October is upon us and the school year is in full swing. As educators, this season can feel incredibly busy as we try to keep beginning-of-the-year energy rolling us forward. It can be a time to stop and enjoy the beautiful transition of fall, but it can also be a time of stress and hustle.  Wherever you find yourself in this season, professionally or personally, we hope you can find moments of self-care and self-reflection. Please know that our Social Emotional Learning and Restorative Practices Department is here to support you!

In our newsletters, we will focus on one of the 5 SEL core competencies and one of the 10 schoolwide indicators each month. In this edition, we will explore the core competency of self-awareness and how self-awareness shows up in our interactions with students, staff, and families. We will explore the schoolwide indicator of supportive school and classroom climates. We will highlight progress in our second year of districtwide SEL curricula in WS/FCS as well as honor National Bullying Prevention Month. We will explore restorative practices and SEL as a lever for equity.  We will also include updates, announcements, and "SELebrations" so you can stay informed about the wonderful SEL work going on in our district.

We are excited to continue to learn and grow with you.  Thank you for being partners in growing SEL in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools.

The SEL competency for this month is self-awareness. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) defines self-awareness as:

“The abilities to understand one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts. This includes capacities to recognize one’s strengths and limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence and purpose.”

CASEL then provides some examples of what self-awareness entails:

• Integrating personal and social identities

• Identifying personal, cultural, and linguistic assets

• Identifying one’s emotions

• Demonstrating honesty and integrity

• Linking feelings, values, and thoughts

• Examining prejudices and biases

• Experiencing self-efficacy

• Having a growth mindset

• Developing interests and a sense of purpose

Strengthening Your Self-Awareness 

Self-awareness is a skill to cultivate and practice, just like riding a bike or knitting.  It involves action and reflection. This skill is important for adults as well as students.  Adults must practice their own self-awareness in order to teach students how to grow in this skill. 

Here are 3 activities as an adult learner you could try to strengthen your self-awareness skills. 

1. Your core values. What drives you and anchors you everyday? What values do you live by? Here is an activity you can use to explore your core values.

2. Your social identities. This involves examining how you define yourself in terms of the groups which you belong to. These groups could include race, religious/spiritual beliefs, age, gender, ethnicity, first language, nationality, national or regional origins, sexual orientation, etc. You can use this document to explore your social identities.

3. Your implicit biases: This is about examining the attitudes and stereotypes that guide your thinking without you knowing it. Project Implicit offers several tools to help you discover these biases.

The 4 minute video below from CASEL gives a quick overview of the importance of exploring self-awareness as adults and students, both at school and at home.  Watch the video and reflect on the questions below.

The National School Climate Center defines school climate as the “quality and character of school life,” and school climate defines the conditions through which students and adults feel that they belong in a school. In supportive schools, SEL teams regularly assess climate through observational data, and school leadership teams use data like the Panorama data our district uses to create schoolwide norms, shared agreements, routines, and procedures that support the school’s SEL vision and climate.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) recommends several core strategies to infuse SEL into every part of the school day. These strategies are embedded in our district’s Code of Character, Conduct, and Support and include instructional practices and academic rigor, student voice and engagement, and discipline policies that promote SEL and equitable outcomes in warm, nurturing and motivating school climates.

In supportive classrooms where SEL and curriculum meet, deep academic learning is woven into opportunities for students to understand their own emotions, empathize with diverse perspectives, cultivate trusting relationships, solve problems constructively, and make decisions while considering the needs of others. At the core of supportive classrooms are caring, engaging teachers who establish authentic trusting relationships with each student.

“Fundamentally, as every teacher knows, this job of education is a human one. It is about relationships...When teachers are able to prioritize relationships and focus on the quality of their connections with kids, we see over and over again the teachers feeling more effective and the kids being more engaged, learning more and feeling more effective.” -Robert Pianta

It is also important to note that supportive schools and classrooms constitute spaces where students and staff come together for a sense of community and sense of belonging. These physical spaces can contribute to or detract from a supportive school climate. Involving students in decisions regarding how the spaces look and how they can be used in safe, comfortable and accessible ways that affirm their identities and reflect their culture is an opportunity to elevate student voice.

