Reflections
During the service-learning project, I observed that many of my charges have poor communication skills and would often get into disagreements with their peers.
It was found that the effectiveness of social skills interventions increases in early adolescence because it is an important developmental transition during which children are “making the transition from primary relationships with their parents to increasingly important relationships with their peers” (January, Casey & Paulson, 2011).
Social and emotional learning (SEL) programmes produced significant positive effects on “targeted social-emotional competencies and attitudes about self, others, and school” and enhanced students’ behavioural adjustment in the form of increased prosocial behaviours and reduced conduct and internalising problems, as well as improved academic performance on achievement tests and grades (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor & Schellinger, 2011).
They also seem to be effective at all educational levels, whether elementary, middle or high school.
Unsurprisingly, social-emotional skill performance reflected the largest effect size.
On the other hand, it was suggested that the interventions could be “incorporated into routine educational practices” and external personnel are not needed because classroom teachers and other school staff could deliver the interventions effectively as well.
Results from this study add to other research demonstrating that SEL programmes “(enhance) students’ connection to school, classroom (behaviour), and academic achievement” (Zins et al., cited in Durlak et al. 2011).
Many correlational and longitudinal studies have also “documented connections between social-emotional variables and academic performance” (Caprara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, Bandura, & Zimbardo; Wang et al., cited in Durlak et al. 2011).
Convincing conceptual rationales based on empirical findings have also been proposed to link SEL competencies to improved school attitudes and performance (Zins et al., cited in Durlak et al. 2011). For instance, students who are more self-aware and confident about their learning abilities are likely to invest more energy than their peers who are more insecure, and will endure the challenges that they encounter (Aronson, cited in Durlak et al. 2011).
I propose three intervention programmes in schools and student care centres since they spend a significant portion of their time in these two venues.
First, I think that schools could conduct workshops on effective communication skills. Second, the teachers at the student care centres could serve as a mediator for the children and encourage them to talk out the problems they have with each other civilly and reconcile their differences. Last, but not least, both schools and student care centres could identify children who are struggling with their studies and/or having difficulty making friends to join a peer mentor programme where they will be paired with another student, who could be the same age as them or older, so that the children could catch up with their studies and also have someone they could talk to.
Depending on the children’s motivation, the health messages could be phrased either in terms of benefits or risks of not performing a health behaviour (Taylor, 2011), but I believe that the children would likely be more receptive to health messages that emphasises the advantages of performing the health behaviour rather than the risks. (510 words)
References
Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., &
Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’
social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-
based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1),
405-432. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x
January, A. M., Casey, R. J., & Paulson, D. (2011). A meta-
analysis of classroom-wide interventions to build social skills:
Do they work?. School Psychology Review, 40(2), 242-256.
doi:10.1007/s10464-010-9300-6
Taylor, S. E. (2011). Health psychology (8th ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill.