Humanizing the Classroom: Using Role-Plays to Teach Social and Emotional Skills in Middle School and High School

There is a growing trend in education for educators to support students in the development of social and emotional skills. SEL mandates are now part of many state assessments and national initiatives, and there are countless curriculum from which principals and teachers may choose. However, many of these curricular materials fail to address the question of pedagogy, or what is the best method for teaching social and emotional skills? Humanizing the Classroom: Using Role Plays to Teach Social and Emotional Skills in Middle and High School answers this question by presenting the pedagogical basis for using role plays to teach social and emotional skills, creating a clear link between SEL and the need for culturally relevant teaching, and providing over 45 model lessons that can be delivered in middle and high school classrooms. A rich resource for principals seeking advisory curriculum materials, classroom teachers interested in integrating SEL into their classroom practice, and educational theater and drama teachers, Humanizing the Classroom addresses the how, why and what of teaching social and emotional skills in our diverse society.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Foundations Chapter 1: Why and How Should We Teach Social and Emotional Skills? Chapter 2: Social and Emotional Learning Role Plays Chapter 3: Facilitating Collaborative, Creative, and Experiential Learning Chapter 4: Social and Emotional Learning and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Part II: SEL Role Plays for the Classroom Chapter 5: Curriculum Organization Chapter 6: The Lessons Physical Sensations Identity and Assumptions Mindsets Metacognition Expanding Our Emotional Vocabulary Understanding Our Underlying Needs Deep Breathing and Meditation Identity, Skin Color, and Culture Self Talk and Shifting Mindsets Neutrality Persistence Understanding Anger Understanding Fear and Anxiety Stress Understanding Sadness Coping Strategies for Anger, Fear, and Sadness Understanding Bias Understanding Stereotype Personal Space Nonverbal Communication Code Shifting Cognitive Empathy Rules and Norms Emotional Display Rules Understanding Prejudice Understanding Discrimination The Power of “No” Setting Personal Boundaries Thinking Time Do-Overs Paraphrasing Positive Affirmations Emotional Empathy I Feel Messages Passive /Assertive /Aggressive Safe Ways to be and Ally Identifying Underlying Causes Wants, Needs, Priorities Compassionate Empathy I Need Messages Meditation Standing Up to Oppression References About the Author

About the Author :
Kristin Stuart Valdes is an artist and educator who began her work in the New York City public schools as a teaching artist, in the disciplines of theater and creative writing, working with Henry Street Settlement and Teachers and Writers Collaborative. She began her work in the field of social emotional learning while working with students who had witnessed 9/11 from their school building and who ended up calling one another “terrorists” in its aftermath. She has a deep interest in the roles that cultural practice, language, ethnicity, and class all play in the way we interact with one another, and in the way creativity contributes to our ability to resolve social and emotional problems effectively. She was the Senior Program Manager of the 4Rs+MTP research study, funded by the US Department of Education, which delivered a social emotional learning program and 1:1 coaching to teachers who delivered it, in over 60 public schools in the Bronx. She has worked with Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility and the National School Climate Center as a senior staff developer and contributing writer. With Teachstone she has served as a mentor coach on a wide range of projects including working with Native American teachers on Native American land. Also an award winning screenwriter and music-theater maker her work had been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and presented at venues including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. She is a certified CLASS Observer and Trainer, a Part 137 Mediator for the NYC courts, and holds a BFA and MFA NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Review :
Over the last fifteen years Kristin Stuart Valdes has worked with K-12 educators to promote children’s social, emotional, and academic learning. In Humanizing the Classroom, she synthesizes the many extraordinary lessons she has learned about how to practically promote middle and high school students social, emotional, and academic skills, knowledge, and dispositions. She is importantly and helpfully attuned to educational equity reform issues. I highly recommend this practical, thoughtful, and wise book that will help teachers- and potentially parents - to further social, emotional, and academic competencies. A foundation for school and life success! In Humanizing the Classroom, Kristin Stuart Valdes provides a valuable resource for teachers who want to help students develop stronger social and emotional skills. The extensive list of role plays includes ideas for how to direct them—a great help for teachers seeking to foster skills like self-management and social awareness. In Humanizing the Classroom, Ms. Valdesprovides key insights about the importance and challenges of social-emotional learning (SEL) in K-12 education. This work is gleaned from her years of practice implementing SEL programs with public school administrators, teachers, and children. Ms. Valdes elevates the recognition of teachers, and their own social-emotional competencies and well-being as pivotal in the process of learning how to teach and ultimately promote social-emotional skills for children and youth, and the unique challenges and vulnerability SEL pedagogy can require of teachers. She provides a compelling analysis of role play strategies in SEL, and makes a cogent argument for the use of role plays as deliberate but safe ways for students to actively engage and practice evaluating and making decisions in social situations that are relevant to their lived experience. This book affords tools that will be useful to novice and veteran teachers alike, as well as school leaders to better understand why SEL should be a critical part of every child's education and how it can be in their schools. Kristin Stuart Valdes has produced a practical, engaging book on the use of role plays in secondary classrooms to cultivate social-emotional skills. Thoughtfully organized around the five SEL competencies identified by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, the book offers a rare opportunity for middle and high school teachers to expand their pedagogical toolkit with applied strategies to help students learn and practice SEL skills ranging from persistence to understanding bias. Drawing from years of personal experience partnering with schools to integrate SEL into everyday practices, Kristin Stuart Valdes delivers a set of creative role play activities accompanied by detailed nuts and bolts guidance that is sure to help teachers weave social-emotional learning into a typical day in their classroom. As the country tries to address educational inequities and SEL gains popularity on the state and national level, the need for educators trained in social and emotional learning skills has grown. Humanizing the Classroommade me realize that educational theater practitioners and actors could be a valuable resource on the path to equitably transmit social and emotional learning in our schools. Actors walk in a new person’s shoes with every character they play, they are experts at practicing empathy. And living empathically is something we could all stand to learn a little more about right now. Humanizing the Classroom should be required reading for all of us!