To celebrate SEL Week, we invited you—students, parents, teachers, counselors, school and district administrators, and community leaders—to share your SEL story. Of the many excellent entries we received, Lauren, a culture and climate coach in Ypsilanti, Michigan, is one of our 10 finalists. You can view all 10 finalists here.
“Miss, what do you teach?” a new student asks, curiously hanging in my doorway.
“Oh, she’s the circle lady!” her friend tells her, and though that may not be an answer she was looking for, she seems satisfied enough to head to class.
That’s right—I teach “that soft stuff,” which, in my opinion, is not soft at all. Circles are places for people to speak up, share how they’re feeling, contribute their ideas, and be held by their community. We sit in circle to share information, to celebrate each other, to process tough things, to honor our steps forward and wonder about our mistakes while in community.
Students never want to come to circle in the beginning. I get it. When you walk into the media center and see 50 chairs situated in a huge circle, your reflex might be to back up and turn around, too. I usually let folks sit outside the circle on their first day, explaining that the expectation is that they’ll be in circle, but just for today, they can observe. Slowly, over time, we watch them edge in closer, put their phone away, perk up their ears, pay attention, contribute, and eventually even lead our circles.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) check-ins are built into our circles and throughout our programming. It’s important that we see each other as humans, and that we share our humanity with each other, in order to build a strong community of learners. Sometimes we’ll do a color check-in (what color are you feeling today?), sometimes we’ll talk about our “interior weather,” and sometimes we rate our mood 1-10, but we believe that building a strong community is rooted in caring for one another and seeing one another.
When we speak this way to each other, with each other, and about each other, we make the road for the tough conversations easier. After an incident of violence in the community, when there is a fight, or even when something positive impacts everyone (we celebrated a scholarship for one of our seniors this week in circle!), we know that we can come together to process, to question, to wonder, to hear each other, and to listen as fully as we can.
The hardest part of my work is the accountability that we expect our students to have. In circle, you need to be honest. You can’t hide behind social media or a big group of friends. We are vulnerable, brave, and share things about ourselves that we don’t often tell people. And in doing so, we realize that we have more in common with each other than different from each other. That we are all just trying to find our way.
Don’t discount “that soft stuff.” In the grand scheme of things, the little things, the softest parts of us, are what make us human, and special, and powerful beyond measure.
The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.
Lauren Fardig-Diop is the culture and climate coach of ACCE High School in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She is a writer, educator, and circle keeper as well as the parent of three kids, a community mama, and a fierce advocate for social and restorative justice.