Chapter 3: Personal and Social Development

Personal and social development can have a major influence on both individual student learning and the learning environment as a whole. Identify a case from the CSEL guidelines*that you would like to address in your paper. Then, examine the possible developmental factors that could be influencing your target student(s) or classroom in the case study. Consider all dimensions of personal and social development, including cognitive, language, social,
emotional, and moral development. *CSEL guidelines can be found under CSEL Artifact. Cases are included at the end of the document. Choose the case that best suits your desired grade level.
Willard seems to be lagging in his social develpoment when compared to his peers. While many of his peers are most likely moving towards the Industry vs. Inferiority stage of Erikson's psychosocial stages of development, it appears that Willard is still trying to succeed in Erikson's stage 3: Intiative vs. Guilt. During this stage, children are to begin asserting control over the environment through taking initiative to plan activities, accomplish tasks, and face challenges. It seems as if Willard is relying on adults in his environment to tell him how and when routines take place and is unsure of how to act when there is not that authority there to tell him what he should be doing. It could be possible that throughout this stage, Willard has been exposed to parents or other adults that have been discouraging to his attempts to "branch out" and take control and has caused him to become overly dependent on others.

Check out tables 3.1 (p. 75), 3.2 (p. 83) and 3.3 (p. 91) with particular attention to the age ranges you are interested in teaching. Identify your personal favorite ways that an educator can promote a child’s sense of self, perspective taking, and moral reasoning skills.
For sense of self, I looked at the grade level 3-5, and my favorite strategy I would use in my classroom is to focus the student's attention on improvement over time rather than what happens in the present. I think it is important to help students see how they could improve certain skills over time rather than what is going on in the moment. Through this, I think that also it would be a good time to teach long-term goals and how to help students achieve those goals.
For perspective taking, I chose to focus on grade level K-2. I really liked the strategy that involves asking children questions about thoughts and feelings while reading a book. Not only does it incorporate literacy, but children can relate to how the characters in the book feel in very concrete ways. Since at this age many children are reading or having read to them picture books, they can use visual clues to determine what the character(s) might be feeling. These same visual clues can be used in everyday life. I would probably ask my students to think about how they would feel if they were in a particular character's shoes in order to gain a different perspective. This would promote the children to take on a different view of the situation and think more in depth about their own feelings.
Again, for moral reasoning, I looked at grade 3-5. My favorite strategy here is "Talk about how having rules enables classrooms and groups to run more smoothly." Rules have this sort of negative connotation attached to them and you are not supposed to break them or you will be in trouble. I think now it is important to focus on why we have rules in place and to get children to understand that the rules aren't there to slow them down but to make each workspace enjoyable. It is important to stress the reason for rules and that they are safety measures for all students as well as teachers. (Teachers should follow the rules too!) As far as "punishment" for "breaking the rules" I think that there should not be such a thing. I saw a video the other day where the teacher used a "Refill Station" (a chair where students went to regain composure, think about good actions, etc) in place of a time out chair or in place of a privilege taken away. I think this is a good idea because it gives the children a time to reflect and allows them to think about how they can improve.