News of traumatic global events, such as war, natural disasters, and gun violence, is never far from our screens or minds today. Watching these events, we might experience feelings of fear, anxiety, sadness, anger, and so many other complex emotions. To counter these feelings and practice self-empathy during a crisis, we can pause and ask …
The team at Empatico recently passed on questions they often hear from teachers, parents, and other people interested in the social emotional learning programming they’ve developed based on their Empathy Framework (which you can find below): “Is empathy nature or nurture? Is it an ability humans are just born with, or can it be learned?” …
The Highest of Highs and the Lowest of Lows The final dress rehearsal for the annual high school musical. An incredibly shy and hesitant ninth-grader was asked to stand on a chair and stop a brawl happening in one scene of the annual musical. After some encouragement from the director, the ninth-grader met the expectations …
Valentine’s Day kicks off a spring season of love. We take stock of our relationships, whether platonic or romantic, and seek creative ways to display our affection. In January Harvard researchers Robert Waldinger and Marc Shultz released new takeaways from the longest study on human happiness, which underscores the vital role relationships, or as they …
Behavior and learning are deeply connected, so it is imperative to consider both when structuring our environments, planning instruction, and working with students. Teachers can certainly attest to learning being impacted either positively or negatively by the emotions of their students. Then again, like the causality dilemma regarding the chicken or the egg, is it …
How to Teach Essential Life Skills in the Classroom Read More »
This weekend, I took my two daughters to the zoo in Los Angeles, where I live. As we stood looking over the tiger enclosure, my 11-year-old turned to me and explained that she was feeling conflicted. She was having fun, she said, but she recently wrote a paper for school about the problems that animals in zoos face, and learned that some people believe that zoos shouldn’t even exist.
Dear Leaders: SEL Actually Matters. A Lot. Emotions are running high across American public education in 2022. Pundits set on stoking the country’s divides are calling it a culture war.
When students learn to look from the perspective of others, think critically, communicate respectfully, and cooperate, they are equipped with the skills to succeed in an interconnected world and navigate their differences with curiosity and kindness – in the present and for years to come.
