Sara E. Rimm-Kaufman – författare

Teachers are trained to manage misbehaviour in the classroom, but receive little guidance about how to cultivate positive, prosocial behaviour.With this book in hand, elementary teachers will be ready to launch the school year with confidence, using the concrete strategies in each chapter for improving students’ SEL skills in the five categories defined by CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning): communication skills, emotion management, emotional awareness, social awareness and decision-making skills. This handy guide breaks down instruction of these skills into small, sequenced steps, making it easy to foster students’ skills from the start of school and build on them as the year progresses.

Just because a school has adopted a social and emotional learning (SEL) program does not mean it will work. This book explores the conditions needed to implement, strengthen, and sustain effective SEL, and identifies paths that schools, districts, and states have taken to create those conditions. Major themes include equity of access to high-quality SEL, promoting interracial understanding in all school interactions, and enhancing the well-being and SEL skills of teachers and school leaders as well as students. Chapters describe exemplary initiatives that infuse SEL into classroom instruction, administrative decision making, school–family–community partnerships, and teacher training. End-of-chapter discussion questions enhance the book’s value for professional learning and course use.