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6 Strategies for Building a Staff Culture of Appreciation

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6 Strategies for Building a Staff Culture of Appreciation

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Staff who receive recognition for their learning and collaboration efforts are more satisfied with and engaged in their work and are more likely to continue modeling social and emotional competencies for peers and students.

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You can engage staff in this activity to reflect on how you will intentionally model SEL as part of schoolwide implementation.

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These strategies provide ideas for administrators and leadership teams to build relationships and show staff, students, and families they are cared for and appreciated.

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Principals and school leadership teams play an important role in fostering the culture and climate of their schools. Intentionally or not, school leaders indicate their values and priorities through their interactions with staff, students, and families. Modeling by school leaders is therefore a critical part of creating a positive school environment and supporting staff in building SEL skills and mindsets. Principals can "lead from the center" by embodying SEL in their daily interactions.

In the 2019 issue brief Principals' Social and Emotional Competence: A Key Factor for Creating Caring Schools, Mahfouz, Greenberg, and Rodriguez provide a conceptual model of the prosocial school leader and outline ways in which a school leader with strong social and emotional competence impacts school effectiveness and climate. The report also describes emerging strategies for supporting school leaders' emotional well-being and SEL leadership capability.

The strategies below provide ideas for administrators and leadership teams to build relationships and show staff, students, and families they are cared for and appreciated. Suggestions are modified from a Chicago Public Schools resource.

Check-Ins: Begin all conversations, visits, and meetings with a brief personal check-in. For example, with staff you might ask that they "Share a rose and a thorn of this past week/month" (good/bad). Keep track of what is shared to check-in later; e.g., "Last time we talked you mentioned that your son was ill-how is he feeling?" With families and students, before addressing the issue at hand, take the time to ask how they are doing and listen actively to their answers. Here's a 5-minute check-in tool CASEL developed with NAESP.

Staff meetings can begin with a quick whip-around question to share out loud or in small groups for large meetings. For example, "Each person describe your weekend in five words" or "In groups of three, share what percentage of your attention is on this meeting and where the other percentage is focused."

Check-in calendar: Place a staff/administrator name on each day/week of your calendar. On that day, check in with the assigned person to see how they are doing by visiting the classroom, calling, or emailing. Try to limit conversations to good news and personal check-ins; don't use them to share work reminders. Use the same strategy for students and families, noting students who have recently undergone major changes or life events, or those who have been having challenging interactions with classmates or teachers. Take a few minutes to check in with the student and/or family.

Verbal appreciation for time: Thank administrators/staff/parents for taking the time to meet with you (even if it was 'mandatory'). Let them know that their time is appreciated.

Be visible out of your office: The more time spent positively interacting with staff and students, the more influence you will have on the climate and relational trust in your building.

Notice what's going well: Ensure that staff and students hear from you more often about what they are doing right than about what's wrong. Highlighting best practices is a great way to influence others, and when individuals believe their school leader has a positive opinion of them, they are better able to receive and use critical feedback.

Birthday cards: Send paper or virtual birthday cards to administrators/staff.

Show staff that you value their perspectives: Invite and use input from staff in decision-making, ask teacher leaders to pilot or discuss new ideas in a focus group, and acknowledge the experience and institutional knowledge of veteran staff members.

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Practices for Leaders - Casel Schoolguide

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Principals and school leadership teams play an important role in fostering the culture and climate of their schools. Intentionally or not, school leaders indicate their values and priorities through their interactions with staff, students, and families. Modeling by school leaders is therefore a crit…

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Oakland Unified is transforming its schools by embedding social-emotional learning into the district culture—one adult at a time.

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Oakland Unified is transforming its schools by embedding social-emotional learning into the district culture—one adult at a time.

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The SEL 3 Signature Practices Playbook provides practical ways to introduce and broaden the use of SEL practices in classrooms, schools, and workplaces.

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Promote Trust, Community, and Collective Efficacy Among Staff

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Promote Trust, Community, and Collective Efficacy Among Staff

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When districts create a supportive and productive staff culture, they can deepen SEL implementation and the impact on students.

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Why does my district need to promote staff trust, community, and collective efficacy?

Communities of adults who know and trust one another, who are skilled at working together toward shared goals, are more successful in implementing, improving, and sustaining SEL. Conversely, when the staff culture is characterized by mistrust, isolation, and feelings of powerlessness, SEL will at best be implemented in pockets, and most likely will not last beyond a school year or two.

