Blogs on Social & Emotional Learning

New Year's resolutions are often about our own personal well-being: diet, exercise, curbing bad habits, maybe being nicer. For 2012, try something a little different; resolve to be a SEL/SECD champion for children. What exactly does that mean?

Here's an experiment you can conduct in many schools, maybe even the school where you teach. Look through the door of one classroom and you might see the students hunched over, not engaged, even frowning. The teacher looks frazzled, tired and wishing he or she were somewhere else. You might think, "Well, everyone has a bad day." But you might witness this scenario in this teacher's classroom no matter what day you look through the door. For the second part of the experiment, look through the door of another classroom, and you might see a room full of lively students, eager, engaged and participating. The teacher is full of energy and smiling. This happens no matter what day you look through that door.

The year is 2006.

Superintendent Peter Gorman of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North Carolina is visiting Cochrane Middle School, a struggling school in a high-poverty community in east Charlotte. Known for his no-nonsense determination to turn around the district's failing schools, Gorman minces no words in describing Cochrane: "This may be the worst school I have ever seen."

Most people acknowledge that their stress level goes up around the winter holidays. Crowded shopping malls, financial pressures, and additional responsibilities at home, work and in the community can all contribute. Educators can also experience another level of stress: addressing the December holidays at a public school.