“We have pushed so many of our children into the tumultuous sea of life in small and leaky boats without surival gear and compass.””
Tracy Heilers, founder of the Coalition of School Educating Mindfully (COSEM), reached out to me during the height of COVID last year to help with a request made by some of their members. To be proactive and to take into account that the last school year would likely start with partial, or fully remote PE classes, several high school department chairs of PE and health asked her for help finding a video-based, Mindfulness-Based Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Curriculum to incorporate into their PE class curriculums last year.
She figured if they needed the help, then other schools would to...but the timeline was too quick for COSEM to create something from scratch...so she asked me if I’d be up for the opportunity to create a Mindfulness-Based SEL Curriculum that supports whole high and middle school communities...one that met the approval of teachers and can also be utilized by counselors, social workers, health teachers, and many more. Therefore, this program was created.
This is the 3rd year of the program. We are very excited to bring a whole myriad of added bonus materials to the program.
The curriculum uses my book Take in the Good: Skills for Staying Positive and Living Your Best Life as its foundation, lays out a roadmap to the skills and tools necessary for well-being and living your best life, and focuses on mindfulness as your survival gear and ‘taking in the good’ as your compass.
For full impact, I highly encourage teachers, support staff, and parents to complete it at the same time as their students, creating shared language and a culture of mindfulness, and increasing their own SEL competencies.
Learn more about the importance of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and CASEL’s Framework
Establishment of Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) by the Yale Child Study Center (first framework for SEL). “The first framework, from CASEL,organizes important SEL skills into five types of competencies: self-awareness-- the ability to identify one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and understand how they guide behavior; self-management—the ability to successfully regulate one’s own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations, and to set and work toward goals; social awareness—the ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, and to understand social and ethical norms for behavior; relationship skills—the ability to communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate social pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed; and responsible decision making— the ability to make constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms.” (Jones & Doolittle, 2017, p. 5). To learn more about CASEL’s core competencies click here.
Learn About this Program
Learn About this Program
