This study evaluated the Strong Start curriculum as a preventative program implemented in four predominantly Caucasian Kindergarten classrooms in suburban Utah. A total of 67 students were studies and results showed an increase between the pretest and post-test of the School Social Behavioral Scale (SSBS) conducted by the teachers and the Home and Community Social Behavioral Scales (HCSBS) conducted by parents and maintained the increase at a 6 week follow up. However, while there was an improvement in visible behavior, internalizing behaviors were only reported at a slight decrease, although it can be more difficult to examine.
Even though I am currently students teaching at the high school level and plan to continue my career here, I believe that it is important to acknowledge and understand the educational journeys that our students have gone through thus far. Although we each work to create the environments that we desire for our classroom, as this study mentions, the learning environments that students are in, especially in early education, effects the behaviors that students exhibit years later. Personally, I take this as an insight into the importance of gathering information from the previous schools that my students attended and seeing the programs and resources that were available to them. Although this is definitely not the same as knowing the environment that your students were in, at least we can get a sense of the learning community they come from.
A very interesting note brought up within the study was how there were only minor changes to internalizing behaviors, yet are identified as being just as critical in the development and overall mental and emotional health of students. As a teacher, this reminds me that even though a student's visible behavior make be stellar, we can not assume that internalizing behaviors are at par. We must always check in with our students and build relationships with them so that they may feel comfortable with sharing the things that we do not see.
Reference: Kramer, T.J., Caldarella, P., Christensen, L., & Shatzer, R.H. (2010). Social and Emotional Learning in the Kindergarten Classroom: Evaluation of the Strong Start Curriculum. Early Childhood Education Journal 37, 303-309.
To begin, I like your concluding point that teachers must also check in with their students to see where they are internally. If Social Emotional Learning can be evaluated along similar lines are development in academic capacities, this would function as its own check for understanding.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is important to know where a student has been in their educational career up to the point where you have them in your class. In my readings so far in the program, funds of knowledge and student background are often spoken of in terms of language, culture, race/ethnicity, class, and curricular/extracurricular knowledge. While schools previously attended might be implied in the categories of a student's background, it is important to explicitly take into account the schools from whence a student comes.
Although we are discussing SEL, I want to build off of what you said about students' educational journeys and the educational environments they have encountered prior to entering our classroom. I think that sometimes as a teacher it can be easy to dismiss students' abilities, or lack thereof, in academics and SEL as to a students' own efforts. This can be discouraging for students and the reality is that students may have experienced educational environments in which their SEL was not being cultivated or their academic abilities were not challenged. If this is a student's reality and then they come into my classroom and I am not being understanding of this, or worse, am holding students' accountable for these experiences out of their control, it can push a student further away.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. You mentioned that many teachers report not having adequate training to meet student's social and emotional needs (a statement I agree with). That being said, in the article, did the authors address how teachers were trained on the Strong Start Curriculum? Also, you pointed out that there was a slight "decrease" in internalizing behaviors. Did the authors account for why this might have happened? I'm very curious as to why there was an improvement in visible behavior but regression in internal behavior. Also, did the article speak to how parents were trained on the curriculum for implementation at home? Thank you again for your post.
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