The staff culture within a district team, within a school, and between schools and the district's central office will all impact whether SEL implementation will take hold, and the degree to which staff will make changes, work together, respond creatively to setbacks, or accept support. When leaders become aware of existing relational dynamics, they can implement practices to strengthen relationships that will result in more meaningful collaboration and engagement with SEL.

This study of school communities in Chicago describes the social relationships among adults that contributed to school improvement or stagnation.

The research brief How do principals influence student achievement? (Allensworth & Hart, 2018) shows that administrators who successfully move the needle on student achievement most often do so through the lever of school climate and staff collaboration.

The SCARF model describes five key factors of job satisfaction and productivity that are rooted in the quality of relationships and communication among adults (see this article and summary video).

Staff culture also impacts individuals' choices and actions. For example, teachers in schools with strong collective efficacy have more respectful and caring interactions with students, teach more challenging content, and are more persistent and likely to change the way they teach when students aren't learning ( Goddard, Hoy, & Woolfolk Hoy 2004; Sosa & Gomez, 2012). This is essential in school communities that serve culturally diverse and marginalized students who are "consistently and persistently perceived as having deficits that impede them from academically learning or advancing" ( Sosa & Gomez, 2012).

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Promote Staff Trust, Community, and Efficacy - CASEL District Resource Guide

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Communities of adults who know and trust one another, who are skilled at working together toward shared goals, are more successful in implementing, improving, and sustaining SEL. Conversely, when the staff culture is characterized by mistrust, isolation, and feelings of powerlessness, SEL will at best be implemented in pockets, and most likely will not last beyond a school year or two.

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To support systemic SEL implementation, school leadership and the SEL team can create opportunities for staff to model SEL in their everyday interactions and through more structured activities.

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Systemic SEL implementation is a process that embeds SEL into every part of a school for both students and adults. To support this deep integration of SEL, school leadership and the SEL team can create opportunities for staff to model SEL in their everyday interactions and through more structured activities.

SEL practices can be modeled and embedded into any meeting where staff comes together. Practices may include intentional opportunities to connect personally, interact in meaningful ways, share appreciations, or take time for reflection. The 3 Signature Practices provide one concrete example of how SEL can be embedded throughout the day-in classrooms, staff meetings, and professional learning-and set the tone for our learning and interactions.

In addition to supporting staff, modeling SEL in staff meetings and professional learning provides an exemplar for teachers around building positive classroom environments and strengthening their relationships with students.
Tool: SEL 3 Signature Practices Playbook
The SEL team can also encourage staff to model SEL by fostering a culture of appreciation. Staff who receive recognition for their learning and collaboration efforts are more satisfied with and engaged in their work (Cataldo, 2011) and are more likely to continue modeling social and emotional competencies for peers and students.

The SEL team can recognize staff for honoring the shared agreements by creating consistent opportunities for private and public appreciation. During these opportunities, staff make specific connections between the agreements that have been honored and how that benefited them or the group. This process also creates an exemplar for how teachers can build positive classroom environments where the efforts and contributions of all students are honored. For more appreciation strategy ideas, see the following tool.

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Systemic SEL implementation is a process that embeds SEL into every part of a school for both students and adults. To support this deep integration of SEL, school leadership and the SEL team can create opportunities for staff to model SEL in their everyday interactions and through more structured activities.

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Building Adult Capacity for Social and Emotional Learning

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Building Adult Capacity for Social and Emotional Learning

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By taking one day a month to provide staff with training and support, this organization equips adults to better care for the young people they serve.

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Building Adult Capacity for Social and Emotional Learning

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Weekly Circles: Building Community to Foster Academic Achievement

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Weekly Circles: Building Community to Foster Academic Achievement

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Structured weekly circle meetings create a strong school community and help students become better learners.

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Weekly Circles: Building Community to Foster Academic Achievement

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This toolkit can be used in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), staff meetings, professional development,  training sessions, or for individual learning, reflection, and practice.

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What is SEL for Educators?

