Young people today are growing up in an increasingly complex world. At times it can seem dangerous and confusing, especially with the incidence of hate crimes up for the third year in a row (as reported by the FBI). Helping your students to feel, and stay, safe yet empowered to confront hate, injustice and inequality is an important outcome of Social Emotional Learning. Knowing how to adequately address these polarizing issues is often a challenge for educators.
Here’s a Strategy That Works!
Grades 2-12
The Sharing Circle provides a simple process and emotionally safe environment that builds a student community that helps build trust and fosters meaningful conversation. The topics discussed in the Sharing Circle provides students the opportunity to discuss and reflect on their own identity and to develop self-awareness and understanding of others.
Here’s a wonderful Sharing Circle from Lessons In Tolerance And Diversityour complete guide to everything you need to know to have success with Sharing Circle Topics
Here’s Your Sharing Circle. Enjoy!
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Conflict, violence, and bullying are escalating in schools nationwide. Educators today express unprecedented concern about school and classroom disruptions that steal instructional hours and endanger the safety of students.
Grades 8-12
Some amount of conflict occurs normally in all schools. However, schools that are large, have limited resources, or serve highly diverse populations often experience pervasive conflict. Outside the school, a corresponding escalation in aggressive and violent behaviors exists in society at large. Our culture inadvertently supports violence through advertising, social relationships, politics, the media, and entertainment.
Keeping the Lid On Conflict
Often, conflicts escalate because students and the adults around them don’t know how to respond to disagreements and confrontations pro-socially and creatively. Peers — sometimes even parents —reward aggressive responses to conflict. These responses are modeled on television and in movies, where even the “good guys” maim and kill in order to “win.” Obviously, our society and our schools are in critical need of people with effective pro-social conflict resolution skills.
This week’s lesson focuses on how to bring a more positive , pro-social aspect to conflict.It has been taken from Conflict Resolution Skills for Teens, a learning guide for middle and high school.
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Today’s blog was inspired when I was sharing a meal the other day with a teacher friend. I asked how the new school year was starting out, and she shared that a challenge was getting the students to be kind to one another. I thought that providing a kindness activity today seemed the perfect response.
Kindness and Its Importance
Everyone intuitively knows the value of being kind, and teaching kindness and empathy to children. Observing or participating in acts of kindness sets a positive and caring tone for the day as well as reinforces important social-emotional skills. Modeling and reinforcing kindness makes it a practical and commonplace skill.
Many benefits have been reported in support of directly teaching kindness in schools including: Happy caring children; Greater sense of belonging and improved self-esteem; Improved health and less stress; increased feelings of gratitude; Better concentration; Reduced depression; Less bullying. In a 2016 report the US Department of Education said that research demonstrates the importance of kindness: “Students learn best when they feel safe, supported, challenged and accepted”. These are all elements of kindess.
Here’s Your Kindness Resource
This week’s activity helps students learn about the richness found in kind acts and behaviors and how they can be a benefit to all aspects of their lives. The activity, A Book of Kindness, comes from the resource guide, Caring and Capable Kids.
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Reflections on Respect Here’s a follow up on last week’s Blog which discussed the importance of teaching students the value of respect. Helping students understand the significance of a respectful attitude and helping them identify specific actions and behaviors that demonstrate respect is the purpose of today’s Sharing Circle. This Sharing Circle topic comes from the activity book (Grades 3-6), Hearts and Minds – An After-School Program for Developing Reading Literacy and Emotional Intelligence. The topic is, How I Show Respect Toward Others…
Here’s Your Monday Morning Sharing Circle. Enjoy!
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Teaching children about respect and developing positive relationships is one of the most important things we can do, especially in today’s increasingly disrespectful world.
What It Takes
Elementary
Being intentional and specifically having your students engage in activities focussed on respect will help them to understand the importance of their respectful actions and to understanding the difference between respectful and disrespectful actions and words.
