Social and Emotional Learning, Teacher's Approach to Anger and Aggression - Literature review Example

Social and emotional learning Name Course Institution Lecturer Date Part 1 Social and emotional learning (SEL) entails the use of supportive context and relationships which make learning challenging, meaningful and engaging for children (McDevitt, et al, 2012). Payton, J., et al. (2008) points out that, learning should focus on both life and academic success. Children can grow into satisfying relationships and become fulfilled adults even in challenging careers. Through the new understanding of emotions, intelligence and biology, educators have increasingly noted their relation to learners success and happiness. Social and emotional learning is thus the field that responds to the above mentioned skills with an aim to give students both personal and professional competencies. The competencies are built on five subsets including: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making. This discussion aims to discuss how the five competencies occur during primary years. Self-awareness Self-awareness is expressed by students’ ability to recognize their emotions, thoughts and how they influence their behavior. Students move from oblivious state when they are capable of differentiating the situation around them. Children at age 3-4 are capable of differentiating what they perceive as real or images (Harlacher & Merrell, 2010). In year 5 to 6, most students will express their ability to differentiate between self and the world around them. They are capable of interpreting their own experiences by differentiating them with other people’s experiences around them. Students in Year 1 can accurately assess their strengths and limitations by comparing themselves with others in similar environments. As they progress from Year 2 to 3, students exhibit the skills to systematically explore the link between what they perceive in their environment. They take a contemplative stance toward happenings and explore how their own experience relates to those of others. They can project back showing what they feel from within to the reactions of others (Ransford et al, 2009). Payton, et al (2008) argues that, students start to identify themselves through the lens of their environment. The students will explicitly refer to themselves in relation to strengths and limitations. At this level, the students will show an understanding of their weaknesses and strengths. If a student is proficient in Math, games or singing, they will strive to work competitively in the field. On the other hand, students understand those anti-social behaviors that result from within but are unacceptable in their respective environments like schools, church or at home. The students from year 4 to 7 enter into another level of performance. The self is identified from the past, present and future showing that at this level the student is not just occupied with temporal occurrences. The student therefore establishes a permanent self. The next level manifests self-consciousness where students become aware of how they are seen in other people minds by showing a sense of pride and shame. This affects how they present themselves to the public and undergo further evaluation. Self-management Payton, et al (2008) further elaborates that; self-management is expressed through the students’ ability to effectively regulate their thoughts, emotions and behaviors in different situations. Self-regulation skill is highly manifest and students are able to monitor, control and direct their aspects of learning by themselves. Self-management may not manifest at Year 1 to 3but can be seen in later years. Students show a great deal in setting goals and time management. From Year 4 onwards, they develop their concentration and motivation skills. They can deliver their homework on time as they can control the lure to postpone demanding activities. Other students with stressful background either from conflicting family or orphans get over it and become engaged in school activities. The student from Year 4 can monitor the influence of others for instance going to play during class time, plan a strategy of working and evaluate their actions after time to reinforce their activities. According to Harlacher & Merrell (2010), change in attitude and confidence building strategies are expressed where students stop making excuses. They think through challenging situations, focus on efforts rather than results. The students exert control over their strength and accept what they feel impossible to change. They can handle distractions by being active on issue at hand. A balance between the body and mental needs is expressed and students can capably eat, exercise, concentrate on thoughts and emotions and manage stress. They also re-focus attention and make sure they are listened to by seniors. As Ransford et al, (2009) points out, they also show high concentration for relatively longer periods of time and therefore can effectively understand issue and explain them later. Social awareness According to McDevitt, et al (2012), social awareness can be seen through the students’ ability to accommodate the perspective and viewpoints of others from different cultures and backgrounds. Their behavior reveals an understanding of ethical and social norms and to recognize the resources within the family, education and community. The students from year 3 onwards recognizes others feelings and know and find ways to assist others. Despite the students’ family, cultural and racial orientation and inclinations, they learn and show respect to others. They also show the ability to understand other people perspectives, needs and emotional states. Some of the actions that may manifest are empathy where students help those that are in pain, support the stressed like the orphans and become concerned of others welfare. They engage in learning and participating in respective, safe and respective relationships. Furthermore, the students develop the capability to define and accept personal and group roles and responsibilities. They can divide the work in class that needs participation and involvement and each contribute to the task with ease. Students express knowledge in advocacy roles by understanding the contemporary issues in the society. The students critique the prevailing social constructs around them such as excessive use of force by teachers, denial of personal privileges and any form of discrimination. They can shout at antisocial behaviors without fear or intimidation. They also use the rightful channels to get attention and seek for justice concerning the issue around them. Students express capability in both personal and social skills which manifest by the ability to understand relationship, contribute to the general society and appreciating different perspectives (Ransford et al, 2009). Relationship skills Relationship skills can be seen through students’ ability to make and maintain strong, healthy and rewarding relationships. The relationships may involve close friends; diverse individuals like teachers, neighbors and groups such as play mates and students from other schools. The competency can be expressed from Year 5 onwards. The students will seek opportunities to interact and know about the state of their friends. The competency highly develops when students identify with people with similar minds, activities or promote learning environments in a creative ways. Students also use the relationship network for emotional and physical support. They share their inner feelings, expectations and inclinations with the people close to them. They build trust ad learn to complement and compensate for the good they receive from others. Ransford et al (2009), competency is revealed through the ability of students to communicating clearly. They can address one issue at a time and give well framed thoughts to others. In addition, students become active listeners which enable them to understand others well and derive assumptions of