SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING NEWS
SEL - SERVICE LEARNING - CULTURE & CLIMATE
Guilford County Schools
November 2019
The SEL Spotlight
Western Guilford Middle School on Unity Day
SEL Leadership Team
Parkview Elementary
Northeast Guilford MS on Unity day
Jefferson ES Cultivating Self-Awareness
Bessemer ES on Unity Day
ACES takes the Unity Pledge
Student Services Team takes Unity Pledge
GCS Principals Engage in Cultivating Self-Awareness
SEL Focus of the Month
This month's SEL focus is Self-Awareness and Responsible Decision Making. Self-Awareness is the ability to accurately recognize one's own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior. The ability to accurately assess one's strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism, and a “growth mindset.” Responsible Decision Making is “the ability to make constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms.” Make a commitment this month to cultivate your own self-awareness and responsible decision making.
SEL Quick Wins
We often incorporate activities for building relationships or demonstrating kindness into our classroom setting for students. Consider adapting some of those activities to use with the adults in the building. Using relationship building and kindness activities with your teams will help them work better together and provide a real model for students.
Renew.
When teachers arrive for an afternoon PD session, begin with reflection or some kind of activity that allows for quiet introspection or connection with another person around something meaningful. Create pockets of silence during the session (Aguilar, 2018).
Connect.
We often do book studies with our teams to grow our professional knowledge. Consider reading a book together just for fun. Choose a popular novel, biography, or anything that interests your team. Read and discuss. Just for fun and connection!
School Tools
Reading Corner for November
K-5 Book Choice: I Walk with Vanessa: A Story About a Simple Act of Kindness
A classmate wonders how she can help when she sees Vanessa, the new girl at school, walking home crying after a confrontation with a bully. A sweet and simple wordless picture book that opens up conversations around kindness, caring, and stepping up against bullying.
6-8 Book Choice: American Born Chinese
Jin Wang starts at a new school where he's the only Chinese-American student. When a boy from Taiwan joins his class, Jin doesn't want to be associated with an FOB like him. Jin just wants to be an all-American boy, because he's in love with an all-American girl. Danny is an all-American boy: great at basketball, popular with the girls. But his obnoxious Chinese cousin Chin-Kee's annual visit is such a disaster that it ruins Danny's reputation at school, leaving him with no choice but to transfer somewhere he can start all over again. The Monkey King has lived for thousands of years and mastered the arts of kung fu and the heavenly disciplines. He's ready to join the ranks of the immortal gods in heaven. But there's no place in heaven for a monkey. Each of these characters cannot help himself alone, but how can they possibly help each other? They're going to have to find a way?if they want fix the disasters their lives have become.
9-12 Book Choice: The Lines We Cross
A remarkable story about the power of choosing tolerance from one of the most important voices in contemporary Muslim literature, critically acclaimed author Randa Abdel-Fattah.
Michael likes to hang out with his friends and play with the latest graphic design software. His parents drag him to rallies held by their anti-immigrant group, which rails against the tide of refugees flooding the country. And it all makes sense to Michael.
Until Mina, a beautiful girl from the other side of the protest lines, shows up at his school, and turns out to be funny, smart -- and a Muslim refugee from Afghanistan. Suddenly, his parents' politics seem much more complicated.
Mina has had a long and dangerous journey fleeing her besieged home in Afghanistan, and now faces a frigid reception at her new prep school, where she is on scholarship. As tensions rise, lines are drawn. Michael has to decide where he stands. Mina has to protect herself and her family. Both have to choose what they want their world to look like.
Staff pick for Educators: Educated
Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. As a way out, Tara began to educate herself, learning enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge would transform her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Tara Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes, and the will to change it.
Service Learning Updates
Service learning is taking place in our schools starting with elementary all the way through high school. Remember to always follow the service learning process which can be found in our service-learning handbook and in this awesome webinar.
Elementary schools check out this awesome service learning 101 here.
Middle schools check out this great list of service learning project ideas here.
High schools check out this informative "how to" guide" here.
Please reach out to Jacob Hicks (hicksj@gcsnc.com) the coach of service learning if you need help or would like to co-facilitate a service learning opportunity at your school.
Many schools are completing service learning daily and do not even realize it. Reach out to Jacob Hicks to assist you in making these connections.
Gift of Giving 2019
Positive Culture & Climate
School climate is the feel of your school (the schools’ attitude). When looking at school climate it is important to think about the behaviors and points of view exhibited and experienced by students, teachers and other stakeholders.
- Freiberg and Stein (1999) describe school climate as “the heart and soul of the school,” the feeling that either encourages teachers and students to engage, love the school, and to want to be a part of it, or to reject the school and disengage from it. It is the outcome of the school’s norms and values, the way in which people at the school relate to and interact with one another, and the way systems and policies manifest.
- According to the National School Climate Center, “school climate includes major spheres of school life such as safety, relationships, teaching and learning, and the environment as well as larger organizational patterns (e.g. from fragmented to shared; healthy or unhealthy).” These dimensions not only shape how students feel about being in school, but “these larger group trends shape learning and student development” (National School Climate Center, 2013). https://aesimpact.org/school-climate-and-culture/
Improving Positive Culture in Your School
Check out these 8 core aspects to improving positive culture in your school from www.kickboardforschools.com.
- Positive teacher-student interactions.
- Students who feel safe, connected, and engaged.
- Policies promoting social, emotional, ethical, civic and intellectual skills, knowledge, dispositions, and engagement, plus a comprehensive system to address barriers to learning and teaching in order to reengage students who may veer off-track.
- Clear, appropriate, and consistent expectations and consequences to address disruptive student behaviors.
- Parental involvement.
- Collaborative relationships between the school leader and faculty as well as between faculty members.
- Focus on learning and high expectations for student achievement.
- Decreased teacher turnover and increased teacher satisfaction (the students can see this.)
The Media Center
Quotation Station
Check out our November resource for using quotes here.
Ideas for Meeting SEL Openers & Optimistic Closures
SEL Openers and Optimistic Closures are great ways to build relationships among your school or department teams. They also help connect us to the 5 competencies. Want to include SEL openers or optimistic closures in your team meetings? Need ideas to start? Use the link below to find openers and closers that you can use with your team. Share your experiences or results by tagging us on twitter. Our handle is at the end of this newsletter.
Our Team
We are always here to serve you. Please do not hesitate to reach out to a member of our team if we can provide any support. To find out which SEL Specialist is assigned to your school, click here. http://bit.ly/SELSP
LaTrayl Adams, MS
Social Emotional Learning Specialist
adamsl2@gcsnc.com
Lisa Brenner, MSW
Director of Social Emotional Learning
brennel@gcsnc.com
Cynthia Brown, M.Ed
Social Emotional Learning Specialist
brownc2@gcsnc.com
Tawanda Carpenter, MS
Positive Supports and Bullying Prevention Coordinator
carpent@gcsnc.com
Shan J. Carter, MPA
Social Emotional Learning Specialist
carters6@gcsnc.com
Charissa Cowley, MS
Transition Coordinator
cowleyc@gcsnc.com
Jacob Hicks, MS
Service Learning and Character Education Coach
hicksj@gcsnc.com
Sherry Rogowski, Ed.S.
Positive Culture and Climate Coordinator
rogowss@gcsnc.com
Tinisha Shaw, MS
Social Emotional Learning Specialist