Respect means showing regard for the worth of someone or something.It includes respect for self (self-esteem), respect for others, and respect for the environment, including other life forms.All other varieties of respect are outgrowths of these three.Respecting someone’s property, for example, extends from respecting the owner of the property.
When we teach students to show respect, we prevent them from hurting what they ought to value.If we are completely successful, they will end up valuing that for which they have demonstrated respect.
Other ways to foster respect include:
Create a democratic classroom environment, in which the rights of all students are respected.Show your own regard for every student, every day.
Expect students to be polite and courteous.Consistently model the use of “please,” “thank you,” “excuse me,” etc.
Really listen to the opinions and contributions of students.Make it a rule that students listen respectfully to each other.
Show your appreciation for diversity.Create an environment in which individual differences are celebrated, and where all students feel included and interdependent.
Teach students a simple decision-making process and encourage them to use it.Respect their ability to make decisions for themselves.Serve as their advisor and consultant.
When students have difficulty understanding how their behavior affects others, suggest that they apply the classic test of reversibility.Ask them:Would you want to receive this kind of treatment?
Here’s a great activity for working on one important aspect of RESPECT:
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It’s your first day of school and you have a whole new group of students to get to know. By being interested in who they are as people, their interests, feelings, experiences, backgrounds etc., you’re making them feel welcome and setting a tone of caring, and by making them feel welcome and showing that you care you’re building positive relationships and winning them over right from the start. When you get to know your students on a personal level you’ll have a better understanding of group interactions, personal likes and dislikes, and motivating interests. This can help you plan lessons, organize groups, and diffuse potential problems.
Some Great Resources
Grades 7-12
Here are a few quick activity sheets and some suggestions for follow up group interactions that help you to get to know your students and for them to get to know each other.
One Last Thought…
It’s important to remember that building positive relationships and maintaining a classroom of caring is about taking time on a regular basis to be in touch with the human side of your students. Check out more activities from the many books available from the Innerchoice Publishing website
Activities for the elementary grades – All About Me
Welcoming families as vital partners in the school community can create a stimulating learning environment. It can also be frustrating and challenging, especially when social customs and mores, language differences, even fear become barriers that can hinder this partnership.
The Student Reality
In many cases, immigrant students prove surprisingly resilient and eager to mimic the behaviors and values of their American peers. Some come from countries where Western culture has already made significant inroads, whether through television, movies, music, technology or MacDonald’s. However, too rapid acculturation can often spell trouble at home, as conflicts develop between children intent on change and parents determined to preserve traditional values.
Linking with Parents
This book is about reaching out to immigrant parents because it is often the parents, not the students, who need the greatest understanding and help. School systems differ around the world.In many countries parent involvement is not expected, or wanted.Immigrant parents may not understand how the U.S. school system works and be totally unfamiliar with the concept of parent involvement.In addition to not understanding the school system they often have very little knowledge of how to support their children’s educational development.
Few children, regardless of culture, achieve their full academic, social and leadership potential without the support of a caring, involved family. Talented, able immigrant children can easily fall by the wayside if their parents are so alienated from the educational system that they are unable to assist with homework, language acquisition, and a whole array of compliance issues ranging from simple attendance to behavior codes and discipline policies. When parents are in overt (or covert) conflict with the educational system, the cultural tug-of-war for the mind and heart of the child can be devastating.
By extending a welcoming hand, making efforts to communicate, and involving immigrant parents in the schooling of their children, we can circumvent many of these problems. It’s a preventive approach, really, one that attempts to support and strengthen the child at the foundational level.
Building a Repertoire
As educators, we need to comprehend and address a complete range of cultural issues. To do this, we have to understand the values, customs and worldview of the dominant American culture as well as those of immigrant students and their families. We must be aware of the unique behaviors of each immigrant child, while appreciating and understanding the cultural context from which these behaviors originate. We should also try to understand the immigration experience and the process of acculturation — which is often painful and conflicting.
