The social-emotional conditions of learning have so many different facets. One that interests me is SEL in a classroom with students who have Special Needs. My district has a program called STC or a Structured Teaching Classroom where our students with Special Needs are in one classroom together. Out of the four elementary schools in my district, my school is one of two that have one of these classrooms. Typically, you would see about 7-8 students in this classroom/program. They push into their homeroom classes as well as specials, but the STC room is a safe place for them to reconvene, have a quiet place, calm down, and have a motor break. Also, they attend class with an aide who is there to help them, but not do the work for them.

When these students come into the art room, it can be a struggle to get them focused on the work at hand. They would much rather free draw or play with the legos. At the beginning of the year, I tried to establish myself with them and doing the work and it was a total disaster. By not recognizing their social emotional learning needs, I was creating more of an issue and in turn, they were getting disregulated and would have to leave my classroom. I knew I had to take a different approach so that their needs were being met in the Art room, but also enough work was getting completed so that I could appropriately grade them. With my students and their core teachers, we came to an agreement that they would work for 15 minutes and then could quietly read an art story or return to their STC room. Before long, they were working 20 minutes, 25 minutes, and then staying for the entire class! By taking the time to understand the social emotional learning that these specific students needed in my classroom, we were quickly on the road to success.