Teaching the Tribes Agreements

My reaction to reading the NPR article, “Why Emotional Learning May be as Important as the ABC’s,” about preschools recognizing the importance of teaching social skills, was excitement; finally, some schools are listening to the research which shows that social emotional learning not only boosts academic success but also is critical for helping students be successful in the 21st Century world! I am also excited to have yet another study support what we have been doing here at ESK since 2000 – the research-based developmental culture and educational process known as Tribes Learning Communities, as one of the foundational pieces of our school.

The NPR article states that the research shows that social and emotional literacy can be taught, just as reading literacy can be taught. The article then goes on to describe several social-emotional learning programs that some schools are using. The downside of some of these programs is that they are very expensive.

I recently read another article by Vicki Zakrzewski, “Emotional Intelligence Needs a Moral Rudder.”

Zakrzewski writes about new research suggesting that social emotional learning is not enough – students need to be taught how to manage their emotions within a moral framework. Otherwise, we run the risk of creating delinquents with high emotional intelligence. This article backs up what we do here at ESK, teaching social emotional skills as well as focusing on spirituality, ethics and morals. Our daily Chapel services and weekly Religion classes provide an important spiritual and moral grounding for all students, while respecting the religious traditions of all students. Social emotional learning is the focus of weekly Guidance classes for students in Kindergarten through eighth grade, providing time for teaching empathy, problem and conflict solving, mindfulness, as well as many other social skills topics. It also supports the work of the classroom teachers by reinforcing specific social emotional skills identified as important by the classroom teacher. The Tribes Agreements (Attentive Listening, Mutual Respect, Let Go and Move On, Right to Pass/Right to Participate, Appreciations/No Put-downs and Honesty), one of the most important aspects of the the Tribes process, unites us all as a community of learners and gives us a universal language to help us learn to live in a right relationship to others.

As the NPR article states in its title, emotional learning may be as important as the ABC’s. At ESK we believe that it is – so much so that we take it much further than just implementing a curriculum to teach social skills.

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Today, we heard from ESK Guidance Counselor Lois Ross and her thoughts on emotional learning based on the recent blog titled “Why Emotional Learning May Be As Important As The ABCs.” from NPRed.