Social-emotional learning (SEL) shares some similarities with terms such as emotional intelligence, resilience, well-being and self-care. However, the specific components of SEL for adults in school settings are unique.
Educator SEL is:

The competencies that adults need in order to manage stress and create a safe and supportive classroom environment

The skills and mindsets that adults need to effectively embody, teach, model and coach SEL for students

The overall well-being and emotional state of adults in school settings

Based on a synthesis of the latest research, we have created Five High-Leverage Practices to streamline learning, practice, and application. None of the outlined practices, skills, or strategies works in isolation. They interact dynamically and are part of an ongoing process of learning and development.

Why Download the SEL for Educators Toolkit?

This toolkit can be used in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), staff meetings, professional development, training sessions, or for individual learning, reflection, and practice.

For the purposes of this resource, educator refers to any adult in a school setting who interacts with students. This can include, but is not limited to, classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, principals, deans, instructional coaches, specialists, special education teachers, and coaches. Although this resource can be used by individuals, we encourage collaboration as a way to understand the content, engage in practice, and to expand perspective by processing in community.
The toolkit focuses on the following objectives:

Educators will reflect on the importance and impact of their own social-emotional learning.

Educators will learn Five High-Leverage Practices to support their own social-emotional development and well-being.

Using embedded activities, educators will deepen their understanding and strengthen their skills related to the Five High-Leverage Practices.

Learn More

The toolkit is designed to be flexible and adaptable; educators can review and use the tools in their entirety, or select one or more focus areas. Due to the wealth of resources focused on system-level support, this toolkit focuses on what educators can do to support their individual growth.

Below, you can download TransformEd's SEL for Educators Toolkit for educators and school leaders focusing on the social-emotional development and well-being of the adults in school settings.
The Toolkit contains the following resources:

The Professional Learning Presentation is divided into three sections: The What: Defining Educator SEL, The Why: Supporting Evidence, and The How: High-Leverage Practice. It is designed to provide both content and opportunities for engagement and practice.

The Companion Guide presents additional details about the interactive components outlined in the presentation, as well as suggestions for pacing, facilitation, application, and further learning.

The Snapshot summarizes the Five High-Leverage Practices and their corresponding strategies in a simple and accessible handout.

The Reference List provides a comprehensive list of the resources consulted during the development of this tool for those who would like to dig deeper into the research on this topic.

Mini Modules

We will be releasing six mini modules to introduce our SEL for Educators Toolkit. This toolkit is extensive, therefore each module aims to synthesize the material and walk you through it using the following breakdown:

Module 1 - An Overview: The What, The Why, & The How

Module 2 - Examine Identity

Module 3 - Explore Emotions

Module 4 - Cultivate Compassionate Curiosity

Module 5 - Orient Towards Optimism

Module 6 - Establish Balance & Boundaries

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What is SEL for Educators? Social-emotional learning (SEL) shares some similarities with terms such as emotional intelligence, resilience, well-being and self-care. However, the specific components of SEL for adults in school settings are unique.

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The SEL 3 Signature Practices Playbook provides practical ways to introduce and broaden the use of SEL practices in classrooms, schools, and workplaces.

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Peer Mentoring and Partnership Structures 

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Peer Mentoring and Partnership Structures 

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Mentoring programs can help teachers improve their professional relationships while enhancing their SEL and instructional practice.

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Mentoring programs can help teachers improve their professional relationships while enhancing their SEL and instructional practice. Mentees gain a sense of connectedness in a challenging and often stressful profession, while mentors have an opportunity to deeply reflect on their own practices and share their learnings (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011; Peterson et al., 2010; Marable & Raimondi, 2007; Heikkinen et al., 2012).

There are many different ways that mentoring can be structured. The Mentoring Leadership and Resource Network provides examples of different kinds of teacher mentorships:

Buddy System: A mentor is paired as a "buddy" with a new teacher from within the same department or grade band and orients the new teacher to the school's policies, practices, and organizational culture.

Experienced Teacher-Novice: Experienced teachers help newer teachers improve practice through bidirectional observations and feedback. The newer teacher has a chance to observe other experienced teachers and work through the administrative tasks directly associated with the teaching job.

Group Mentoring: Sometimes referred to as a "Community of Practice," group mentoring encourages collaboration and co-learning across the institution. The mentor-mentees may be inter-departmental or across grade levels.

Collaborative Classrooms: Teachers use each other as a resource, a sounding board for ideas, and a partner for sharing successes and support. Collaborating teachers can also work together on activities or projects. They can collaborate across or within grade levels and subjects.

Additional Mentoring Resources:
The Mentoring Leadership & Resource Network American Institutes for Research SEL Coaching Toolkit

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Peer Mentoring and Partnership - Casel Schoolguide

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Mentoring programs can help teachers improve their professional relationships while enhancing their SEL and instructional practice. Mentees gain a sense of connectedness in a challenging and often stressful profession, while mentors have an opportunity to deeply reflect on their own practices and sh…

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Developing shared agreements among staff is an important step between establishing a shared vision and defining specific schoolwide norms and routines to promote SEL.

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Professional learning communities provide an important opportunity to integrate SEL into existing practices, work collaboratively on the goals of schoolwide SEL, and cultivate their own social and emotional competencies.

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A professional learning community refers to a structured collaboration where educators meet regularly to: Build community and relational trust. Identify priorities. Analyze student achievement. Share successful practices. Set goals that are critical to the academic, social, and emotional development of students.

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A strong social-emotional learning climate for faculty doesn't just happen.

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Consider a common scenario: When the Blue Elementary School's team of administrators reviewed year-end data to reflect on how to take the school to the next level, they identified social-emotional learning (SEL) as a priority for the coming year. Based on this priority, they arranged for four teacher-led professional learning sessions throughout the fall and provided opportunities for peer observation so that teachers could learn from and support each other.

The professional learning sessions were held in teachers' classrooms, and Ms. Azul was first to host. As teachers gathered in her room, she overheard one teacher whispering to another that the session would be a waste of time. Two others expressed concern about whether the peer observations would be mandatory. Once the session had begun, she noticed that several teachers who she knew to have strong SEL practices were quiet, while those teachers who were eager participants talked over others. Some participants eventually withdrew into their laptops and busied themselves with checking email, correcting papers, and sending texts.

Ms. Azul looked around her classroom at the anchor charts she had posted to remind students of strategies for self-management and consideration of others; the graphic organizers that students used to explore the relationship between feelings, thoughts, and behaviors; and the various tools and protocols used to support turn-taking, communication, and cooperation. These skills and strategies would benefit us as teachers, she thought.

The school's principal, who was also in the room, had made a similar observation. In reflecting on the session, she recognized that she had been expecting teachers to learn and adopt new SEL strategies for students, while their own social-emotional needs were being ignored. The teachers had strong feelings-from apathy to enthusiasm to anxiety-about the new initiative and many were having a hard time managing those feelings. They did not yet have the relationships or routines that might help them to see each other as resources who could help build confidence as they experimented with new practices. And, since they had not agreed upon norms for communication and behavior, they were starting to get on each other's nerves.

So how do schools create a strong schoolwide SEL climate for adults? It's not something that can be mandated by the principal or initiated by an individual teacher. Teacher leaders and administrators must team up to promote this kind of cultural change. While administrators have the positional authority to communicate SEL development as a priority and protect time and space to advance that priority, teacher leaders know what their colleagues are thinking and feeling, and they often have the social capital to galvanize collective buy-in. Working together as partners in school leadership, teacher leaders and administrators can maximize their complementary perspectives to the benefit of their schools.

There are numerous ways teacher leaders and principals can work together as partners to strengthen the SEL climate for adults in their schools. Here are three ideas to get started.

1. Establish relationship-building routines. Social-emotional learning, like all learning, requires risk-taking. It requires us to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable. Unfortunately, adults have lots of baggage-prior personal or professional experiences, biases, beliefs, and fears-that lead us to keep our guard up and make us less predisposed to trust than our students might be. As adults, if we don't want to engage, we don't have to.

To create readiness for risk-taking, teacher leaders and administrators can create routines that set faculty members up to have positive interactions that, over time, give them reason to believe it's worth engaging with each other. They can begin with icebreakers that allow members to learn of each other's personal strengths, preferences, and work styles. Next, they can encourage staff members to open up a bit by sharing pet peeves and favorite self-regulation strategies, for example. Over time, they can move to higher-stakes conversations guided by protocols to unpack the emotionally charged work of teaching and learning. Each interaction is an opportunity for colleagues to strengthen mutual respect and personal regard, to build confidence in each other as allies, and to create the sense of psychological safety they need to engage in adult learning.

