Teaching Tolerance

My item of interest is a website called Teaching Tolerance which provides resources and tools to help schools address equity within the building and gives articles and supports around current issues.  I choose this website because it can be filtered down by different categories such as: race and ethnicity, religion, ability, sexuality, class, immigration, bullying, and activism.  You can also find information and curriculum around SEL in the classrooms and how to incorporate that into your schools.  There are many free resources and the ask is for only a donation if one is able. 

There are many other resources beyond articles, including lesson plans and posters.  I like the lesson plans because they can be filtered down by the above categories and also by grade ranging from kindergarten all the way through grade 12. There are text for students and text for educators.  You can also subscribe to get articles sent to your email that are appropriate for what is currently going on.  For example, there was an article about how to speak with students about being mindful about Halloween costumes and why that is important.  There are currently articles about Thanksgiving and what that actually means for Indigenous Persons in America.

The website is located at www.tolerance.org

The Zones of Regulation

My second item of interest is a book called The Zones of Regulation which is a curriculum designed to foster self-regulation and emotional control. The curriculum's learning activities are presented in 18 lessons. The Zones of Regulation is a conceptual framework is designed to be taught by anyone who works with students who struggle with self-regulation. This curriculum is used to teach students: how to identify their feelings and levels of alertness, effective regulation tools, when and how to use the tools, problem solve positive solutions, understand how their behaviors influence others' thoughts and feelings. This can include, but not limited to special education and regular education teachers, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and parents.

I decided to share this curriculum because it can help us as social workers teach clients how to learn to express what they are feeling and explore their reactions and behavior. For instance, social workers can use this as a check-in. It is suggested to use and introduce the concept of the zones with the wall posters for a visual. A social worker can share the four zones and describe how it would be used during their session and have the client express how their brain and body feels before and after the session.

When a person is in a blue zone, their body is running slow, such as when you are tired, sick, sad or bored. The green zone is described to be as a green street light, meaning "good to go". If a person is in the green zone a person might feel happy, calm and focused. The yellow zone is compared to a caution sign meaning to slow down. A person in this zone may feel frustrated, overwhelmed, silly, excited, anxious or surprised. When someone is in the red zone, they might be out of control meaning; feeling extreme emotions such as terror, uncontrolled anger, and aggression. In this zone, you have trouble making smart choices and must stop and take a breather. This curriculum also promotes learning sensory and perspective-taking strategies to encourage self-regulation in a variety of scenarios.

In the context of my internship at District 104, my supervisor and I plan to use this curriculum material when working with students.  This serves as a great tool because we can share with teachers and parents to help students identify what they are feeling and learn how to self-regulate. This curriculum is appropriate for all ages and can be tailored for students and groups if necessary.

 I hope this is helpful to you and your practice! Below is an image of the book! I highly recommend.

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Matt and Molly Social Skills

Matt and Molly Social Skills Curriculum

The Matt and Molly Social Skills Curriculum teaches young children different social skills through the use of a 4 sentence story. The curriculum was created to be used to teach children on the Autism Spectrum, different social skills. Each story contains four different cards with a picture on each. Each picture has one sentence that goes along with it. As the facilitator shows the students the picture, he/she also reads the sentence that goes along with that picture. The students are then given a variety of questions related to the story. Depending on the skills of the students you are working with, you can use either the yes/no questions or the wh/how questions that are provided. The social worker at my placement and I, use the curriculum for two special education early childhood classes. One of the classes is lower functioning, therefore we ask them the yes/no questions after each story. The second group of students that we work with are more advanced, therefore we use the wh/how questions with them. The questions allow the students to discuss what they learned throughout the story and recognize the social skill that was taught.  

After each story, we have the students participate in an activity related to the story. After this particular story, we had the students practice the skills of turn taking and playing together, by building a tower out of blocks together. This curriculum is one that is very easy to facilitate and really engages the students. I believe that this curriculum can also be used for general education preschool and kindergarten students.

Title: Matt and Molly Play with Blocks

Skills Learned: Turn Taking & Playing with Peers

Bounce back
https://bouncebackprogram.org

Bounce Back is a school-based group intervention for elementary students who were exposed to stressful and traumatic events Designed to be administered by clinicians, Bounce Back is based on Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma inn Schools or CBITS. Bounce back trainings can be done completely online; the training offers multiple lectures that outline the curriculum in specific details. Once you complete all lessons you have access to all the material, resources, and activities all planned out and ready to use with students specifically in the school setting and dealing with trauma. This program is laid out in 10 sessions, which include individual, parent and group sessions. The purpose of Bounce Back is to teach students ways to cope with and recover from traumatic events, helping them go back to their routine of doing what they want and need to do. The Bounce Back program is appropriate for children and families of diverse ethnic and social backgrounds.  The training is intended to teach the adult the process of the program from the initial interview and screener, to the lessons and activities and eventually “graduating” from the program.  The program is free; however, it will take you a couple of hours to complete the whole training, and it can be done in more than one sitting. I encourage everyone to check it out and complete the training to help build your social work resources. 


https://bouncebackprogram.org

MindUP

The MindUP Curriculum is a comprehensive set of lessons and strategies designed to increase the learning potential of students by helping then focus their attention and improve their ability to self-regulate. Additionally the curriculum aims to help students build resilience to stress and develop a positive mindset, not only in school but in life in general. This evidence based curriculum incorporates social emotional learning into every aspect of the learning environment. The curriculum is available for K-2, 3-5, and 6-8 grades. It proves that social emotional learning is not separate from traditional subjects. The curriculum teaches educators and social workers how to incorporate simple lessons into daily lesson plans that have long lasting impact on students.

MindUP aligns with the School Social Work Model in that it is an evidence based program that addresses education and behavior. The skills taught to students help promote a school climate and culture that is conducive to learning.

MindUP curriculum can be found at http://www.thehawnfoundation.org/ and http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/mindup/

Free Sample Lessons:
 http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/mindup/pdfs/Mindup_Prek-2_lesson.pdf
http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/mindup/pdfs/Mindup_3-5_lessons.pdf
http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/mindup/pdfs/Mindup_6-8_lesson.pdf

                         

Strong Kids: Strong Start Curriculum

Item of Interest 2:

 Strong Kids: Strong Start Curriculum

            Strong Kids Curriculum is an evidence-based practice that works with students from K-12. Each book in the curriculum focuses on the needs of the grade level of the student. The curriculum is designed to incorporate Social and Emotional Learning Standards. More specifically is the Strong Start Curriculum.  This curriculum works with students aged 3-5 and another is designed for K-2. This set of curriculum works with teaching students about feelings and how to recognize their feelings in their own bodies. During each lesson, students read a book based off of the feeling that they are working with. The students then talk about the feeling of the lesson. Students’ focus on what that feeling feels like in their bodies. Students also work with coming up with different names for that feeling along with how to tell if others are feeling that feeling. This item of interest meets the Social Work Model under the practice feature of “Provide[s] evidence-based education, behavior, and mental health services”. This is done by implementing the curriculum, monitoring the progress of the lessons and evaluating if the student is making progress with the lessons.

Example:

For example, students can identify happy. Read the book I Like Me! with the students.

Another word for happy is excited. When happy, you can feel like you “are glowing”. Students can identify that other students are happy because they can see a smile on the student and lots of energy. Students can pair up and show each other what they look like when they are happy.

 

Sources:

Merrell, K. W. (2007). Strong start: A social & emotional learning curriculum. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Pub.

http://strongkids.uoregon.edu/strongstart.html