I am humbled and thankful that you are considering Simply School Counseling: For the Everyday Educator for your SEL Curriculum.
My hope is that these lessons will guide your students to accept themselves and
others, show kindness in the most difficult times, and grow to
be emotionally and socially successful adults.
SEL stands for Social and Emotional Learning. SEL is defined by
CASEL as follows:
"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."
I originally wrote these lessons as a school counselor to use
with my own students during weekly Guidance lesson times.
As I have digitized and reformed these lessons for you, the
following three priorities in my mind.
First and foremost, I want these lessons to be teaching
students SEL skills in fun and engaging ways. Studies show
that nearly all students are kinesthetic learners. We need to
teach in their "language" whenever possible! Students are also
more likely to remember what they have been taught if a
positive emotion is sparked during the lesson time. Check out
the link at the bottom if you would like to read some of these
studies!
Second, all the content in this curriculum has been written
with you in mind. I want this to be as easy as possible for you to
comprehend and implement. Whether you are a school
counselor, teacher, parent, specialist, or administrator, these
lessons are for you to use in whatever way works best for you!
Finally, these lessons are intended to be low prep, friendly to the
Earth, and use "easy" technology. I know the feeling well of
having a new lesson to teach and then realizing 10 minutes
before that you forgot to prepare resources! Page one of each
lesson plan has a materials list, and there are options for more
or less time attached to each lesson. Printing and copying
takes time and has an environmental hit. My promise to you is
that there will be no more than one page of paper per student
per lesson, and half the monthly lessons will require no copies
at all. Fewer copies does mean that there will be PowerPoints,
videos, etc. in a many of the lessons. My desire is for any
technology used to be a tool and assist, but the lesson is not
reliant on them!
Thank you for the work you are putting in with the students
under your care. This is not easy work, but it is absolutely
worth it!
Ruth Wright