2. Design for collaboration. The more we work together, the more we learn about each other's strengths, perspectives, values, and the ways in which we might each be resources for one another's learning. Unfortunately, the way teachers' work is traditionally organized makes meaningful collaboration challenging. Teachers often have limited opportunities to work with one another-and times they do have are sometimes poorly thought through or inadequately supported. As a result, many teachers have developed a go-it-alone attitude that can make them wary of collaboration.

In classrooms designed to support students' social-emotional learning, students know their roles within their team, they know where to secure the materials they need to complete a project, and they know what the options are for resolving conflicts. To strengthen the SEL climate for adults, teacher leaders and principals can look to such classrooms for inspiration and adopt routines for turn taking, communication, and cooperation. The process of cocreating clear norms and transparent collaborative work processes is a positive team-building experience, and the resulting routines empower all participants to feel they can contribute.

3. Engage each other as resources in problem solving. Teaching is complex work that requires fast and frequent decision making for problems that don't always have clear solutions. Unfortunately, educators are often left to make these important decisions alone. We use our professional knowledge to make our best guess and move on to the next decision, even though the many professionals surrounding us may have relevant knowledge that could have been brought to bear.

A better solution is to create space and time to engage in collaborative problem solving around key schoolwide issues, using protocols that engage team members in generating multiple perspectives, exploring hypothetical outcomes of possible solutions, and resolving decisions in a way that allows everyone with relevant knowledge to contribute. There won't be time to take up every decision in this deliberate manner, but choosing certain issues to take slowly-by engaging in exploration and conjecture, speaking and listening, and taking part in discourse and debate-can strengthen educators' estimations of one another's competence and integrity and produce higher quality decisions for which there is truly shared responsibility.

When schools establish a strong social-emotional climate among adults, the benefits are clear. Recent studies have found that in schools where faculty members collaborate and develop strong communication and trust, teachers are not only more likely to learn from each other and stay in the profession, but they are also able to boost student performance. 1 Teacher leaders and principals can lay the foundation by working together to establish relationship-building routines, design for productive collaboration, and engage educators in shared problem solving. As leaders with complementary perspectives of their school, they can best accomplish this together. Tapping into educators' passions and talents to foster productive relationships serves both adults and children well.

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Leading Together / SEL for Adults - ASCD

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Consider a common scenario: When the Blue Elementary School's team of administrators reviewed year-end data to reflect on how to take the school to the next level, they identified social-emotional learning (SEL) as a priority for the coming year. Based on this priority, they arranged for four teache

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Create structures that foster trust and collaboration among staff.

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When staff support and trust one another, they form a strong professional community, feel more committed to their schools, share knowledge and expertise, and work productively toward collective goals. School teams can intentionally cultivate this type of staff community by setting up structures that foster positive staff relationships and providing ongoing opportunities for staff to meaningfully collaborate.

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The SEL 3 Signature Practices are one tool for fostering a supportive environment and promoting SEL.

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Tap-In / Tap-Out: Giving Teachers Time to Recharge

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Tap-In / Tap-Out: Giving Teachers Time to Recharge

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Sometimes teachers need a minute to take a breath and refocus. A tap-in, tap-out strategy allows them to call in support so they can step out of their room.

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Tap-In / Tap-Out: Giving Teachers Time to Recharge

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The Flock: Supporting Teachers Through Peer Feedback

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The Flock: Supporting Teachers Through Peer Feedback

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Teachers work in small support groups to build consistency about expectations of student behavior and the level of rigor in teaching across the curriculum.

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The Flock: Supporting Teachers Through Peer Feedback

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Staff Activity: Building Self-Awareness & Relationship Skills

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Staff Activity: Building Self-Awareness & Relationship Skills

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When staff understand what motivates them and what motivates others, they are better equipped to work together in productive ways. This activity can help teams explore what motivates them in the workplace.

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Activity: SCARF as a model for staff collaboration

Article: SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, by David Rock (Rock, 2008)

Schools in Chicago, Ill., and El Paso, Texas, have used this activity to build self-awareness and social-awareness among the school's staff. SEL teams may find this activity helpful as they work toward building strong relationships that are responsive to each individual's needs.

Participants collaborate on reading and interpreting an assigned article.

Time: approximately 60-90 minutes

1. In groups of five, assign each group to read a section of the article. Everyone should read the introduction, then be assigned one additional section-either Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, or Fairness.

