{"id":145441,"date":"2021-10-21T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecornerstoneforteachers.com\/?p=143842"},"modified":"2022-02-23T07:18:34","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T12:18:34","slug":"4-simple-sel-strategies-for-beginning-or-ending-any-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/truthforteachers.com\/4-simple-sel-strategies-for-beginning-or-ending-any-lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"4 simple SEL strategies for beginning (or ending) ANY lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think of the months we spent from March of 2020 to May\/June of 2021 as a 20-month school year that began in August of 2019.<\/h2>\n

Educators spent that time emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. We gave everything and then gave a little bit more. Pandemic teaching and learning meant surviving. Pandemic anything took everything we had.<\/p>\n

We survived by using our instincts as teachers to plan and to power through. We were busy and didn\u2019t have to stop to realize what we were feeling. To realize that maybe everything wasn\u2019t actually okay. We weren\u2019t okay. Our students weren\u2019t okay. And yet, some days we were. Other days we didn\u2019t even know. And on the worst days, we forgot to ask and wanted to numb ourselves with a Netflix binge.<\/p>\n

After what I hope was a summer spent intentionally healing from the trauma and stress that we experienced, we\u2019re preparing to begin the next school year. Maybe the masks are gone. Maybe they\u2019re not. Maybe everyone is vaccinated. Maybe we\u2019re not. Maybe we\u2019re full in-person. Maybe we\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

Despite all the maybes, this truth remains: We\u2019re not the same. Our students aren\u2019t the same. We\u2019re both grateful for a return to a sense of normal, but hesitant at the same time. I don\u2019t want to perform my back-to-school song and dance ritual like I always have. A new outfit and a new pair of shoes won\u2019t energize me like in previous Augusts.<\/p>\n

After a year spent wearing scrubs and jeans, I forgot I even owned most of my teacher clothes. I don\u2019t know if I like them anymore or if they even fit, but it feels like StitchFix chose me for a teacher wardrobe makeover. I\u2019m grateful to be irritated by the old August familiars: alarm clocks, packing lunches, and in-person staff meetings. I don\u2019t want to be asked: How was your summer? Or pretend to listen when someone tells me about theirs.<\/p>\n

What I do want is to be asked how I am and for the person asking to listen to my story of survival. The cringe my face makes when it hears the Microsoft Teams or Zoom ding. The 12 COVID PCR tests I took to keep myself, my students, and my family safe. The bunny-like nose wrinkle I made when I got to take a mask break. The celebrations of OG Purel instead of the slimy hand sanitizers made at distilleries.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want my experience of pandemic teaching and learning to be dismissed nor do I want it to imprison me. But I don\u2019t want to just move forward as though nothing happened. I want to create space to feel and for others to create that space for me. As Edith Eger writes in her books The Choice <\/i>and The Gift, <\/i>when we are occupied with survival the feelings come later, but \u201cyou can\u2019t heal what you can\u2019t feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

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We did it. We survived the hardest, craziest school years of our careers. We\u2019re okay, and we\u2019re also not okay. We are as my students say, \u201cin the feels.\u201d As we heal and transition from survival to thriving, we must continue to create spaces to talk about being okay or not okay … to tell our stories. This is the essential work of education, not what we do when there is extra time after we meet all the standards.<\/p>\n

Want proof? Look back on what you prioritized during pandemic teaching and learning. As educators, we made being human our number one priority. We focused on making sure our students were seen and heard before we worried about a lesson plan. And guess what? They learned. Maybe more than ever before because we saw them; we heard them; and we let them see and hear us. In doing so, we collaboratively create space for gratitude and grief, for hope and healing, and for celebration and compassion.<\/p>\n

Here are a few strategies to create opportunities for students to feel seen and heard in your classroom. I work primarily with high school students, but all of the strategies below can be modified to use with any age group:<\/p>\n

1. \u201cBoth\/And\u201d statements<\/b><\/h2>\n

This strategy allows us to embrace the paradoxes we\u2019re living in without having to succumb to toxic positivity. It works by creating statements that include BOTH something you\u2019re grateful for AND a challenge you\u2019re facing.<\/p>\n

Basically, you follow this equation to create the statement:<\/i><\/p>\n

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