SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING NEWS
SEL - SERVICE LEARNING - CULTURE & CLIMATE
Guilford County Schools
January 2020
Happy New Year
Start the New Year by strengthening your compassion for yourself and others. This will undoubtedly build your resilience. Here are a few New Year's activities taken from Elena Aguilar's Onward
book that you may want to consider doing to get your New Year off to a great start!
Choose one word that will be your focus for the New Year. This will be the Chapter heading for your book of life.
Write a New Year's letter to yourself! This letter will allow you to reflect on the best and most challenging parts of last year. What do you need to let go of? What are your hopes for the New Year? How do you want to feel this year?
Pick a day at least once a month that you will do something that brings you joy! Stick to it!!
The SEL Spotlight
Holiday Fun
Principal Meeting
Jamestown Elementary School
Northeast Middle School
Northeast staff takes time to learn about each other through a speed dating activity based on their personality traits.
ACES STAFF
MCL Meeting
GTCC Middle College-High Point
Gift of Giving
Sumner Elementary School
SEL Focus of the Month
This month's SEL focus is Social Awareness and Responsible Decision Making. Social Awareness the ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures. It is also the ability to understand social and ethical norms for behavior and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports. 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 practice your empathy skills and cultivate compassion for yourself and others.
SEL Quick Wins
"Mindfulness is the nonjudgmental cultivation of moment-to-moment awareness. It's a mental state in which you are focused and without judgment." Aguilar, 2018 We can observe our world around us mindfully. We can eat mindfully. We can listen to others mindfully. Find quiet moments to sit calmly and quietly. Notice the world around you.
Breathe
Your breath is the one thing that is with your from the beginning for life until the end. Your breathing changes as you experience the ever changing emotions life brings. Sit in mindfulness and notice your breath. As you go about your day, notice the changes in your breathing. In moments of stress or anxiety, notice your breath and try to take control of it. Notice when your breathing has returned to a calm state.
Meditate
Meditation is a specific strategy to achieve mindfulness. There are many different types of meditation. One type is take a body scan. Sit quietly in a comfortable position. Focus on your breathing. Take three deep breaths. As you begin to relax, focus on your body. Mentally scan your body beginning at your feet and ending at the top of your head. Notice feelings and sensations. Notice textures where your body meets the floor, chair, clothing. Notices aches and pains without trying to change or control them. After scanning your entire body, take a deep breath and open your eyes.
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.
Upcoming Professional Learning Opportunity
#13770 GCS-Equity: The Power of Unconscious Bias and What To Do About It
*Please login into power-school or performance matters*
We can (and do) hold unconscious/implicit biases about many different groups of people. During this session, we will primarily learn about unconscious bias as it plays out in terms of race and racial groups. The goals of the session will be to help you do the following: 1) Think about what you think that may influence your actions toward students in marginalized groups and toward colleagues of color; 2) Think about what you say – and don’t say – that may rise out of unconscious, unintentional bias; and 3) Think about actions and behaviors that may ultimately cause harm – disciplinary, academic, and social/emotional. We will also focus on brain activity, consequences, priming, associations, assumptions, and strategies for mitigating bias. You will leave this session transforming.
School Tools
Reading Corner for January
Hunter ACES
One of our book suggestions from the November Newsletter was the inspiration for activities with Hunter ACES. Here's what happened.
We enjoyed interacting with the November K-5 Book Choice: I Walk With Vanessa: A Story About a Simple Act of Kindness (picture below). This is what some ACES students had to say about the book:
LaKayla (4th Grade): I like that the book shows kindness and friendship. That means a lot to me.
Briaunna (4th Grade): I like that where she started out being lonely and then found some friends.
Taliya (1st Grade): I like that even though it was pictures, the book had lots of details.
Jamaria(2nd Grade): I like that the girl saw Vanessa being bullied and wanted to be kind and walk to school with her.
Thank you Hunter ACES for sharing.
K-5 Book Choice: Henry's Freedom Box
Henry's Freedom Box tells the true story of Henry, a young boy who grows into a man under the harsh conditions of slavery, all the time yearning to be free. After he is separated from his family for the second time (once as a son, once as a father), Henry comes up with the idea of mailing himself to freedom in the north.
What an inspirational, thought-provoking, and stunningly illustrated story. What makes it all the more magical is that it's loosely based on the true story of a man who escaped slavery by mailing himself to freedom inside a wooden crate (An author's note at the back shares what happened to Henry 'Box' Brown later in his life.) Illustrator Kadir Nelson has truly captured the humanity and emotions of the characters. Moving! This is an inspiring anytime read, but would be ideal for units on slavery and the Underground Railroad.
6-8 Book Choice: Inside Out & Back Again
10-year old Ha is forced to flee war-torn Vietnam and finds herself a stranger in a strange land: Alabama. Faced with mostly unfriendly people and unfamiliar customs, she struggles to learn English, and deals with a group of boys who tease her after school, Ha draws from her own strength and the warmth of her family to make the best of her situation. Written in verse, this spare, gorgeous novel really feels authentic and refreshing and will please both adults and children.
9-12 Book Choice: Speak
Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won’t talk to her, and people she doesn’t even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that’s not safe. Because there’s something she’s trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. This extraordinary first novel has captured the imaginations of teenagers and adults across the country.
STAFF PICK for Educators: Leading with Emotional Courage
You have the opportunity to lead: to show up with confidence, connected to others, and committed to a purpose in a way that inspires others to follow. Maybe it's in your workplace, or in your relationships, or simply in your own life. But great leadership - leadership that aligns teams, inspires action, and achieves results - is hard. And what makes it hard isn't theoretical, it's practical. It's not about knowing what to say or do. It's about whether you're willing to experience the discomfort, risk, and uncertainty of saying or doing it. In other words, the most critical challenge of leadership is emotional courage. If you are willing to feel everything, you can do anything.
Leading with Emotional Courage, based on the author's popular blogs for Harvard Business Review, provides practical, real-world advice for building your emotional courage muscle. Each short, accessible chapter details a distinct step in this emotional "workout", giving you grounded advice for handling the difficult situations without sacrificing professional ground. By building the courage to say the necessary but difficult things, you become a stronger leader and leave the "should'ves" behind.
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.
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.
Positive Behavior and Bully Prevention
Check out this article!
Don't Discipline Hangry - 3 Steps to a Better Classroom.docx
Last month we shared with you some tips on recognizing bullying in your students or personal children. We also shared strategies and resources. Now, follow the link below to complete a quick self assessment. After taking the survey, if you need additional supports, please reach out to Tawanda Carpenter, Positive Supports and Bullying Prevention Coordinator.
https://www.pacer.org/bullying/resources/parents/definition-impact-roles.asp
Once on the Pacer page, scroll midway down the page.
Click on the tab: Check Your Knowledge
Take survey and click on answers to self assess.
Good Luck!
GPA Family Engagement Session: “Anti-Bullying and Internet/Cyber Safety
Tweens and teens can easily access social media networks and other applications from cell phones, tablets, laptops and even gaming systems. Parents and students can learn how to fight bullying in today’s digital age and help create a caring school culture. This workshop will be offered simultaneously for students and parents.
To learn more about this workshop, please visit www.gcsnc.com or email parentacademy@gcsnc.com or call 336-279-4924.I
Quotation Station
Check out our January resource for using quotes here.
SOCIAL AWARENESS AND RESPONSIBLE DECISION MAKING
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
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