Abstract:

The stress of the pandemic has brought a new awareness in education on the mental wellbeing of our students and consequently, the rise in the use of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in our school buildings. Developing Social Emotional Learning capacity for children and youth can increase resiliency, decrease problematic behavior, and create a supportive learning environment. Traditional harsh and reactive disciplinary practices undermine the effectiveness and impact of a SEL curriculum by creating an autocratic fear-based environment which can result in knee-jerk reactions to children and youth’s complex developmental needs.

This paper posits that classroom management must be redefined to be proactive and developmental rather than reactive and on-demand oriented. This is a mindset shift from what children are compelled to do in the presence of their teacher to what the teachers can do to help children develop sustainable SEL competencies. This approach, classroom management via the strengthening SEL competencies, requires a growth mindset toward classroom management and can be done by focusing on the development of children and youth’s self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship and responsible decision-making skills. This paper focuses on what exceptional teachers are doing to develop students’ SEL competencies and how it improves the teaching and learning environment to create positive and sustainable behavioral change.

Keywords:

Social Emotional Learning, classroom management, growth mindset, Behavior Management.