By Amy L. Eva, Greater Good Magazine, August 18, 2021
“I’ve got to be on. I’ve got to be extra on,” said one school counselor I know during a recent staff meeting. As educators across the country welcome students back to school this fall, they are feeling the pressure. It’s difficult to imagine how we will navigate so many unknowns across this new school year. No doubt many of us don’t even feel ready to be back, yet here we are.
With this lack of control comes the need for flexibility and the opportunity to do school differently than we have before. A growing commitment to social and emotional learning (SEL) took hold before the pandemic, but the sociopolitical upheaval and global public health crises have made the focus on students’ well-being and mental health even more urgent.
This year, Greater Good Science Center’s education team partnered with California County Offices of Education to support statewide SEL communities of practice through an emergency grant funded by FEMA. Throughout the pandemic, we have networked, shared online SEL resources, and spotlighted districts’ offerings around staff and student mental health. Here are some of the things we have learned from this work with our educator-colleagues—along with some easy-to-implement, research-based practices and activities you can use to foster a stronger sense of collective well-being in your classroom or school.
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