Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) for Everyone!

“One day . . . or day one.” Anonymous Cherokee Month of the Planting Moon   SEL:   #3 Self-Management          #5 Responsible Decision Making Digital Learner: #5 Knowledge Constructor       #7 Innovative Designer I’d heard of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) for a long time. What was new for me was PTG: post-traumatic growth ( Tedeschi and Calhoun, 1996 ). Regardless of the calamity, when the fire, tornado, hurricane or flood is over; when the accident, illness, bankruptcy or betrayal causing emotional devastation is done, another condition emerges. We find ourselves perplexed, exhausted, and still here, while facing an ugly reality we never dreamed possible. My friend in a wheelchair said, “You’re in post-traumatic growth.” “I’ve never heard of it.” “Oh, yes. You rebuild with whatever you have left. Just start a new life.” Oh, snap! OK. Just start a new life, she says. Many months later...

" One day . . . or day one.”  -- Anonymous Cherokee Month of the Planting Moon SEL:  #1 Self-Awareness           #2 Social Awareness           #3 Self-Management Digital Learner:  #2 Global Collaborator I recently did a curious thing: I bought a new spiral notebook for the gratitude journals I’ve kept for years and didn’t write anything in it for months. I felt like I was living in the land-of-Odd-and-Strange. A habit I had nurtured for decades disappeared. I mentally acknowledged gratitude, but it didn’t have the same effect as writing it down where I could reflect on it later. I like to write things down and let them incubate. I do that with new skills, fitness, etc. We all have a “shadow” side. Instead of berating myself and starting those self-inflicted “whispers of diminishment,” with awareness, I recognized that my behavior had changed. I had a choice: go back to ...