As a child advances in age, it’s assumed that they know how to manage themselves, because they are quiet, sit still, and complete assignments. There is so much more to self-management than that. When I think of self-management, I compare it to ownership as part of learner agency. Both of them are more difficult to define, because it’s part of our being of who we are. We can’t do a quick strategy to develop self-management skills, which means they must be done over again through a duration of time. For those who want it one and done, this is going to be a growth area for you as you delve further into making it a vital part of your daily process. In this episode, we will look at ways to increase learner self-management, so they can build up resilience through life’s toughest challenges. All of these ideas will be applicable for grades 1-6 homeroom, specialist, and supporting teachers. 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.
The self-management sub-skills help learners to know how to appropriately interact with each other. The social skills are divided into two criteria:
When I am looking at these, my natural inclination is going towards states of mind. This is an area that is seldom explored and I want to break it down into bite-size pieces. Let’s go! States of MindStates of mind is such a huge area of focus with mindfulness, perseverance, emotional management, self-motivation, and resilience. The one that pops out to me is resilience, since it is still a growing area in my practice with learners. We will match up the ways that teachers can support learners with each sub-skill criteria. Manage setbacksA setback is something that happens that causes a delay or prevents us from continuing. There has been a lot of talk about the Millennials and how they cannot manage setbacks easily. When an obstacle gets in their way, they give up easily. The questions that naturally pops up in my mind are, “Were they taught how to manage setbacks as a child?” and “Were they allowed to fail?” It’s through the mistakes and setbacks that we learn life’s greatest lessons and build up resiliency for when it happens again. What teachers can do: Provide opportunities for students to monitor and manage their learning to make progress.
Work through adversityAdversity is a difficulty or an obstacle we must overcome. It can come in the forms of physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual, or financial. Adversity is different from setbacks. A setback can be something that delays or stops us completely. While adversity is an obstacle that comes into our path that we must resolve in order to move forward. This helps to support our state of mind in moving and not allow adversity to stop our progress. What teachers can do: Build resilience by ensuring that learning goals co-constructed with students are challenging but achievable.
What teachers can do: Involve students in planning
Work through disappointmentDisappointment is a sadness for not achieving something we really want. This greatly affects our state of mind, because we yearn for something that will not happen or was not meant to be. Disappointment comes in a variety of ways: loss of relationships, poor academic performance, family life, not achieving goals, etc. The hardest part about disappointment is that it can stay with us for a long time. We may not show it daily, but it sits in the back of our mind. What teachers can do: Create an atmosphere where students regard learning as a process of gradual improvement.
What teachers can do: Support students to manage distractions
Work through change
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