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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