Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness

Recently I have been volunteering to support a resiliency training and realized that the biggest change, the most necessary one is about our own perception.

In the classroom, how do we perceive students? Are they acting out or manipulative and naughty? Or, are they just emotionally dysregulated and trying to get their needs met with  the only tools they have learned to use? 

How can we understand ourselves better, so that we can help our students?