Social-Emotional Learning & Development: Integration of SEL at Vanguard Gifted Academy

Welcome to Vanguard Gifted Academy’s educational blog. This is our sixth and final installment in our series on Social-Emotional Learning & Development: Why SEL is Essential in Today’s Education. I’m Elizabeth Blaetz Head of School at Vanguard Gifted Academy, and today I’ll be sharing about social-emotional learning at Vanguard.

Emotions are powerful, because they’re not just in the mind. They’re also physical experiences that affect every bodily system and impact our brain functions. This is a quote from Harvard ManageMentor, and I think it really sums up why social-emotional learning is so important. When we started Vanguard, we knew gifted children; we knew gifted children are more emotional, and they have a harder time with social interactions. As we developed our program, we kept that in mind. Besides having a challenging curriculum, we thought about, How do we best help gifted children become more socially savvy? How do we give them the skills of social and emotional balance for their future? That’s a major part of our school. So the curriculum is really important, but the life skills that they gain are also equally important.

How Problem-Solving Skills Benefit Social-Emotional Learning

So let me share how this looks at Vanguard. Vanguard starts our day with blended learning. Blended learning is where they learn foundational skills. Gifted children learn these at many different levels. We understand that and we challenge gifted children at their learning level; it’s not related to their age, and it’s not related to their grade. Gifted children have to learn how to manage challenge. This often brings about emotional reactions. They’re not used to being wrong. They’re not used to not understanding. Our teachers work with them on the process of managing their emotions, by first identifying, What are you really upset about? Then saying, How can we get over that? Challenge brings about feelings of excitement, and they eagerly dive into overcoming it. For other gifted children, it brings a flood of emotions related to failure and frustration. These emotions cause children to get physically upset, sometimes physically ill, and their minds shut down. The only way to get over this is for them to learn a problem-solving process.

First, calm down and identify the real problem. The real problem is not that you can’t handle it, it’s not that you can’t do it. It’s that you don’t know how. Then let’s coach them into brainstorming strategies. We talk to them about lots of different possibilities. Finally, we encourage them to take the risk and try a strategy. For a gifted child taking this risk is a huge step. They are not used to taking chances. They’re used to knowing what they want and how to do it. So when they take that risk, and they try a strategy, we celebrate! The gifted child may find that this strategy doesn’t work; we still celebrate and say we can try another one. We celebrate because they’re putting forth the effort. They’re learning persistence, they’re growing in themselves, and how to solve a problem. You cannot solve any problem if you don’t try. Then we encourage them to try another strategy. It is so important that the gifted child realizes the world does not end when they don’t know how to solve a problem, or they make a mistake. Once we get them over this hurdle, our children learn to laugh and tease with each other about how many strategies they had to try before they found success. The success is so much more important than those other easy achievements that they have made, because now they know how to approach challenges, and that they can overcome any challenge with strategies and effort.

Strategies for Working Together

The middle of our day is community time. Vanguard is a community. From the very first day the student walks in the door, we talk about being part of a community. This means interacting with all of the other students, and they range from ages five through 11-years-old. Community time is when we play together. This is the time where our students learn flexibility as we adapt rules to allow all ages to be successful and challenged. This is when our students learn the importance of challenges of being both a good leader and a good follower. Our teachers coach the students who get upset when they are tagged out, or don’t get a chance to be the leader or didn’t win. Their behavior is noted. But the coaching is about managing their emotions and their expectations. Community games are opportunities to develop social strategies and social confidence. When a child is not following the rules, we ask them to sit out and watch the game. Perhaps watch a child who is doing well at the game. Noticing how the game works, and what strategies help you do better, also gives the child’s emotions a chance to calm. Once they are ready, they are welcomed back into the game. Some children begin to adopt this sit out and watch strategy for themselves as a way to improve, which is perfect for gifted children who have high standards for justice and fairness. Community time gives them social perspective, which includes empathy for others, and understanding the need to consider the whole group rather than all your own personal wants. They learn the challenges and requirements of being a leader and the flexibility to abide by the leader’s decision. This is really important when we play games. One of the ways to challenge older children when they’re playing with young children is to make them the referees. This is hard work. It’s hard work for them as they have to pinpoint the fouls in the game. But it’s also hard work for those who are learning to be followers. To say, I don’t really agree with that but I want the game to continue, so here we go. This is a really important social-emotional balance, to not let their high sense of justice overweigh the fun of playing the game. After every community time, we always take a few minutes for tweaks. Tweaks are an opportunity for children to share what went right about the game and what went wrong about the game. We discuss those things and then adapt the game for next time.

How STREAM Sets the Stage for Managing Social Conflict

Our afternoons are filled with applications of learning through STREAM. This time is full of projects and problem-solving. During this time, students are working in small groups of mixed skill sets. The groups are often interest-based, but also include random groupings or chosen partners. This offers students the opportunity to learn how to form and be a constructive part of a group. They uncover who will lead to different parts of the project. How will everyone get a chance to participate and whose ideas or strategy should we try? They also have the challenges of meeting deadlines and achieving goals. This is all done under the watchful coaching of our teachers. They emphasize the importance of listening to everyone, keeping an open mind and using each person’s area of expertise as the project requires it.

This is a time of the day where there is often a need for students to share their frustrations or hurt feelings in appropriate ways. The teachers are there to help them identify the social conflict and how to engage with their peers who are involved, and understanding both sides of a situation. This has to be accomplished for the students to continue to have a positive relationship as the school year continues. This also is essential as they grow and they work in groups through high school through college and as adults. Most importantly, students of all ages need help and support as they walk that tightrope of school. At Vanguard we planned ahead to assure our students would achieve not just academically but also socially and emotionally. The ability to identify, manage and positively express emotions; the confidence to overcome challenges; and the ability to work effectively within a variety of groups are the skills that will allow our students to find contentment and success at every stage of life.

Thank you for following our series on social-emotional learning. We hope that you have enjoyed our other blog articles on this topic. If you have missed any of the previous blogs, you can find them online at vanguardgiftedacademy.org. If you have any comments or questions about what we have shared, please feel free to give us a call at (224) 213-0087.