Blogs on Social and Emotional Learning

In this nine-part series, we will look at important factors that influence the happiness and social and emotional learning of elementary school age children. These are very useful in helping students learn, manage emotions better and increase empathy. Each blog features one letter of the acronym HAPPINESS:

1. H = Happiness
2. A = Appreciation
3. P = Passions and Strengths
4. P = Perspective
5. I = Inner Meanie/Inner Friend
6. N = Ninja Mastery
7. E = Empathy
8. S = So Similar
9. S = Share Your Gifts

In this post, we’ll explore perspective.

Dr. Ari Brown is a pediatrician in Austin, Texas, and was the lead author of a recent American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) study on the effects of media on children. She says that if we want kids to be emotionally intelligent, we have to put them on a screen-time diet.

You already know collaboration is essential to today's classroom -- especially in the age of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Framework (P21). Students who truly collaborate construct knowledge together. When we ask students to collaborate, we’re asking them to take responsibility for their learning.

Okay. You get it. Collaboration's important. But how do you motivate productive collaboration within your classroom? First, figure out what's going on with the uncollaborative student.

Drug addiction, pregnancy prevention, and eating disorders are all part of the curriculum in the high school health education class I teach. As attention-getting as those topics may be, I like to start the semester by focusing on a health issue that affects almost all teens in high school today: stress.