By Corinne Kennelly
Lower School Counselor
The first days and weeks of school are instrumental in establishing a tone we hope to keep for the rest of the year. Teachers work hard to reinforce "the GFA way" — how to greet teachers and students in the morning, how to behave at lunch, when to use indoor voices, the importance of raising hands (and on and on!).
In much of the same way, we put heart and soul into establishing the emotional tone of the classroom and the lower school. A classroom where a child feels safe, understood, and valued is one where the best kind of learning happens.
As a school counselor, I work with students throughout the year on identifying and sharing their feelings and needs, and I know what a crucial connection there is between social-emotional learning and academic success.
So, at the start of school, I asked teachers to have a conversation with their classes and have their students identify emotions that describe how they want to feel at GFA this year. The idea behind this was to make their hopes explicit, as well as creating an opportunity to deepen their feelings vocabulary. Initially, when imagining these conversations, words like “smart” or “popular” could come to mind, but I encouraged teachers to push past these words. Smart is not an emotion, so how do you feel when you think you are smart? Proud, confident, challenged. What would you feel if you had a lot of friends? Loved and respected.
The students will share their “emotion words” each class came up with to create a display on the assembly room bulletin board. Students will have a plethora of opportunities to remind themselves of the conversations, visiting this room for music class, assemblies, and before afternoon clubs.