Social-Emotional Learning: Relationship Skills

Connection to nature is an important part of learning the social-emotional skills we all need. 

Recent research emphasizes the impact of nature on people's health. We need fresh air and water. Kids love to play with water and sand.

Here is an interesting article from "Project Learning Tree"

Mother Nature is a great teacher and getting kids outside to learn and play is good for their brains and their bodies. 

Contact with nature is more essential today given that children are spending nearly 8 hours a day using entertainment media and only 6 percent of children ages 9-13 play outside on their own. We are at risk of losing an entire generation’s appreciation for how nature works and what it needs to remain healthy and productive.

Here you can listen about  Trauma-informed Design 

And here is recent research about nature connection:

Lanza, K., Alcazar, M., Chen, B., & Kohl III, H. W. (2023). Connection to nature is associated with social-emotional learning of children. Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, 4, 100083.

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Management

Learning to manage our own emotions can only happen after we become aware of them. This is why SEL education is so crucially important in all levels of education - it doesn't matter whether you are 3 or 13 or 93 years old (or anything in between!), we still benefit from being able to manage our stress and motivations. I discuss SEL every day in my work - my students are teachers earning their M.Ed. degrees.

Before I started to really discuss and write about SEL and dig deeper into Resilience Science, I already knew that beach walks always made me feel better. Now I also know why it happens: managing my emotions helps me to adjust to external demands of work and life. For me, personally, the salty smell of the ocean and the sound of crashing waves is insanely relaxing. 

Resilience is like a muscle that we can train with practice (instead of an inherent trait of personality), and all our positive experiences can contribute for us to become more resilient over time. 

The important part is to find something that work for you. Something that you enjoy, so that it is not a chore.

Social-Emotional Learning: Relationship Skills

While collaborating with others we need to learn the abilities to engage in active listening and cooperating, and also to be able to communicating clearly. Sometimes I think that I was very clear with my words, but when I ask others to reiterate it, the message becomes quite different from what I meant it to be. I believe this happens to all of us! :)

Teamwork at best is extremely rewarding! At worst it might become an experience we will never want to repeat. It is important for our students to experience the positive aspects of teamwork and learning from each other. (Reminder for us who teach: every day we DO have the opportunity to learn from our students!)

Seeking help and offering it are also very important parts of teamwork. We always learn from each other! 

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness

SEL: Identifying one's own emotions is one of the building blocks of self-awareness. 

To be 100% honest with you, I have always, always loved sunsets and sunrises. There is just something magical about them: a whole new day to use, do whatever I think/believe I need to or want to do - it is always a new beginning! Or the sunset to get the necessary rest tand then start anew the next morning.

This sunset is from the Hawai'ian island of Maui. I was priviledged to visit there and enjoy the warmth and sunshine. For sure there were some rains, too, and I love, LOVE the way the locals call rains as "blessings".  :)

Gratitude is a wonderful emotion that helps us to pay good things forward. Also: we all NEED and DESERVE the rest and relaxation. What are you doing today or this week to be nice to yourself? 

:) 

Social-Emotional Learning: Responsible Decision-Making

I think one part of our jobs as educators we are helping our students to learn how to make better decisions, which of course is an important SEL component.

In our everyday lives we also keep practicing of making responsible choices. For me, that often is choosing to work on my learning for just 15-30 minutes to keep the content fresh in my mind. 

What is your secret?

Anticipating and evaluating the consequences of one's actions is one of the  SEL competencies we can practice throughout our lives and always learn more about ourselves! It is also true while about planning our days. 

When I was visiting the Hoh Rainforest, I knew that there was a rainstorm approaching, so I decided to stay relatively close to the Visitor Center, but I got to see the Hall of Mosses. And I enjoyed it SO much! 

:)

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Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Awareness

Linking feelings, values, and thoughts is an important part of our self-awareness and well-being, regardless our age. 

Learning to understand the connections early makes our lives easier. Unfortunately, many of us may have experienced more of negative thoughts and feelings. The good part is: it is never too late to start focusing on the positive experiences. 

I am very fortunate because I get to travel to beautiful places like National Parks. But learning to look around to see something beautiful, something positive is a skill I have practiced for a long time. It is about choosing to see the positive (and this is very different from toxic positivity). 

As educators we CAN help our students to have positive learning experiences. For Early Learning there is HOPE - Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences. Here is a 2-pager about HOPE. 

We all can choose to decrease the impact of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) by purposefully focusing on the positive and supporting our students' social-emotional growth with classroom interactions - regardless of the age of our students! My students are adults, and we still enjoy the SEL discussions. 

It is extremely important to invest in our relationships with our students, make sure they have a safe and equitable learning environment, and help every student to engage in their own learning process to link their feelings, values and thoughts to what they are learning.  

Here is more information about using Trauma-Informed Practices in education!

Social-Emotional Learning: Self-Management

 

Identifying and using stress management strategies is am important part of our own Social-Emotional Learning. It also relates to our self-compassion, which is basically about being kind to ourselves, and treating ourselves like our best friends. Compassion is not based on accomplishments - self-compassion cannot be based on that either. Feelings of inadequacy are a part of human experience.

One way of managing our stress is taking time off work, and using vacations to visit places we want to  see. It doesn't always have to be a far-away place - for me the visits within 30-minute drive are usually the easiest to do. But I would love to visit gorgeous places like the one in the picture! 

How are you going manage your stress? What helps you to find self-compassion?

Here is more information about Self-Compassion: https://self-compassion.org/