Cultural Factors to Keep in Mind
Understanding your own culture is a major step toward understanding others. It’s like anything else. Having a context and a basis for comparison makes identifying differences a lot easier. Remember that while values are the bedrock of culture, they often can only be understood by examining customs, communication styles and individual behaviors. The values themselves are hidden.
Communication styles and patterns, including body language, vary from one culture to another. For example, people from some cultures pull away in response to direct questioning or see “why” questions as accusations. Others feel an obligation to please the person with whom they are talking and think nothing of massaging the facts in order to do so. In some cultures, smiling and nodding have little to do with genuine pleasure or agreement. In others, having direct eye contact with someone in an authority position is considered rude.
In communicating with immigrant students and their families, it is important to do perception checks. Is your interpretation correct? Check with the other person. The rules for good listening and responding don’t change, but if you are willing and able to make small adjustments in your style of communicating (to more closely mirror the style of the other person), communication will be improved.
The more you know about a student’s culture, the better the chances of effective communication. This doesn’t mean that you have to devote hours of study to becoming multiculturally literate. Showing an interest in the diverse experiences of students and their families is an important way to build relationships. Observing, asking questions and exploring differences in an open and honest way will go a long way to building insight and understanding. For example, questions and observations may tell you such things as:
• The amount of personal space an individual requires. (This tells you how much physical distance to allow between you and the other person.)
• How time is viewed. Does the American expectation of punctuality have meaning in the other culture? Is the fast pace of American life creating conflicts for the student or family? Do children and their parents understand and accept the concept of deadlines and due dates for projects and papers?
• The family’s decision-making process. How does information seem to flow from the child to the home and back again to you? Is there an established protocol for gaining parent cooperation? Do family members other than parents (e.g., grandparents, aunts, siblings) need to be involved?
Gauge the amount of information you provide. This is particularly important when working with immigrant parents. Individuals experiencing culture shock are already overwhelmed. Piling on reams of information is probably going to be counterproductive. Prioritize what you need to convey to parents and then deal with it in small chunks. Have more contacts of shorter duration.
In virtually every area of living life skills are needed. Along with math, science, technology, history and English, students also need to be taught how to manage themselves, their time and activities.They need to know how to get along with others and to formulate goals and communicate their needs in a pro-social manner.Too often these critical life skills are not addressed in a direct fashion but their acquisition is simply left to chance.Students often don’t learn effective ways to deal with life issues.They have ideas but can’t express them clearly.They get into conflicts they don’t know how to resolve.They have hopes and dreams but can only drift through life.
The Current Reality
Often it’s the lack of skills and awarenesses that prevent many from becoming fully capable, contributing, happy members of society.School is the ideal places to directly teach life skills, both for their impact on the future and because life skills ensure the effective application of academic skills today.
Here’s a Resource and How to Use It
Understanding Me develops, maintains, and enhances critical life skills.Among the life skills addressed in these activity sheets are:
•decision making • goal setting • communication • conflict management • learning • leadership • time management • responsibility • assertiveness • career choic • trust • friendship • culture • justice
In addition to your own enabling behaviors and the cultivation of an affirming classroom or counseling environment, you can assure a positive impact on the social-emotional development of your students by infusing these activities into your regular curriculum or counseling efforts.They represent one of many possible approaches and can be enlisted as supplements to other strategies you are currently using.
A Complimentary Activity
UNDERSTANDING ME is packed with meaningful information for teens to learn new ideas, attitudes, behaviors, perspectives, and skills while promoting self-awareness and self-esteem.These flexible worksheets can be used by anyone working with teens – teachers, counselors, youth group and after-school leaders, home-schoolers, and parents.
Today’s selected student activity is entitled Pressure!. What is Peer Pressure and what do you do with it?
Use this activity now, and purchase the book to have a whole library of instantly usable social skills skills activities with which to engage your students.
