Social and Emotional Learning and Conscious Discipline

Social and Emotional Learning / Conscious Discipline

Social and Emotional Learning can be defined simply as teaching children how to recognize, manage, and utilize their emotions and feelings accurately and appropriately.  These skills are necessary to students being able to learn how to solve problems and establish good solid relationships with other students, teachers, and family members.  Good social and emotional learning benefits students in many ways.  Students use this type of learning to develop good life skills that will literally last a lifetime.  The investment of time to teach in this area is well worth the effort.  As the graphic above notes, there are several areas that intersect when teaching social and emotional learning.  Empathy improves students ability to interact well with others.  Good decision making and boosted self esteem improves learning for all in the classroom.  Motivation and commitment from students and teachers to this type of learning improves the overall atmosphere in the classroom for learning and a feeling of community.  Finally, interpersonal awareness of how one's social skills and emotions affects others begins each student on a path to discovering how to manage themselves without constant supervision of their behaviors.  Good decisions begin here...

This point leads us to the explanation of Conscious Discipline.  Conscious discipline can be used to bring the student and teacher to the same level of communication.  Teachers can begin using this technique simply by teaching students how to stop what they are doing, take a deep breathe and relax, and then think about how and why they are feeling what they are feeling.  Conscious discipline encourages and teaches ways to self-correct, calm one's self, and begin to learn how to analyze their own feelings and realize that each individual has a choice as to how to react to their feelings.  

By taking the time and effort to use this technique with students, a teacher can increase their own personal connection with each student and gain their trust.  Teachers can also increase the problem-solving abilities of each student and also be able to increase the safety in their classroom.  When students learn about their emotions and actions and how to control them, the classroom becomes a much safer environment in which to live, learn, and share.  This is truly worth the time and effort to teach and model for students and the only thing this will cost you is a little bit of time and focused energy.

Conscious Discipline link 

When utilizing the techniques mentioned here today, teachers should realize that the time spent on these subjects is well worth it.  As you can see in the video linked above, a teacher realized that giving 10-12 minutes from her day of teaching to using these strategies increased the overall learning in her classroom.  She is also reaping rewards of knowing that she is teaching her students skills that they are taking with them throughout their lives.  

By using simple daily routines like morning meetings where students can check in about how they are feeling, the teacher can share a rundown of the routine for the day and share any changes for that day, and students can exercise their speaking and listening skills with each other, a teacher can increase community in their classroom.

There are so many simple ways to begin using these ideas.  One idea that I really plan to use from the video is where the teacher led the students in a calming activity.  She led them through a breathe in a positive thought and shake out a negative thought.  For example, breathe in calm and shake out worry before a test.  By using a verbal and physcial aspect in this activity most students can be engaged in the idea of calming their minds for their test ahead of them. 

The benefits of social and emotional learning and conscious discipline can be endless.  The high points of using these strategies are increased assertiveness in students, a great way to encourage struggling students, and a way to teach emotionally weak students to learn how to remain composed or to regain their composure.  Teachers will also benefit because students will learn empathy for others, how to make better choices throughout their day, and consequences become less and less a part of the focus of each day.  

Thank you for reading my blog and until next time,

Shannon