Social Emotional Learning Blog Series: Social Awareness
For the 3rd installment of the social emotional competency series we are going to explore social awareness. The last two topics, self-awareness and self-management, looked inward. Social awareness is all about looking outward at the world around us.
Social awareness is always a necessary skill to have, as it addresses many of the social issues experienced in schools and the larger world. Racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, and other injustices and prejudices are very real problems experienced by students and educators. Social-awareness education is one piece that plays a role in combating them all.
A common thread to all social issues is that they deserve respect, acknowledgement, and appreciation. Social awareness promotes these things and teaches people how to show respect, appreciation, equality, and more. Let’s look closer at how this competency is a great tool to address all of these issues.
What is Social Awareness
CASEL defines social-awareness as the ability to understand other perspectives and show empathy with others which includes individuals from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts.
When put into action people have compassion and respect for others, openness towards social norms across cultures, and the ability to see things from different points of view. People also see strengths, are concerned about others’ feelings and recognize influences of behaviors across settings.
To sum it all up, social-awareness is the path to follow when it comes to understanding others around us, especially those who have differences from ourselves and treat others with care, kindness, and respect no matter how different or alike we are.
Why is Social Awareness Important in the Classroom?
While there’s no one-step cure to bias, prejudice, and blatant hate, social awareness is an important starting point for the immense amount of work that needs to be done. Understanding differences, appreciating diversity, being respectful with others, realizing how what you do affects others and extending a caring hand to those who get mistreated are the starting points of social justice. A fight for social justice can be built upon those skills.
Social awareness educates people to look outside of themselves and realize it takes many people to make the world go around. It teaches people to put down their biases and assumptions on how the world works or should work. It opens up their eyes to seeing many perspectives and learning how to co-exist with an endless variety of individuals.
Social-awareness is a teachable concept, and when used in the classroom students can start leaving their positive mark on their world.
Benefits of Social Awareness for Students and the Classroom
When taught how to be aware of those around them, students can grasp the concept of treating others with kindness, practicing empathy, and standing up for others. When they are instilled with this value at a young age, children are given the tools to examine prejudices and bias as they grow.
Teaching things like different cultural norms will help kids see that people from all cultures have great things to share. Learning about different family structures gives kids a new perspective on the definition of a family. Introducing skills like empathy and compassion teach students to value others and treat everyone with respect.
Oftentimes young children only see the world from their point of view. Developmentally it’s natural to be egocentric, that is to only think of yourself. Social-awareness helps kids get out of this rut and see things like how their actions affect others. They can learn basic skills to play fairly. They can resolve conflict by seeing a situation from someone else’s point of view.
Having a socially aware classroom helps students develop attitudes like…
Pink isn’t just for girls. I can be friends with someone who doesn’t look or act like me. All skin colors are beautiful. I can be accepting and loving towards any sexual orientation. I can have empathy for a student with a disability. My experience isn’t the only one.
Social-awareness creates a nurturing, accepting, and supportive environment in the classroom.
Social Awareness for Teachers
For students to effectively learn about social-awareness it is necessary that their teacher is socially aware, too. Adults form their own opinions and biases and can easily get caught up in their own perspective, too.
Working on our own social-awareness however can support our efforts in trying to create an inclusive classroom. It is vital that we become aware of the diversity within our classrooms and constantly reflect on our role in making the classroom equitable for all students. It is important to work to understand each student.
You might be able to look back at your school years and recall kids who were “teachers favorite.” Or maybe you experienced being misunderstood by a teacher or unfairly disciplined. These things still happen today. However when educators are truly socially aware they are better able to treat everyone fairly.
Let’s take a quick look at this graphic defining 3 key terms that can guide social awareness in our classroom. These are 3 of the outcomes we should strive for while creating a socially aware classroom.
How Can Teachers Use Their Social-Awareness to Improve the Environment of the Classroom?
An important skill to develop is see situations from your student’s perspective. As adults we tend to look at everything from a grown-up point of view laced with our own personal experiences, biases, and views. The same goes for working to understand your students’ parents’ perspectives. Take time to understand and appreciate these perspectives.
Be mindful of your student’s culture, ability or homelife because those influences shape your class. When we are empathic with our students we can extend compassion to them.
Educate yourself and your students.
Read books, articles, or listen to podcast that outline issues students may be facing and common inequities in schools, so that you can be more aware of how your actions or your colleagues’ actions may be impacting students. Immerse yourself in tv, movies, books, podcasts, ect. with people who reflect your students. Ask questions. Immerse yourself in the community of your students. Work towards gaining a deeper understanding of who they are and what they need.
