Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) for Everyone!

“One day . . . or day one.” -- Anonymous Cherokee Month of the Nut Moon SEL:  #5 Responsible Decision-Making       Digital Learner:  #6 Computational Thinker   When the stars threw down their spears,  And watered heaven with their tears.  –William Blake 1757-1827 Acceptance. After deep periods of grief and sorrow, my friend reminded me that grief has a mind of its own. Acceptance can calm the soul and produce mindfulness. As I embraced and engaged my Inner Child, I realized how perpetually sad she had become. Time to change through validating the fact that she had reason, back then, for wishing she had never been born. Children with ACES (adverse childhood experiences, Brown 2009) can struggle for decades emotionally, financially, physically, and mentally. Healing takes time with a variety of creative resources. Thank goodness we are far more aware in the 21 st century than we were in the 1950’s! Our schools and communities are now i...

“One day . . . or day one.” -- Anonymous Cherokee Month of the Nut Moon   SEL:   #1 Self-Awareness          #2 Social-Awareness Digital Learner:  #2 Global Collaborator Professor Rudine Sims Bishop (2017) suggested that effective children’s books reflect the child’s world and helps them to see into cultures or lives not their own. Mirrors and windows. This could be nature, science, another country or region, space, or simply another way of living. In Montana, we are a land of farms and ranches, sheep and cattle. Diverse indigenous peoples share their heritage with us. I did my student teaching at a school named Cayuse Prairie . Cayuse is the Salish word for horse. The land surrounding the school is where the Salish nation kept its horse herd. Being from Denver, this world was not mine. Yet, the concept of mirrors and windows was helpful to reflect self-awareness and gain social-awareness through the world around me. Pl...