You can check the book out HERE, and you can open a reproducible PDF of your student activity HERE.
If you like our blog resources and would like to receive them regularly, please subscribe here or on our website at www.InnerchoicePublishing.com
Children who have learned to understand, accept, and control their feelings are not only less vulnerable to conflict, they are better equipped to deal constructively with conflict when it occurs. This Sharing Circle will allow students to better understand the connection between feelings and behavior. The topic for this Sharing Circle is, Something I Do That Makes Me Happy…
Here’s Your Monday Morning Sharing Circle.
Enjoy!
Something I Do That Makes Me Happy
Objectives:
The students will:
— identify something that they enjoy doing.
— state that all people can make themselves feel better.
Introduce the Topic:
Today we are going to think about things that we do to make ourselves feel good.The topic is, “Something I Do That Makes Me Happy.”
Do you know that you can make yourself feel happy?We all do things every day to help ourselves feel good.We give hugs to people we love, and that feels good.We sometimes sing or dance or tell jokes to make ourselves happy.We might make ourselves happy by playing a favorite game or reading a good book; by getting together with a close friend, playing with a pet, relaxing in front of T.V., or taking a walk.Close your eyes right now and think of one thing that you do to make yourself happy.Maybe you eat a favorite snack in the afternoon, or cuddle up with your cat.Perhaps you paint, or work on your computer.Take a few moments to think about it.The topic is, “Something I Do That Makes Me Happy.”
Discussion Questions:
1. Why is it important to know how to make yourself feel better?
2. What ideas did you hear that you’d like to try?
3. Who is in control of how you feel?Explain.
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Explain the rules for sharing, and get agreement from everyone that they will follow the rules.
Sharing Circle Rules:
• Everyone gets a turn to share, including the leader.
• You can skip your turn if you wish.
• Listen to the person who is sharing.
• There are no interruptions, probing, put-downs, or gossip.
• Share the time equally.
After everyone has shared, who wants to share, ask the discussion questions.
Everyone gets angry, and everyone gets involved in conflict.Both are normal human experiences and often one leads to the other.Anger can lead to conflict, and conflict can lead to anger.They generally go together and it’s hard to tell which came first anger or conflict.Indeed, it’s often difficult to tell them apart.It’s only natural then that the teaching of the skills and awarenesses that lead to the ability to effectively managing these powerful emotional events be taught together. Children need to learn effective ways to control, express, and release their anger and strategies for dealing with the conflicts that inevitably arise in life.
The Reality
Because so many influences in their lives teach otherwise, powerful approaches and consistent intervention are needed to teach children positive, social and emotional skills.Practice makes perfect.Repeated exposure to positive alternatives, consistent reinforcement, and practice.Lots of practice!
A Complimentary Activity
Learning together in a classroom or counseling session makes it easier to internalize the skills, strategies, and methods of anger control and conflict management.We all are social beings designed by our long evolutionary history to learn our interactive behaviors with others.The activities in ANGER CONTROL AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT FOR KIDS are designed to actively engage the students with each other in applying knowledge, solving problems, communicating, cooperating, and relating experiences to their own lives. They demonstrate to students the power of approaching anger and conflict with a win-win attitude, and to teach them a number of basic pro-social strategies for managing anger and resolving conflict.The experiential group activities included in this book examine the nature of anger and conflict as well as their causes, effects, and resolutions.A unique Sharing Circle and role-play process builds into the learning experience repeated opportunities for behavioral rehearsal.
Today’s selected group activity is Learning to Control My Anger.
Use this activity now, and purchase the book to have a whole library of instantly usable social skills skills activities with which to engage your students.
You can check the book out HERE, and you can open a reproducible PDF of your student activity HERE.
If you like our blog resources and would like to receive them regularly, please subscribe here or on our website at www.InnerchoicePublishing.com
Here’s Your Sharing Circle. Enjoy!
