D020 Task 2
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Western Governors University *
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D020
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Philosophy
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Feb 20, 2024
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docx
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Personal Philosophy Statement Alicia Frischmann
College of Education, Western Governors University
D020: Cultural Competency and Social-Emotional Learning
Dr. Bart Reynolds
October 28, 2023
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Personal Philosophy Statement A. Social and Emotional Learning Competencies
According to CASEL (2020), there are five social and emotional learning competencies:
1.
Self-Awareness
2.
Self-Management
3.
Responsible Decision-Making
4.
Relationship skills
5.
Social Awareness
Self-awareness contributes to a supportive and inclusive school culture that promotes student success in the educational setting because it allows students to reflect on themselves. It allows them to help answer the question “Who am I?”. If students can stay true to themselves, they will build self-confidence to help them make friends, give a presentation, or be more outgoing. This will help with student success because when students are comfortable with who they are, they are more likely to participate and engage in the classroom.
Self-management contributes to a supportive and inclusive school culture that promotes student success in the educational setting because it helps students regulate their emotions. Students can do breathing exercises or counting strategies or even take a break when frustrated. This will help build student success because it allows the student to relieve any stress that they are experiencing and helps them reset to try again. Responsible decision-making contributes to a supportive and inclusive school culture that
promotes student success in the educational setting because it helps the students to think critically in any given situation. When students can problem solve they can apply critical
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thinking skills. This will help student success because students can always find and use a variety of ways to solve problems. Relationship skills contribute to a supportive and inclusive school culture that promotes student success in the educational setting because it helps to build trust among students and staff.
Students feel emotionally safe when they are with someone they trust. This will help build student success because a student could be more outgoing and participative in a classroom where
they have built a positive relationship with the teacher and other students. Social awareness contributes to a supportive and inclusive school culture that promotes student success in the educational setting because it teaches students about empathy. It helps students to better understand how another person may be feeling. This will help student success because students and teachers will be able to show empathy to others. Showing empathy can help
build relationships, and if strong relationships are built, students are more outgoing and willing to be engaged in the classroom.
B. Personal Experience with A Practice that Promotes SEL Development of Students
When I was a student teacher and observing my mentor teacher for the first few weeks of my practicum experience, she would have her class of second graders log into an application on their iPads and submit a daily check-in. This check-in had the students select an emoticon that represented their mood that morning. Some choices were angry, sad, happy, surprised, and excited among others. The students were also required to submit one to two sentences that explained their choice and feelings. Once all the students completed the check-in, my mentor teacher was able to go in to review their responses. She would then start to pull aside students, starting with those who said that they were angry or sad, and have a conversation with them.
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This promoted the social and emotional development of her students because it allowed the students to think about their feelings and talk to someone about them; it built a sense of trust in the classroom. When I finished my three weeks of observation and stepped in as the “teacher”,
I vividly remember one encounter I had with one of the students. One little girl had chosen the sad face and explained that she was upset. When I pulled her aside to talk about it, she explained that she and her best friend had gotten into an argument about who could do the best cartwheel and now her best friend wasn’t talking to her. I was able to convince her to reach out to her friend to work things out. This little girl was able to build her relationship and social awareness skills when she went and talked with her friend. In the end, there was a group of students working together on how to do the best cartwheel at recess a few days later. B1. Personal Experience with A Practice That Discourages SEL Development of Students
One experience I’ve encountered that discourages the social and emotional development of students is a “flipped classroom”. Again, when I was a student teacher, I saw my mentor teacher “flip” her classroom. A flipped classroom is when the teacher records herself giving instructions on how to complete a task. The students then watch the video and do what the teacher tells them to do. This discourages the SEL development of students because they are not interacting with anyone. They sit in front of a screen and complete the required work. There is no
discussion being done whatsoever. If anything, students can work on responsible decision-
making by getting their work done, but they do not encounter or work on any of the other SEL competencies.
B2. Modifications
I like the idea of a “flipped classroom”, however, I don’t like the fact that students are not
interacting with the teacher herself or other students. To modify the activity to cultivate the SEL
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development of students, I would pair the students and then present the video to the class, pausing when needed. This would allow students to work together. When the students work together they will build those relationships with each other. Students could also make responsible
decisions together to get the task done, by thinking critically and creatively. Finally, they can work on their social awareness skills, by seeing how an activity like this makes some students feel. Partners can console each other or cheer each other on and provide positive feedback. C. SEL Influences
The SEL competencies influence my teaching practices in a variety of ways. One activity
that I do every year is send out a parent and student survey. This survey helps me build relationships with my students and their families. The student survey collects information from the students about their favorite things and what they are good at or what they need to work on. I then incorporate the students’ favorite things into my lessons to strengthen the bond of trust with them and build those relationships. If I can use what they love in my teaching, it will keep them engaged and thus will support student success. The survey also helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, working on self-awareness. I use this information to allow opportunities for students to shine in the classroom and support them in the areas they are weak in. The parent survey asks parents how I can engage their students and how to calm them down when needed. This can help me, help the students, with their self-management skills. If a student gets frustrated, I use their parents’ advice, such as breathing exercises, offering words of encouragement, or giving them a small two-minute break to help calm them down. Another influence that SEL has on my teaching is wanting students to be socially aware of others. In class, I provide ample opportunities for students to hold discussions with each other,
such as a turn and talk or a morning meeting. When students can discuss with their classmates, it
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helps to build those relationships with each other. It also helps students to discover empathy and identify how their classmates could be feeling because of something that happened or because they are frustrated with an assignment. There have been many times when I’ve heard conversations with one classmate encouraging and coaching the other, and it makes me so proud.
