SEL Connections
January Newsletter.6
Introduction to Self-Awareness
hbr.org - Self-awareness seems to have become the latest management buzzword — and for good reason. Research suggests that when we see ourselves clearly, we are more confident and more creative. We make sounder decisions, build stronger relationships, and communicate more effectively. We’re less likely to lie, cheat, and steal. We are better workers who get more promotions. And we’re more-effective leaders with more-satisfied employees and more-profitable companies. (Harvard Business Review)
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.” (casel.org)
- Identifying emotions
- Accurate self-perception
- Recognizing strengths
- Self-confidence
- Self-efficacy
Why does self-awareness matter?
High self-awareness is a solid predictor of good success in life, perhaps because a self-aware person knows when an opportunity is a good fit for them and how to make an appropriate enterprise work well. Quite frankly, most of us are running on “autopilot,” hardly aware of why we succeed or fail, or why we behave as we do. Our minds are so busy with daily chatter that we usually only self-reflect when something goes awfully wrong.
Perhaps we stumble through a job interview or academic test we thought we were well prepared for, or we handle something in our lives awkwardly that we assumed we were good at, or perhaps we lose a romantic partner over some misunderstanding where feelings got hurt.
Our response in challenging situations is often to get defensive, make excuses, or blame another person, because we don’t want to see our own part in the disaster. If we can observe ourselves during such incidents, it will be a good start to self-awareness. (psychologytoday.com - what-is-self-awareness-and-how-do-you-get-it)
BISD Admin Dare
BISD Staff and Teacher Dare
BISD Family Dare
Beaumont ISD District Spotlight: I Choose You Challenge -- Here is a Snippet of What is Coming in February
Teacher educator self-awareness
Teacher educator self-awareness: What is it? Why is it important? And how can we develop it?
Other-awareness
Most of us seem to have a pretty strong, inbuilt sense of ‘other-awareness’! We tend to notice which of our friends is habitually late for get togethers, which colleague always starts her explanations with, ‘Well, basically…’ and which family member tends to get riled when teased too hard. We notice these things. We register them, sometimes subliminally, sometimes much more consciously.
Self-awareness
But what about our ‘self-awareness’, that clear perception, that conscious knowledge of our own personality or character? Do we know our own tendencies in speech and action, our own strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, assumptions, motivation, strategies and emotions? Perhaps less so!
Why could increasing our self-awareness be important in our work?
As teacher trainers, teacher educators, or mentors of school and university teachers, we work with people, either face to face, one to one, in groups, or virtually via distance learning and new technology. We try to help those we work with to learn and to develop in ways that they or their institutions think are important. So, what we do is ‘people work’. We do need our other-awareness for this sort of work, it is true. We need to be able to notice who is participating, who looks uncomfortable, who is dominating the discussion, who usually saves the day with a succinct and apt comment, who is the peacemaker in a group.
But we also need to be able to understand our own thoughts, assumptions, attitudes and actions to make sure we too are learning and that our training interventions are constructive. We need, in so far as it is possible, to have an understanding of how our training style and manner are perceived by others. Are we doing or saying things that work against our intention and our role? Does our behaviour make us seem impatient or cold, authoritarian or too laissez-faire? If we have some self-awareness, we can begin to notice these things and so create an opportunity to make changes in the types of speech and behavior that are unhelpful to us and to those we work with. With self-awareness, we can, if necessary, start to alter our preconceptions and our interpretations of the situations and work relationships we are in. Until we are aware of our own tendencies, we will have difficulty making sense of other people’s reactions to us and great difficulty in changing what we need or want to change in order to become more effective in our work and more resilient if things go wrong.
How can we get better at this?
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SEL Coordinators
- Kim Bell -
- Elana Elie -
- San "Janie" Holtz -
- Laura Richard -
- Dr. Carlo Walker -
Email: sel_primary@bmtisd.com
Website: https://www.bmtisd.com/Page/6026
Location: 4315 Concord Road, Beaumont, TX, USA
Phone: (409)617-5200