Social Emotional Learning at FGCS
Our educational program includes social emotional learning (SEL). These lessons happen usually once a week and focus on topics such as cooperation, communication, decision-making, managing emotions, and getting along with others. Many of our lessons come from the Second Step Program, which is a highly awarded, evidence-based program.
Why do we teach these lessons? A couple of reasons:
1. There is abundant evidence that social-emotional competence leads to successful outcomes for children; 2. The state of Oregon health standards include social-emotional topics. The SEL topic for each week will be added to this page. If you ever have questions about these lessons, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Through the course of the year, we will read about Indigenous peoples, Black Americans, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Latinx Americans, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ people, and other groups. We will share the books and slides we plan to use here on our Level 3 website in case you would like to read them too!
The books we read aloud and slides we use may introduce students to information that they did not know, and this may lead to questions at home. In our read-alouds about LGBTQIA+ people, some students first learn about gender expression and sexual orientation. We realize that the topic of gender in particular is controversial. We want to be clear that our approach in teaching this topic is to educate on the topic and not to coach children in their gender identity.