2. Once everyone has read the introduction and their assigned section, each group member is allotted two to three minutes to give a summary of the information they read. Groups should use a timer to keep the activity within the time allowed.

3. After everyone has given a summary, complete the SCARF Self-Assessment to determine which SCARF element is your primary driver.

4. Discuss the following questions:

How do your results explain your interactions with the people around you?

What do you need to be successful at work? How can you ask for this?

How can you begin to be more aware of and responsive to the "drivers" of others?

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A Brain-Based Model for Workplace Collaboration

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Article: SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others, by David Rock (Rock, 2008) Schools in Chicago, Ill., and El Paso, Texas, have used this activity to build self-awareness and social-awareness among the school's staff. SEL teams may find this activity helpful as they work toward building strong relationships that are responsive to each individual's needs.

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This tool is designed for self-reflection. Return to this reflection throughout the year to revisit personal goals and mark progress.

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Reflection Activities: Self Check-In, My Needs Right Now, & My Self-Care Go-To Kit

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School staff can apply this concept to themselves and their peers to help create a culture of growth and improvement throughout the school community.

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Carol Dweck is a psychologist who researches achievement and success. Her major finding is that those who have a "growth mindset"-those who believe that their abilities are developed through dedication and hard work, not innate talent-are more likely to be resilient when things get tough and persevere to achieve goals (Dweck, 2006).

Many teachers work to teach their students to have a growth mindset by:

Celebrating mistakes as learning opportunities.

Praising effort and hard work rather than praising students for being "smart."

Emphasizing that intelligence is malleable, and the brain is like a muscle that can get bigger and stronger through mental exercise.

School staff can apply this concept to themselves and their peers to help create a culture of growth and improvement throughout the school community. The activity below can be used during staff or grade-level team meetings to help staff begin a discussion about growth mindset.
Citations can be found in the School Guide Bibliography.
Activity: Growth Mindset for Staff
Activity courtesy of Chicago Public Schools
Materials: Summary " Carol Dweck on Fixed and Growth Mindset Thinking Among Teachers" by Kim Marshall (one per participant), copies of the Mindset Test.

1. Allow participants time to read the article linked above. Then give participants about 10 minutes to take the Mindset Test.

2. Ask the participants to react to the article in small groups of three to five. Consider using these guiding questions:

What was one thing that resonated with you?

Did this article motivate you to try something new?

What does the growth mindset look like at our school?

What would it take for us to adopt a growth mindset schoolwide?

3. Have all staff members draft and share a goal for improvement for the school year and plan to check in with each other as the year progresses.

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Carol Dweck is a psychologist who researches achievement and success. Her major finding is that those who have a "growth mindset"-those who believe that their abilities are developed through dedication and hard work, not innate talent-are more likely to be resilient when things get tough and persevere to achieve goals (Dweck, 2006).

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SEL Competencies Personal Assessment & Reflection 

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SEL Competencies Personal Assessment & Reflection 

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Principals, administrators, SEL team members, and staff members can use this tool to assess their personal strengths and think about how they can model those strengths when interacting with others.

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SEL for Adults: Self-Awareness and Self-Management

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SEL for Adults: Self-Awareness and Self-Management

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Self-awareness and self-management are two of the five components that make up CASEL’s model of SEL. See how they impact behavior and choices.

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According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional, Learning ( CASEL), social-emotional learning (SEL) is "the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions."

Self-awareness and self-management are two of the five components that make up CASEL's model of SEL.

Self-Awareness is simply the ability to be aware of one's inner life -one's emotions, thoughts, behaviors, values, preferences, goals, strengths, challenges, attitudes, mindsets, and so forth-and how these elements impact behavior and choices.

A new teacher who is self-aware notices his fearful emotional response on his first day of teaching. He feels his heart beat faster and his stomach clench as he worries about making a good first impression on students. He wants to run out the door before the students enter the classroom, but then recognizes that this behavior is a result of his emotions and thoughts running amok, and he accepts that these reactions can occur when he experiences anxiety.

Skills that develop self-awareness include:

Labeling and recognizing one's emotions

Identifying what triggers own emotions

Analyzing emotions and how they affect others

Understanding the relationship between one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors

Recognizing one's needs, values, judgments, and biases

Identifying personal strengths and areas for growth

Practicing self-compassion

Cultivating self-confidence, positive self-regard, a "growth" mindset, and optimism

Self-management is the ability to navigate and shift one's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in a healthy way in order to make decisions and reach goals that benefit oneself and others.

