By Turnaround For Children, October 28, 2021
After 17 years of teaching, 3rd grade teacher Lindsay Kiernan is getting to know her students like never before. “Having that sense of belonging and attachment are the building blocks to healthy developmental relationships, they’re what every child needs to be successful in the classroom,” she said. “This has become my number one priority.”
Ms. Kiernan teaches at P.S. 340 in the Bronx, a school that partnered with Turnaround for Children to pilot ourWell-Being Index, a tool we launched last year. The tool is designed to help educators collect holistic information about how students are feeling and functioning systematically and quickly. New this year, the Well-Being Index is available as an online version, which includes an automated dashboard to facilitate use.
The Well-Being Index supports understanding of student well-being broadly and proactively — with indicators that span across psychological, social, physical, and emotional domains. It can help to identify student needs that are not always visible and surface strengths that can be maximized. Using the tool prompted Ms. Kiernan to think differently about how she approached building relationships with her students and the value of taking a strengths-based approach. “I just wanted to know my students as humans,” she said. “We know them as academic students, but do we know them through other lenses?”
Comments (0)