Social Emotional Us with Anna-Lisa Mackey, M.Ed.

Besides the ABCs, teachers are also teaching younger students how to interact in positive social ways, make friends, share, sit during circle time, and more. In this episode Anna-Lisa talks with Head Start teacher Trena Paxton to learn how she creates engagement in the preschool/kindergarten classroom with students that have no classroom experience.

Relationships are hard for all of us right now as we spent most of last year isolated and learning from home. Whether you spent the lockdown by yourself, or with your family, or teaching/learning/working remotely, everyone's social skills are rusty. How are students adjusting to the classroom? What can we take away from this experience for future friendship building? Anna-Lisa chats with behavioral specialist Christina Wainwright about her experience helping students get back to in-person learning. 

As we’ve been navigating through the pandemic, people have experienced a lot of emotions. As teachers, we know that students act out their emotions differently than adults do. This is one reason that we talk about how generosity and kindness are related to gratitude in our curriculum. In this episode, Anna-Lisa chats with Oren Shahar, an elementary school teacher to learn how he's cultivating and fostering gratitude in his classroom and his life.