From Teach Better Blog: SEL for Educators

 

TL;DR:

• Prioritizing social-emotional health in the classroom is crucial for teachers and students, with a focus on health over grades.
• Teachers should take care of their own well-being to effectively support their students, as they cannot give what they haven’t mastered themselves.
• Poor social-emotional health among teachers negatively affects student outcomes, emphasizing the need for schools to prioritize teacher well-being, leading to better staff retention and improved student outcomes.

SEL for Educators: Teachers are people, too.

In the practice of social-emotional health in the classroom, school leaders and teachers need to prioritize social-emotional health before learning. We have a saying at my school that a student is a person first, and our priority is always health over grades.

Teachers need to take care of their own social-emotional health before they can address that of their students. It is often said that you cannot pour from an empty cup, and you cannot give students skills that you have not been able to master and implement for yourself.

SEL, or social-emotional learning, is a hot-button topic in education today. One cannot throw a virtual stress ball without hitting an article on SEL for students. It is well established in research that students learn better when their social-emotional health is cared for.

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