others. Students cooperate by doing things together without hurting others and showing respect to defined ethics and norms of a group. They highly seek to act within the rules to avoid being outcast or disregarded by the others in the group. Students’ skills can be demonstrated by the way they resist inappropriate social pressure. Having full understanding of expectation from a network of relationship; be it in school, family and other social groups like a church, they resist any forces to indulge to such behaviors that may hurt others. Furthermore, students negotiate conflict in a constructive manner, seek and offer help to others when it is needed. Responsible decision-making Ransford et al (2009) points out that, responsible decision-making is demonstrated by students by making respectful and constructive choices about ones behavior. Students use the existing ethical standards in their social interactions. A student at Year 5-7 can show this capability by taking time to make decision, consulting the relevant authorities including the family, school and community before engaging in an activity. For instance, the students may request to pick a ball or use a field for play if it is not specified for play. The students can weigh different thoughts and choose the best among them after looking at each ideas strengths and limitations. At this point, the students become assertive but in appropriate tone and can offer a reason for not or doing something based on their own decisions and not of the authorities around them. Safety concerns become a priority and the purpose for safety is to protect oneself and other around. The student does not just engage in issues based on subjective thought, but looks on how it may affect others around them (Carver & Harmon-Jones, 2009). For instance, if they are playing while the other are in class or doing exams, the students will consider to play in a distance field or remain calm not to affect others. The students demonstrate shameful feeling for failure to consider the implications of their actions to others. The shame of being exposed makes them be efficient to choose between the right and wrong. Decision that responsibly reflects the social norms, realistic evaluations of the consequences of a choice and various actions is highly demonstrated. Any action is meant for self and others’ well-being. Part 2 Teacher’s Approach to Anger and Aggression Lemerise & Dodge (2008), anger is caused by temporal emotional state due to frustration. Physical aggression is demonstrated by an attempt to destroy property or hurt another person. A teacher in foundation class can effectively deal with angry children. By applying the social and emotional learning (SEL) techniques, the teacher should be motivated to protect and reach to a child but not to punish. First, the teacher has to show the children that they accept their feelings. Most of behaviors expressed by children are normal and a teacher will strive to let the child become aware that it is normal to be angered. Second, a teacher would suggest other self-management and social skills as better ways to express angered feelings. Teachers can promote acceptable coping mechanism by communicating what they expect in such anger triggering situations. The teacher will then respond to children’s’ positive efforts in order to reinforce their behavior (Lemerise & Dodge, 2008). Activity 1: A teacher can manipulate the surrounding by placing children a Foundation class in tough and tempting situations. The aim would be to stop a problem through a planned anger triggering activity but controlling certain things not to occur. Children can be asked to make models with soft rubber in groups. The teacher can whisper to one of them to go and step on the model of one of the group. Looking at how the children reacted, the teacher will catch the good child and tell the group that he/she liked the behavior/response of that child or a number of children. Activity 2: a teacher can set toys to be used by children. The toys can be hard to use by removing one of the wheel, or braking that the normal way the children are used is halted. A teacher can give hard pronunciation that make reading difficult for a certain angered child. The children who are angered can think of destroying the toy, become outburst and click the tongue due to troubling words. The teacher will then be close to the child and touch him/her gently after the toy or the troubling words. The teacher should show care by letting the child tell what is troubling and the reason. Else, the teacher can appeal to the child directly for instance telling them the cause of their frustrations (Carver & Harmon-Jones, 2009). Year 5 or 6 students that show anger and aggression need a teacher’s support and coaching for them to manage their response and behavior. Most students at this age may consistently experience difficulties in an attempt to control their emotions. Social skills that help the student learn to accommodate other in their environment are much necessary. By promoting social awareness, students can understand that people around them are different, have different needs and perspectives. Social awareness will help student to know that some events which happen around them are not catastrophic. They can be taught to understand the events they can change and those that are beyond them. To make responsible decisions, the teacher can advice them not to approach issue directly but seek mediation from their friends or other seniors around (Lemerise & Dodge, 2008). Activity 1: The teacher can plan a group activity and allow the students to divide the work between them. He/she can advice one group not to do their task and afterwards sternly require the group that did its work to do the rest which was not done. The group that failed to do can shout and laugh at the other one as they do the task. Of course a number will display frustration and be aggressive to the others. At this point, the teacher can teach them how to be assertive in appropriate tone to solve problems. They can use polite language to express their dissatisfaction as well as increase greater control to their emotions and behaviors (Harlacher & Merrell, 2010). Activity 2: The students can form teams with an idea of building social relationship. A teacher can require them to carry a beam of tree to a certain place. He/she should make sure that the beam is too heavy for any group and can only be lifted and carried with the help of others. So it would require the teams to seek assistance from one group, take the beam and come for the next. Immediately, they bring the first beam he/she can say “time up”. The group that was assisted may shout and probably the other can mistake their action ac intentional causing them to retaliate. The teacher can then commend the group which assisted the first one for building support and considering the need to assist others and work as a group. References Carver, C. S., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2009). Anger is an approach-related affect: evidence and implications. Psychological bulletin, 135(2), 183. Harlacher, J. E., & Merrell, K. W. (2010). Social and emotional learning as a universal level of student support: Evaluating the follow-up effect of strong kids on social and emotional outcomes. Journal of Applied School Psychology, 26(3), 212-229. Lemerise, E. A., & Dodge, K. A. (2008). The development of anger and hostile interactions. Handbook of emotions, 3, 730-741. McDevitt, T. M., et al. (2012). Child development and education (1st Ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Australia Payton, J., et al. (2008). The positive impact of social and emotional learning for kindergarten to eighth-grade students. Chicago, IL: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. Ransford, C. R., et al. (2009). The role of teachers' psychological experiences and perceptions of curriculum supports on the implementation of a social and emotional learning curriculum. School Psychology Review, 38(4), 510. Read More