Social Emotional Learning

This article is about social-emotional learning and how it can potentially benefit kindergarten students. This study’s purpose was to consider kindergarten when promoting social and emotional learning in schools. Since relatively few studies have been conducted in the kindergarten classroom, this study examines the effects of the Strong Start curriculum for kindergarteners in this setting. This curriculum tests the competence of sixty-seven kindergarteners in both social and emotional areas. This curriculum consists of ten lessons that were taught by four different teachers in four different classrooms. In the end, the results indicate that students increase their social skills, and the curriculum decreases their natural instinct of internalizing behaviors.

The ideas of this article intrigued me because of the information presented in the beginning paragraphs. This article elaborates upon how important the ability of being able to distinguish between positive and negative emotions is. Through the faces presented in the start of the article, I learned that affective development “generally precedes cognitive and behavioral development, as children experience emotions and react to them long before they are able to verbalize or cope. However, social and emotional competencies do not unfold automatically; rather they are strongly influenced by the child’s early learning environment” (Kramer, Caldarella, Christensen & Shatzer 2010). As an educator, I feel as though this is a pertinent piece of important information. Oftentimes students will view school as their safe-haven, and, with all the struggles that they are facing at home, emotions are let loose in the wrong ways. This social-emotional learning program reportedly help...

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...re exiled by peers for being socially-awkward, thus increasing the number of students who enjoy being at school. In this environment cliques are dismantled, and everyone respects each other. This is what I will strive for in my classroom.

Imagine how many students that simply do not know how to handle emotions, or how to be social – I believe that this number could be drastically reduced, if not obliterated, but the implementation of the Smart Start curriculum. This curriculum would certainly not be the cure-all potion that schools are looking for, but it is my opinion that it would be a step in the correct direction.

References

Kramer, T. J., Caldarella, P., Christensen, L., & Shatzer, R. H. (2010). Social and Emotional Learning in the Kindergarten Classroom: Evaluation of the Strong Start Curriculum. Early Childhood Education Journal, 37(4), 303-309.