEL and to make it as important as academic learning.

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