In summary, supportive school and classroom environments are physically, socially, emotionally, and academically safe. They create opportunities for all students to learn and practice social and emotional competence. They have inclusive policies that enable students to be full members of the classroom and school community and avoid removing students from the learning environment whenever possible. Finally, there is a staff culture that encourages shared responsibility for the well-being of all students in their school experiences.

As we move forward with restorative practices as a district we want to bring to the forefront that there are a plethora of ways to implement restorative practices in your classroom and school community. Incorporating morning meetings is an easy way to build relationships with students. This allows adults and students to gain a sense of others mindsets, set the tone of the day, and create focus for the academic day. We can also use restorative practices as a tool for goal setting. When students engage with goal setting, they are able to practice self-awareness and self-management as they show ownership of areas they seek to improve academically and/or socially.  

Restorative practices can also be part of supportive discipline, an indicator of schoolwide SEL. In restorative practices, the student is able to understand how and why their behavior has impacted themselves and others from multiple perspectives. This not only grows self-awareness and social awareness, but it helps build self-management as it prompts reflection on their behavior by addressing questions like: 

• What happened? 

• What were you thinking of at the time? 

• What have you thought about since? 

• Who has been affected by what you have done,  and how were they affected? 

• What do you think you need to do to make things right?

Teaching students skills they need to build and maintain healthy relationships, hold equitable dialogue, address harm, needs, and take responsibility will build a foundation that lasts a lifetime. When we build socially responsible and competent students, we encourage them to go beyond traditional academic practices by critically problem-solving, making responsible decisions, and working collaboratively with others. This will ultimately lead to a safe and supportive school and community. Let’s invest in our students wisely.

We are thrilled as a department to have Second Step and Project Wayfinder back for another year as partners in the district. Second Step, our elementary SEL curriculum partner and Project Wayfinder, our secondary SEL curriculum partner,  have brought exciting features into the school year for our teachers to best model and teach SEL skills for our students. 

Project Wayfinder has introduced a feature titled, "Collections" that allows teachers to create folders to organize activities they want to utilize in their weekly lessons and in their content classes. This feature also allows teachers and staff members to share folders of activities with their colleagues directly through their accounts. This feature has been a very welcomed addition to our secondary schools. The coaches have been out and about throughout the district supporting our schools as they each kick-off their weekly lessons. 

At Northwest Middle School, teachers got to pick an activity from their "Collections" folder for the first day. Some chose energizing group activities focused on building relationships and making connections while others chose relaxing exercises that modeled self-regulation for students. At Paisley, 8th grade did a lesson on ways to build friendly conversation and communicate well with others through a game called "Conversation Starter Bingo" where students had to fill out a bingo card by practicing conversation starters to build healthy and friendly communication. 

Many other schools have had great starts with their curriculum as well! Wiley Middle School utilized Project Wayfinder in their first days of culture building to start the year. West Forsyth and Mt. Tabor have used the updated Portrait of a Graduate initiative to build an intentional schedule with students based on the Project Wayfinder curriculum. 

Second Step has had an excellent kick-off as well! Elementary teachers are consistently praising the user-friendly platform for supporting teachers with ready-to-go lessons.  Second Step's scope and sequence give teachers step-by-step activities and guidance on how to intentionally include lesson topics throughout the regular school week. Unit 1 in first quarter focuses on Goal-Setting and Growth Mindset.  Students get a weekly opportunity to learn these important SEL skills with their teachers and peers. It is so powerful that all of our elementary school students across the district are learning and practicing these skills together!

We would love to hear more stories of how your school is utilizing their curriculum so be sure to reach out to your coach and let them know all the exciting things happening during your SEL lessons! 

The Fall 2023 Panorama Survey is October 16 through November 6!

Beginning Monday, October 16, we need your input! We are asking each family, student, and school-based staff member to complete our biannual Panorama Survey. The Panorama Survey provides valuable insight into the climate and culture of individual schools and the district as a whole. The links to the family surveys will be posted on our district website and open on October 16.  Parents can also expect to receive information from their child's school.

As always, parents do have the option to notify the school if you do not want your child to participate. This year’s student survey is shorter and does not ask questions that deal with personal student emotion.   Parent, student, and staff participation in this survey is the best way to help the district make decisions using your input and feedback as the guide. If you have any questions about the survey administration, please don’t hesitate to contact your child’s school or the SEL and Restorative Practices Department. We thank you in advance for your thoughtful responses. 

An Adult SEL Resource compiled by the WS/FCS  SEL Team