Week 3: Dealing with Conflict

Hi!

This week I learned a lot about the students. As 4th graders they are still learning to regulate their emotions and verbalize their feelings. I’ve learned that a few in particular have more trouble in doing this than others.

I wasn’t expecting to deal with tears anytime soon, but earlier this week I had an unfortunate encounter with a student. While I thought we were joking, the student got very upset and misunderstood the intentions of the situation. This same student has a tendency to use physical and aggressive actions to combat conflict, so this was a perfect time to teach him about SEL. I was instructed to pull him out of class and lead a conversation with him. I asked him to share his feelings about what had happened, so we could establish where things went wrong. To my surprise, he did exactly that, and the situation quickly simmered down to a simple apology.

In addition, I decided to do a game of Jeopardy with them during AE. I got to learn about their interests, ranging from their favorite soccer players, to the coolest science facts they knew. I helped them study for their science test, do activities in drama, and teach the current events lesson for their history class!

Thanks for reading!