The authors make a case that if you spend more time being proactive by teaching social problem solving skills, you will have less disruptions and can spend more time on lessons!
We need to teach problem-solving skills more than ever now. So, how do we incorporate it into the curriculum?
Problem-solving is not learned in a quick, five-minute lesson. It is a process learned over time by continual practice. Modeling is the key. It is important for you to model handling anger. You can teach it as needed with individual groups of students or use class meetings to discuss conflict resolution, feelings, social skills, etc..
The authors give some steps to helping children handle conflicts among themselves:
- Help children calm down
- Identify the problem
- Generate Solutions
- Evaluate solutions and choose one
- Implement and evaluate the results
- Encourage children to resolve conflicts on their own
- Provide a place in the classroom to calm down
Again, this will takes lots of modeling by the teacher to work through problems all year long. You may also need to address conflicts that involve the entire class through a class meeting. Allow the students to generate a plan to solve the problem and give feedback on results.
I shared with you the link for Dr. Becky Bailey's Conscious Discipline. She uses brain research and her own research to give some great ideas on solving problems with children.
Check out these other links to social skill curriculums:
Al's Pals- http://www.wingspanworks.com/educational_programs/about_als_pals.php
Character Counts- http://charactercounts.org/
Please post a curriculum or activities that you use to teach problem solving and conflict resolution. Just hit the comment button under this post!
Whitney
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