YOUR ROAD MAP

The greatest influence on school climate lies in the words and actions of our school adults. The success of every school climate initiative depends on how staff members are expressing feelings, needs and requests.  Skillful Communication helps us become keenly aware of what we are thinking, saying, and doing, and how we are listening, so we can engage others with more clarity and compassion instead of judgement and blame.

The term “SEL” is often attached to anything and everything that schools try to do that is positive.  The reason not much is accomplished this way, is that SEL is not that.  SEL refers to teaching social and emotional SKILLS in a sequential, developmental order, every year, to every student, in every grade.  Just like learning to read and write, there are specific behavioral skills that help us deal positively with the social and emotional challenges in our daily lives.  

Historically, the response to children choosing disruptive or hurtful behaviors has been to employ a long list of escalating consequences, punishments or exclusionary practices like detention, time-out, and in-school or out of school suspensions.  These approaches are intended to teach someone a lesson, remove them from the environment they disrupted, and protect others in the school.  A collaborative and optimistic approach to addressing inappropriate behavior starts with the premise that people want to be accepted, connect and do better – if only they knew how.  They don’t have these skills, so they’ve learned to use what works for them to defend their feelings or avoid things they can’t do well. How can we help?