These opportunities for discussion also help students make responsible decisions. They realize that they should work together to get an assignment done, rather than goof off. C1. Promotion of SEL Development of Students
One practice that I can use to promote the social and emotional development of students is to design a healthy learning environment. A positive classroom and school environment is important because when schools become a welcoming place for students from a diversity of backgrounds and with a diversity of ideas, and a supportive environment for those who struggle and have gone through trauma, students and teachers feel a sense of trust and belonging that supports effective learning (Darling-Hammond, 2019). By designing a healthy learning environment, students feel safe to be who they are. The positive environment also helps to build relationships among the students and teachers. When teachers create a classroom environment that is safe and equitable, there will be more student participation and higher achievement (Howard, 2007). When students feel safe and have others that they can rely on, they are more willing to engage, participate, and show up every day, thus leading to success in the classroom.
D. Personal Experience with Oppression, Unfairness, etc.
One pattern of inequality in curriculum is that not every student is represented. Most often, activities in the curriculum don’t represent diversity. For example, I remember in middle and high school English class, the books we had to read often had a white male as the main character. I could not relate to most of the characters in the books we read because the main
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character was nothing like me. Diversity should be celebrated. Books with diverse characters should be read or incorporated into the curriculum so that students can have the opportunity to relate to the characters in the book. I took a children’s literature course in college, and I learned how important it was for students to feel represented in the classroom. Most often, students want to read books where the main character looks and thinks like them. If students can relate to the characters in the book, they will want to continue to read and learn. Also, books that celebrate diversity can help educate other students who may feel uncomfortable around others who are different from them. D1. Advocating For SEL
To advocate for social justice for all students, educators should make their expectations known. According to Howard (2007), educators should transform instructional practices. This includes the expectations of students. An educator should clearly state the expectations of accepting differences and recognizing diversity in the classroom. An educator should explain to students that we all come from different backgrounds, like and dislike different things, and have different beliefs, but we should all be treated the same. It is the educator’s responsibility to make sure that students treat others with respect, despite their differences. This will help build the classroom community and build relationships among the students. D2. Behaviors To Cultivate Awareness
As an educator, I can exhibit fairness and equity toward all students to cultivate awareness and acceptance of diverse cultures. In my third-grade classroom, I treat everyone the same. I don’t show favoritism towards a singular student or group of students, everyone is treated the same, regardless of their sex, background, or socioeconomic status. However, I will provide scaffolding and differentiation when and if needed. Being fair in decision-making and
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treating all my students the same, models to my class that regardless of our differences, we are all human and deserve to be included and treated with respect. For example, in my classroom, I have enough classroom jobs that allow me to assign every single student a job to complete in the classroom. Although the tasks of each job are different, everyone has something that they are held accountable for. I change the jobs every two weeks, and the students just rotate to the next job on the list. This makes sure that every student has been assigned to each of the classroom jobs several times throughout the school year. This provides an equal opportunity for all students.
Also, I make sure that every student is “seen”. I incorporate cultural components into my lessons. For example, every year, my third-grade team reads a book called “Duck for Turkey Day”. This book is about a Vietnamese family. The main character, a little girl is upset because they are not having turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. After spending Thanksgiving with her family, her teacher holds a morning meeting where the students share what they did over Thanksgiving break. The little girl cries out that they had duck instead of turkey. She expected all her classmates to make fun of her, but each of them shared that they also did not have a traditional turkey dinner. Her classmates ate things like tamales, matzah ball soup, and lasagna. We read this book because the Asian population in Las Vegas continues to grow. This book also celebrates diversity because not everyone celebrates holidays like Thanksgiving the same. This allows students to realize that it is okay to be different from their classmates.
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References
CASEL Framework: Social and Emotional Learning Competencies (2020). https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/what-is-the-casel-framework/
Darling-Hammond, L. (2019). What Makes Social-Emotional Learning So Important? Education
Digest, 84(6), 4–10.
Howard, G. R. (2007). As Diversity Grows, So Must We. Educational Leadership, 64(6), 16–22.
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