Angelica Serrano

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Reclaiming Social Emotional Learning with Children’s Literature, Part II

By Angelica Serrano, 4th Grade Teacher with Jennifer Carey, School Counselor, Van Buskirk School, Tucson, Arizona

Cover of Outside In depicting a young girl in a red coat walking down a road with a cat. Trees and plants line either side of the road.

James Comer, a leading child psychiatrist once said, “No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship.” – Kyle Schwartz

As a class, we discovered a certain connectedness, a bridge between each of us by exploring the activity “I wish My Teacher Knew…” The activity opened the door for our fourth-grade class to continue to have these conversations as our circles expanded and we realized just how much we each experience outside of the classroom. Now I wondered: how do we internalize this conversation and move forward? This is where we launched our second exploration with another children’s book. Continue reading →

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Reclaiming Social Emotional Learning with Children’s Literature, Part I

By Angelica Serrano, 4th Grade Teacher, Van Buskirk School, Tucson, Arizona

A young child sits in the center of multiple circles like tree rings.

“Tú eres mi otro yo, si te hago daño a ti me hago daño a mí mismo; pero si te amo y respeto, me amo y me respeto yo”

“You are my other me, if I hurt you then I hurt myself too, but if I love you and respect you, then I love and respect myself too”

Award-winning playwright Luis Valdez’s poem captures a foundational teaching goal of mine, focused on reclaiming time for social emotional learning during my school day. Clearly the 2020 pandemic continues to impact children’s learning, including how children regulate their emotions and social interactions with others in the classroom. Over the past two years, teachers across the nation have expressed challenges they face through social media and other outlets. Many still see ripples of the pandemic as both students and teachers struggle to create spaces for learning, communication, cooperation, and community building. Continue reading →

A Dozen Books Celebrating Children’s Voices and Their Impact

Angelica Serrano, Tucson Unified School District, Tucson, AZ

A Dozen Books Celebrating Children’s Voices and their Impact is a set of twelve books, both picturebooks and graphic novels, that embrace and celebrate the voices of children across the globe who have used their voices, creativity and thinking to make a change for themselves and others. This set honors World Children’s Day celebrated on April 30. To commemorate this special holiday, the dozen books selected here resonate the power found within each child as they learn about the world around them and themselves. Children have made tremendous changes for the world and this list commemorates the power that children have within them. We invite you to take a closer look at these books and encourage you to embrace the depicted voices of these children into your hearts as we celebrate their impact on the world. We hope that as you browse through these titles you will be inspired to share them with your children, classrooms, fellow educators and communities so that children’s voices can be known and heard. Children are our greatest teachers and there is so much we can learn from them. It is imperative that we invite children to continue to inspire others with what they have to say. Continue reading →