I found a fantastic video via Twitter about Social and Emotional learning happening in the classrooms.  This was a topic that has come up in both my classes this summer.  In one class we discussed how some students don't have the cognitive capacity to learn extensive academic material so they should be taught social and technical skills.  This is of course important for all students, but especially for those that will be entering the working world with out higher education.  In my other class we discussed how you can not be a good leader with out first establishing and developing your emotional intelligence.  This includes knowing yourself as a person and how to relate to others.  This whole idea began with Daniel Goleman's book Emotional Intelligence, which my professor highly recommends to all those who desire to become a leader.  I personally have not read the book yet but I would say it should be high on the list of books to read for all educators.

This emotional and social topic is one that often gets lost and overlooked in curriculum in the classroom.  Some traditional educators get lost in the "mandatory" curriculum of academic subjects that are over tested in today's education system.  This video shows a perfect example of how combining social and emotional skills with language can be a wonderfully effective lesson.  The first teacher has students write about their emotions which can combine sentence structure with understanding how their feeling and why.  The second teacher uses role play which combines not only the understanding of emotions but also relaying those emotions to others while building their social skills.  I feel PS 24 has it right with starting at the core of the student to improve learning and test scores.  Instead of trying to drill facts and formulas into our students to raise test scores it is better to improve their confidence and focus.  PS 24 does this by helping students understand what their feeling from day to day which is most often the basis for students who wander off task.

Students have as much going on in their lives as adults and its sometimes something we forget.  As adults we know how events in our lives affect us and can distract us.  Just remember how those events would affect us if we did not know how to process and internalize the effects of those events.  This is something that some people never learn to do which can often lead to anger management issues, aggression and depression.  If we want our students to succeed academically, why not help them process and internalize their emotions so that they can put them aside when it's time to focus on academics.