A new teacher who was anxious about her first year of teaching remembered learning from her mentor that when she felt the terror of facing her students for the first time, she could change how she felt by thinking differently about the situation. So, instead of dreading her new profession, this teacher decided to look at it as an adventure-one that might bring her supportive colleagues, wonderful students, and exciting opportunities.

Self-management skills include:

Regulating and expressing one's emotions thoughtfully

Demonstrating perseverance and resilience to overcome obstacles

Sustaining healthy boundaries

Applying strategies to reduce personal and interpersonal stress

Setting and monitoring short-term and long-term goals

Advocating for oneself and one's needs

Maintaining attention

Using feedback constructively

Ultimately, self-awareness and self-management are closely linked. For example, being able to stop and calm down when one is upset (self-management), requires skills like recognizing and labeling the emotions that one is feeling and considering how they might be affecting one's behavior choices (self-awareness).
For a deeper dive into the science and practical school-based examples of this science in action, click on the following topics:
SEL for Adults: The Basics of Emotion
SEL for Adults: Emotions and Culture
SEL for Adults: Emotion Regulation

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SEL for Adults: Self-Awareness and Self-Management | Greater Good In Education

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According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional, Learning ( CASEL), social-emotional learning (SEL) is "the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions."

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By developing social-emotional skills, teachers can rediscover the joy of teaching.

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After seven years as a full-time teacher, serving as my school's director for the last three, I found myself THIS CLOSE to burnout. I had nothing left in the emotional tank. The challenge was that I loved the field of education and didn't want to leave it, but I knew something had to change.

So what did I do? I enrolled in a Ph.D. program and spent the next five years figuring out what the heck happened.

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After deep introspection and a broader understanding of human development, I made the following diagnosis: My own lack of social and emotional skills had been leading me down the precipitous path to burnout.

Developing social and emotional skills-particularly at the adult level-is a complex process. For starters, we weren't necessarily taught these skills as children and may not even realize that we can or need to develop them. The science of emotions is very new, and schools are just now beginning to understand how emotions impact students' learning and well-being; back when I was a student, this science hadn't permeated schools at all.

So unless we were lucky enough to have socially and emotionally competent teachers or parents growing up, our explicit training in the development of empathy, compassion, gratitude, and other social-emotional skills was nil.

For teachers, these skills are imperative not only for their personal well-being but to improve student learning. According to Patricia Jennings and Mark Greenberg, leading scientists in the field of social-emotional learning, teachers who possess social-emotional competencies (SEC) are less likely to experience burnout because they're able to work more effectively with challenging students-one of the main causes of burnout.

For example, instead of quickly resorting to punishments, teachers with SEC recognize their students' emotions and have insight into what's causing them, which then helps teachers respond with compassionate understanding when a student is acting out-and re-direct the students' behavior appropriately. If, for instance, a teacher knows that a student is acting out because of problems at home, that teacher may be more likely to treat the student with kindness. This sort of response promotes caring and supportive relationships between teachers and students-a key to reducing both student behavior problems, possibly by as much as 30 percent, and teachers' emotional exhaustion.

Educators with SEC also create warm and safe classroom climates, fostered by strong classroom management skills. In these kinds of classrooms, the teacher and students practice respectful communication and problem-solving; transitions from one activity to another run smoothly; and lessons are designed to encourage student engagement and love-of-learning-all of which promote academic achievement and create a positive feedback loop for teachers, sustaining their passion for teaching.

But even once we recognize the importance of these skills, we have to consider a tough question: Which social-emotional skills do teachers need?

This is a tricky question to answer because different situations call for different skills. For example, when I switched from fourth grade to Kindergarten, I found that I needed to develop a lot more patience for those moments when the whole world stopped because a shoe was untied. Teachers who transfer from a warm, caring school environment to a more challenging one may also find that they need a whole new set of social-emotional skills.

So while there's no one-size-fits-all checklist of required skills, Jennings and Greenberg write that teachers who have SEC are high in both self- and social awareness. In other words, they can recognize and manage their own emotions as well as understand how their emotional responses impact others. They also know how to build strong, supportive relationships with students, colleagues, and parents, deal effectively with conflict, set firm but respectful boundaries, and regularly demonstrate kind, helpful behavior to those around them.

