Social-Emotional Learning and Character Education
Social-Emotional Learning
What is Social-Emotional Learning?
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.
At East Elementary we embed social-emotional learning using a five-pronged approach. We utilize strategies elements to be a Trauma-Informed School, embed Direct Instruction of Social-Emotional skills through the RULER Philosophy from Yale University, infuse Social-Emotional Learning into our curriculum, train our staff on research-based best practices in behavioral De-Escalation, and frame discipline through a Restorative Practices lense. This comprehensive approach has helped our school develop a whole-child approach to education and benefit our students greatly.
RULER
The RULER Approach
RULER is a research-based approach to social-emotional learning from Yale University that teaches emotional intelligence to people of all ages, with the goal of creating a healthier, more equitable, innovative, and compassionate society. Emotions matter! Through the use of the RULER resources, East Elementary students learn to recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate their emotions ensuring they grow socially, emotionally, and academically.
RULER Skills
RULER is an acronym of the five key skills of emotional intelligence. Read about each skill below!
Recognizing
Recognizing emotions in ourselves and others allows us to:
- Better understand others
- Have positive social interactions
- Work well in groups
- Know when children need emotional support
Understanding
Knowing the cause of our own feelings and that an event may cause different emotional reactions in each person allows us to:
- Anticipate, manage, or prevent unwanted feelings in ourselves and others
- Promote wanted feelings in ourselves and others
- Support children’s emotional needs
Labeling
Knowing feeling words allows us to:
- Communicate our feelings
- Appropriately manage our feelings
- Help children learn new vocabulary to express their feelings
Expressing
Learning how to display our feelings helps us to:
- Appropriately act in social situations
- Properly model social behavior for children
Regulate
Developing strategies to manage feelings allows us to:
- Be more effective in reaching our goals
- Feel more, less, or the same of an emotion
- Make wise choices about how we respond to emotional situations