Expose students to texts that include characters from all backgrounds. Students should see themselves reflected in texts, and they should also see people different from themselves in texts to develop empathy and examine different points of view.
Practice & model empathy & compassion.
Compassion greatly helps us show respect and kindness. It gives us patience too. Just think of a time you felt exasperated with a challenging student, it’s easy to get impatient with them. However with empathy we can recall what shapes their behavior and be compassionate towards them. Like, “Oh yeah they are going through (fill in the blank) and it’s understandable why they are this way. I will be sure to do (fill in the blank) so we can have a good outcome.”
With compassion then comes a willingness to work your class rather than against it. It’s not uncommon for adults to get into power-struggles with youth. Adults want to be in charge or feel the need to manage a certain way or enforce rules. While these might be good intentions to maintain a safe and teachable environment, being an authoritarian ruling over a class might not be the best approach. This is where power struggles come into play and begins the dynamic to work against others rather than with them.
Build a foundation of respect.
It is important to not just expect respect from students, but to show respect to your students too. When teachers show respect to their students, more than likely students will feel valued and return the respect. When respect is established more than likely you’ll find a classroom that works as a team and collaborates. From resolving conflicts, to group projects, to sharing ideas, you’ll be able to work together which is much more pleasant.
Strategies for Teaching Social Awareness
So how do you teach social-awareness to your class? Here are some strategies that focus on empathy, compassion, social justice and team-work.
"How Would You Handle..." Scenarios
For this activity students can discuss different ways to be empathetic towards different scenarios. You can create your own to better fit your class or try out the following suggestions:
- Your classmate was called an inappropriate name based on their skin color
- A classmate that has a physical disability is always picked last to play kickball at recess
- Your friend makes fun of LGBTQ+ and avoids anyone who identifies that way
- During group time you think only boys can be the team leader and not girls
You can present the scenarios either by writing them up on the board or holding up a picture that illustrates the scenario as you read it outloud to the class. Then ask the following questions for class discussion:
- What is it like to be in their shoes when they are treated that way?
- Why do you think one person treats the other person that way?
- How would you handle the situation? What would you say to the person being mistreated and the person who performed the action?
Be sure to give and define specific names for each example, like racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, etc.
Examine social justice in the news.
Present students with age-appropriate news articles covering current events relating to social justice.
- Ask students to reflect on the event and express how it makes them feel.
- Have students work in groups to come up with an action plan regarding the issues.
- Have students share how they can relate, or not, to the event.
Acts of Kindness Gallery Walk
For this activity students will talk about acts of compassion and then draw a picture about it. Hang the pictures up and have a gallery walk for all to see.
- Start the activity by generating a list of acts of kindness or compassion. Examples can be things like, helping someone pick-up, waiting for someone who is late for recess, letting someone go first, giving a compliment, standing up for someone who is being bullied
- Let students pick an act of kindness from the list and have them draw a picture showing the compassionate act
- Hang pictures up around the room
- Divide the class in half so each artist stands next to their picture and the other half walks around the room looking at the artwork.
- The art observers then give the artist one compliment on their drawing
- Switch groups for observing artwork and giving compliments
Culture Projects
Give all students a chance to share and celebrate their own culture. There are a lot of ways to do this, from extensive projects to having students simply share stories or draw pictures of something that is part of their culture or traditions. Focus on how each one brings value to the class as a whole.
You can check out this paper bag culture project from “The Culturally Responsive Classroom” on TeachersPayTeachers
The burdens of social issues facing many students are heavy. It can be overwhelming trying to figure out how to tackle the multitude of problems. Social-awareness education acts as a base for addressing many of these issues. Teaching awareness, understanding, empathy, compassion and working together is a valuable piece of the fight towards equality and justice. Remember, this is just a small piece of the puzzle.
Want more Social Awareness resources?
Check out the “social awareness” units from my K-2 or 3-5 full year social emotional learning curriculum!
Or grab the full year curriculum!
1 Comment
I enjoyed reading about the different components of Social-emotional awareness. Many people think that is just a state of mind that can be easily taken care of. After this whole lock down Covid situation that we have gone through I feel that students lost a sense of socializing through normal face-to-face talk. I remember sitting in a restaurant with my family and noticing that the environment was so quiet. I looked at other tables and noticed families sitting together but their eyes were glued to some sort of electronic device down to the little kids on their highchairs. It is sad to see how much we have to touch with the simple things as just being in the moment and talking to one another.