Here's my barometer for knowing whether you have these skills: if you're able to create positive relationships with those around you and not feel emotionally exhausted as a result. When I was teaching, I thought one of my greatest strengths was developing good relationships with students and parents, so it took me awhile to figure out why I was teetering on the edge of burnout.

My Achilles' heel? I thought it was my responsibility to meet everyone's needs and to make sure they all were happy. Impossible task, to say the least, and one that revealed my complete inability to set boundaries.

Because teacher education and professional development of in-service teachers do not explicitly develop teachers' SEC, most educators are left on their own to determine if they need certain social-emotional skills and how to actually develop them. Here are two suggestions for where to start:

1) Know for a fact that it is possible to teach without burning out. The skyrocketing rates of teacher burnout make it seem like an inevitable consequence of the job. While there's absolutely no question that teaching is hard work, I strongly believe burnout is not inevitable. Realizing this can provide a wake-up call to figure out what needs to be changed.

According to one researcher, the first step out of suffering is realizing that there is another way to live. To teachers feeling emotionally drained after dealing with that angry parent or defiant student or demanding principal, I think that realization can be incredibly empowering.

It's important not to forget self-compassion during this process. The foremost researcher of self-compassion, Kristin Neff, experienced her own wake-up call in this regard. Upon being introduced to the idea that she could actually be kind to herself, she started on her own deeply transformative path both personally and professionally-one from which many people (including teachers) have subsequently benefited.

2) Cultivate self-awareness. It's very easy to think that our problems are everyone else's fault: students, colleagues, principals, parents, schools systems, society-the list goes on and on. There's usually some truth to that, of course. Yet quite often, we'll also benefit from looking inward. When we can identify the emotional patterns and tendencies that keep us from being kind and compassionate and understanding, we get a huge boost toward fostering those skills in ourselves-and in others.

I saw this in a teacher I knew, who grew up in a house where angry outbursts were a regular occurrence. So, as you can imagine, the students with whom she had the hardest time were the angry ones. She had no tools to deal with anger and was actually quite frightened of it. As she learned more about how emotions actually work through science-based books and practices, she became more self-aware, and her fear of anger went away-she learned to deal with it effectively. As a result, her relationships with students are much healthier and more positive.

Cultivating self-awareness also helps us recognize when we're feeling emotionally drained and need to take a step back by practicing mindfulness or self-compassion. It also helps us recognize when we do not have the ability to change an unhealthy relationship or situation and need to step away from it.

Ultimately, there's a tremendous amount of emotional freedom that comes from developing self-awareness because our emotions no longer control us.

As teachers, one of the best things about developing our own social-emotional skills is that we can then turn around and help our students do the same thing. And instead of feeling exhausted after getting "emotionally dumped on" yet again, we feel uplifted because we've learned how to manage our own emotions and compassionately work with someone else's. We become the teachers we've always wanted to be.
Throughout this next school year, watch for articles on specific, research-based steps teachers can take to develop SEC.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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Why Teachers Need Social-Emotional Skills

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After seven years as a full-time teacher, serving as my school's director for the last three, I found myself THIS CLOSE to burnout. I had nothing left in the emotional tank. The challenge was that I loved the field of education and didn't want to leave it, but I knew something had to change.

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Learn five ways to ignite hope by nourishing our own SEL.

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Read five ways that educators and school leaders can promote social and emotional learning as a way of being.

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Building Adult Capacity for Social and Emotional Learning

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Building Adult Capacity for Social and Emotional Learning

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By taking one day a month to provide staff with training and support, this organization equips adults to better care for the young people they serve.

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Building Adult Capacity for Social and Emotional Learning

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Learn ways to cultivate a community of adults who engage in their own social and emotional learning and model SEL throughout the school.

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Support staff in modeling SEL competencies, mindsets, and skills throughout the school community with students, students’ families, community partners, and one another.

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Set up structures such as professional learning communities (PLCs) or peer mentoring for staff to collaborate on how to hone their strategies for promoting schoolwide SEL.

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Support staff in reflecting on personal social and emotional competencies and developing capacity for supporting SEL in their peers and students.