My personal philosophy with social and emotional learning is that it involves the processes through which children acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.
To help students learn the difference between empathy and sympathy, I created a lesson where student volunteers had to come up and read a ‘shoebox scenario’. The message inside of the shoebox taught students to try and really put themselves in that particular persons’ shoes when listening to the scenario that was written. Each shoebox had a different story inside, and of course shoes to match the person going through the ordeal. It was a great way to help students learn the difference between feeling sorry or sad for someone versus actually considering what it might be like if that scenario was them, and how would they feel.
Our main unit theme was developing the “Wheel of Kindness”. This class project took place throughout the third term, and students put a lot of effort into their personalized sections. The unit began by creating a word web to come up with ideas as a class how students could make another person’s day, or what good deed for the day they would like to suggest. Some examples included ‘help another student clean their desk’, ‘hold the door open for 10 people today’, ‘say something nice to 5 people’, ‘give a high five to 5 people’ or ‘stack a chair for someone’. Once the students had chosen their idea, they cut out a piece of poster board using the sample tracer piece. In the meantime, I had gone to Home Depot, and had them cut for me a large 3 foot in diameter round piece of wood. From there, I screwed in a turning table to the back and attached a garden stick to act as the wheel’s lever. I measured out the circle so that each student would create a section of the wheel equal in size. Once their sections were coloured, I laminated each piece and had the students hot glue gun each piece to fit onto the wheel. I attached a nail between each section, so students would be able to spin the wheel. Using plastic clothespins attached to the garden stick, and a single card (from a deck of cards) we could spin the wheel. Students were split up into small groups and we went to every division in the school presenting the “Wheel of Kindness” to the other classes. This allowed me to see if the students understood why we made this, and how best to explain the importance of it to the younger divisions by acting as leaders. It was so rewarding, and we made sure to let every student spin the wheel. My class made sure they understood that whatever sections they landed on was their good deed for the day. It was so nice to receive compliments from the staff as teachers noticed their students doing their good deeds and looking forward to spinning the wheel again. It was a great way to bring the whole school together with this fun assignment.
