By: Morgan Macklin
introduction
Self-awareness is a fundamental pillar that upholds social-emotional learning. It is a key learning outcome that allows for human development and guides the behaviour, thoughts, and actions of an individual. The implementation of SEL programs is proven to enhance students' mental health, classroom atmosphere, teacher practices, and ability to succeed. Therefore, it is essential for educators to understand each SEL competency and how to best apply them within their curriculum. This blog will uncover what exactly self-awareness entails and practices to teach it to your students.
Keep reading to unlock three free self-awareness worksheets to enhance students’ social-emotional skills.
what is self-awareness, and why does it matter?
This competency is the ability to understand one’s emotions, thoughts, and values and how they impact behaviour. Self-awareness is having confidence in one’s strengths while being grounded in understanding their weaknesses as well. This creates mindfulness of one’s capabilities which better navigates the path to reaching goals. This term is also closely tied to emotional intelligence. Youth who exhibit higher emotional intelligence experience greater academic success decreased risk of mental health issues, and uphold a better attitude towards teachers.
Being self-aware is challenging, whether you are a youth or an adult, therefore, to teach it you must understand how to mirror it in yourself. To teach self-awareness you must be able to see yourself honestly, identify your emotions, determine your strengths and weaknesses, and strive to uphold a growth mindset. By grasping a strong sense of this concept, educators can gain competence in encouraging students to practice the same behaviours.
self-awareness practices to use in the classroom
journaling
Daily journaling is a successful tactic to practice mindfulness, become in tune with emotions, and understand patterns in behaviour. This helps students to both visualize their emotions and express them in a way that can be reflected back on for future reference. This simple practice helps students gain a stronger understanding of themselves so that they can then better relate to others and track their personal development.
The use of an ‘emotional journal’ is one recommendation to fulfil this experiential learning task. For example, this can result in daily checks in which younger students paste an emoji that represents how they feel that day. Older students could identify their top 5 phrases that align with their emotions in a more mature, online platform. Either way, teachers should provide opportunities for students to learn about different emotions and how they resonate with their own feelings.
By encouraging these practices, students get an opportunity to utilize emotional language. This helps them better identify how they are feeling and become comfortable with communicating both within the classroom and beyond. Just like you would prepare students with the appropriate vocabulary to study and excel in a course, using a common language helps build a culture of openness and self-expression.
strength identification
Give students the opportunity to discuss their strengths. Any individual in the face of adversity can find it difficult to stay positive, motivated, and fulfil a sense of purpose. Being reminded of the things someone is good at can be a huge catalyst in successfully passing hardships. Then students can work to improve on these strengths which improve confidence and self-image.
The practice of active listening and strong communication can be a huge asset to uncovering strengths students may not even be aware they have. Give students a 10-point list in which they write down 5 of their strengths and then share what strengths they see in others. This helps facilitate a conversation that allows them to fill the rest of their list with what resonates best. By acknowledging that weaknesses still occur, self-awareness grows by understanding that other students also have certain thoughts, behaviours, strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, students can identify their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as their peers, and better understand how to interact with one another.
Personality tests are another avenue to discover strengths and become self-aware. Although they are not the end all be all to identify personality, they can be a fun way to identify traits about individuals. Despite the differences in tests, by taking multiple students can uncover trends in their personal traits and gain insight into their own behavioural patterns. However, before implementing these tests, teachers should be mindful of their credibility as there are a ton of misleading resources in existence.
goal-setting
Meeting with students to discuss goals is an important tool to develop self-awareness. By identifying, tracking, and achieving goals, students face success and fortify their belief in themselves. Ask students to make small goals to be completed throughout the school year so they can gain a better sense of their abilities, and how to utilize their strengths to achieve these goals. Furthermore, setting classroom goals to be achieved throughout the year gives all students the opportunity to work together towards a shared objective and develop a sense of purpose.
Students at any age should be encouraged to identify realistic goals and write down steps that will help to achieve these goals. This can include both physical and mental aspects in order to become more in touch with themselves. Utilize SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals for older students to fully conceptualize where exactly they are and what they need to do in order to improve.
closing
A strong sense of self-awareness is a skill that is challenging for many. However, by implementing it into SEL practices at a young age, youth will be better equipped to reach goals and take on adversity. By being in touch with their emotions, behaviour, and actions they can then focus on self-management, the next competency of SEL.
get started with impact society’s sel programs today
When it comes to SEL resources that focus on this core competency, Impact Society delivers the Heroes program, a trauma-informed, evidence-based asset to any classroom. This places an emphasis on strengths, journaling, goal setting, shared language, and building confidence, character, integrity, and purpose in youth. For example, one of the awareness-focused resources within the Heroes program is the ‘esteem-o-meter’. This kindly invites students to rate how they typically feel about themselves on an average day from 1-10 and can later be re-assessed following the entire program to track progress. Learn more about what Heroes program have to offer by booking a discovery call today!