Short Course
Back in the early 1990's, Dr. Riffel was teaching kindergarten in Olathe, Kansas. Our motto was "A child's work is play". Our curriculum was teaching social skills like how to reciprocal play, how to have a disagreement with someone politely, how to listen and respond, and what words to use with what emotions. We taught our students how to say the following;
I feel ____________ (label the emotion)
When_____________(what was the trigger)
I need ____________(what they want the adult to do to help them be successful.)
We focused on four basic emotions: sad, happy, angry, frustrated to keep it simple. Our academic curriculum was 1-1 correspondence with numbers and letter/sound association. The majority of our work was in academic skills such as cutting, sitting, walking, asking questions etc. and teaching social skills.
So many school districts have condensed the curriculum of first grade down into kindergarten, that teachers are left with very little time to teach social skills. It is this author's opinion that this is part of the reason we see so many disruptions in the classroom today.
Dr. Riffel has worked with many school districts on helping them teach students self-regulation. This seems to be one of the biggest areas of need in many school districts. She has developed a plan for amygdala recalibration stations within the classroom, videos for the students, and ideas for the staff members to discuss regarding these ideas.
The schools that have implemented these strategies have witnessed a decrease in outbursts in the classroom. Students are now labeling their emotions, and able to use their words to alert the adult in the room what they need to be successful.