C59: ATL Social Skills for Elementary

As you enter the elementary age, there seems to be a trend that I have noticed in nearly two decades of education. The older the learner, the quieter they become in a traditional learning environment.  This should not be the case in a PYP classroom, since learners should be posing wonderings, collaborating ideas with others, researching, testing out ideas, and forming conclusions.  So, how is it that we are still seeing quiet students in the upper grades? 

Our learners quickly understand that to be considered a “bright” and “good” student, they know when to speak and when to remain silent.  This is part of developing social skills.  In some cases, learners are afraid to speak their minds to avoid ramifications from the teacher.  So, how do we fix this situation, so all learners are actively engaged in refining their social skill development while demonstrating agency? 

In this episode, we are trying to examine the social skills that learners need in order to operate within the world.  

But first, let's look at some of the skills we as educators need to model, so our learners are able to apply it to their own practice.

• Provide explicit opportunities for students to practice and develop these skills
• Provide opportunities for students to reflect on their social skills.
• Reflect and feedback on different interactions they observe.
• Offer students opportunities to see that “other people, with their differences, can also be right”.
• Use the language of the learner profile in conversations and discussions, and in the development of essential agreements.
• Model the social skills.

The social sub-skills help learners to know how to appropriately interact with each other.  The social skills are divided into two criteria:

• Interpersonal relationships
• Social and emotional intelligence

The sub-skill that pops out to me the most is interpersonal relationships.  I will only focus on the ones that resonate, but are still a growth area for me.

This time, I am matching the learner's social skills with what educators can do to support their learners. We are always trying to find ways to innovate and take learning further!

Interpersonal Relationships

​When we think about interpersonal relationships, we think of interactions where all people involved are invested in the feelings and needs of others.  We will explore different ways that the IB has outlined as building interpersonal relationships. 

Practice empathy and care for others

Empathy is one of the hardest things for children and adults to understand.  It’s one thing to show compassion to another who is in pain, but it’s another thing to show empathy.  Empathy is the ability to see a situation from another’s point of view.  This is hard stuff.  It requires us to truly listen, observe, and listen some more.  

“Empathy represents the foundation skill for all the social competencies important for work.” I love this quote by Daniel Goleman, because it highlights how empathy is the foundation of everything we do in the PYP.  

What teachers can do: Provide explicit opportunities for students to practice and develop these skills
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• Are we giving time to explicitly teach empathy to our students?  Do we allow time for students to engage in learning scenarios that explore how to show empathy? 

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• If I were looking at teaching empathy for the first time, I’d be using the language of the learner profile attributes to help scaffold this process.  I’d have students use the attributes to describe how they are showing empathy.  This will be alot easier than asking them to reflect on how they showed empathy to someone else. 

What teachers can do: Provide opportunities for students to reflect on their social skills.

• How often are we getting students to reflect on learning and social situations during the day?  This is how we grow in our understanding of empathy and how to use appropriate social skills in uncertain situations.  

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• Some of the greatest learning opportunities in my life have been when I sit back and think about a situation.  Why is that person not answering my texts?  Could I have done something to hurt their feelings?  I take time to reflect on our prior interactions to see where I may have not been empathetic or kind.  Once I’ve identified the potential issue, I’m able to go back to that person with a specific idea to discuss.  I’ve been correct 95% of the time.  This is how we get better at interacting with each other in social contexts. 

​​Listen closely to others’ perspectives and to instructions

I remember in teacher’s college being taught the difference between hearing and listening.  Hearing is the simple act of hearing information coming at us.  Listening is the active participation of receiving ideas and giving them value.  Simply put, it means to be curious.  

How do you engage your learners to be actively engaged in listening and developing their curiosity? 

What teachers can do: Offer students opportunities to see that “other people, with their differences, can also be right”.

• One possibility in posing a variety of questions (more information about this is in confession #4 Asking the Right Questions).  Posing deep questions allows students to answer based on their unique perspectives.  To keep listeners engaged in the process, have them write down key points and provide question stems they can ask in return.  

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• After the discussions, have learners defend the answer choices of their partners.  Have them describe the differences to their thinking.  The ultimate goal is to get learners to see that multiple perspectives is a healthy thing, because it broadens our understanding of the world.  By deepening our listening skills, we learn to pick up social cues within conversations. 

What teachers can do: Reflect and feedback on different interactions they observe.

• The next step in the process of actively listening is reflecting on the process.  This is so crucial in developing confident listeners and identifying possible misconceptions along the way.  How does your schedule allow for regular reflection of the learning process?  If it doesn’t, where can you possibly take some time to incorporate it into your practice? 

Advocate for one’s own rights and needs, and those of others

When we are learning social skills, we tend to bumble and violate a lot of cultural norms.  This is normal, but sometimes awkward.  How do we help our learned to manage these situations with grace, so they don’t repeat them very often?  

One way I see a lot of bumbling is when trying to advocate for the rights of self and others.  If done without careful thought, it can come off rude, disruptive, or inappropriate.  What are we doing to help our learners to know what is the correct way? 

What teachers can do: Use the language of the learner profile in conversations and discussions, and in the development of essential agreements.

• One possibility is using the language of the learner profile to scaffold the process.  Model the learner profile attributes throughout the day to make requests and redirect student behavior.  This will demonstrate a variety of ways to look at the attributes and how to use them in future social situations.  

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• Creating essential agreements with the learner profile attributes sets the tone for social behavior within the classroom.  By co-constructing them with our learners, they take more ownership of the process.  They are more willing to own their mistakes and accept the predetermined consequence more easily.  The learner profile attributes are more than a list of character traits, but a way to govern our lives, so we are open to the thinking of others.  If we use them to develop social skills, it will be easier to support international mindedness in our schools. 

That’s it for now my friends as I try to apply these ideas to specialist and supporting teachers.