Photo by Dragos Gontariu on Unsplash
Date: April 2nd
Every child is a creative genius if we let them be one
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) skills taught through creative exploration and inquiry can allow human beings to foster awareness, compassion and self-expression for themselves and with the world around them.
Over one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, over 800 million students still face significant disruptions in their education, ranging from full school closures in 31 countries to reduced or part-time academic schedules in another 48 countries. (UNESCO, 2021)
Epidemics or pandemics, such as COVID-19, produce potential risks to child development due to the risk of illness, protective confinement, social isolation, and the increased stress level of parents and caregivers. This situation becomes an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) and may generate toxic stress, with consequent potential losses for brain development, individual and collective health, and long-term impairment of cognition, mental and physical health, and working capacity of future adults. (Araújo LA, Veloso CF, Souza MC, et al, 2020)F
Follow the five levers of recovery when preparing to put together a lesson at school or home:
Lever 1: Relationships: Invest in student relationships to ease them into the comfort of returning back to schools.
Lever 2: Community: We need to listen to what has happened in this time, understand the needs of our community and engage them in the transitioning of learning back into school.
Lever 3: Transparent Curriculum: All of our students will feel like they have lost time in learning and we must show them how we are addressing these gaps, consulting and co-constructing with our students to heal this sense of loss.
Lever 4: Metacognition: In different environments, students will have been learning in different ways. It is vital that we make the skills for learning in a school environment explicit to our students to reskill and rebuild their confidence as learners.
Lever 5: Space: To be, to rediscover self, and to find their voice on learning by providing opportunity and exploration alongside the intensity of our expectations.
UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Education and Peace
