I am a special education provider in a 2nd grade, co-integrated classroom setting. Although they are young, I do see a number of components of SEL that if applied now, will hopefully set students up to be successful early on. Some things I already do are teach growth mindset and conduct restorative justice circles. Students also have the opportunity at the start of each day to have a "mood check-in". This tells us if there are issues that happened before they even came to school that need to be addressed so that the child can be given strategies/support to help them take back their control. Moving forward, I feel strongly that the children I serve have opportunities to receive structured instruction on the five SEL components at the very beginning of the school year and that they are given chances to see how they are applying them to their own learning experiences. Given situations in which a child is making poor choices or not partaking in instruction, referring to the SEL components and giving the child a chance to reflect would have a great impact on their overall, whole development.
