How to Talk About and Reflect on the 2020 Experience

UMOJA’s Resources to Support the SEL Needs of Students

By The BELE Network

At the intersection of multiple crises, how we show up to support our students matters. In order to fully embrace social and emotional learning as a practice, it’s important that we do our part to create opportunities and spaces for young people to process and understand the global pandemic, reckoning with racial injustice, and the tumultuous US election.

To this end, UMOJA Student Development Corporation released an Election 2020 toolkit of resources to support the SEL needs of students during these turbulent and often uncertain times. Even though the election has passed, this toolkit still contains a wealth of information and resources that educators can use to facilitate important discussions and exercises to explore what we’re experiencing. Because of these important components, this toolkit will remain a valuable reference for how we can support students through facilitated conversations and exercises, in managing stress, anxiety, and competing information as we enter the new year.

Perhaps most importantly, this toolkit also includes proposed modifications that optimize each of their recommendations for a virtual learning environment, as well as to meet the specific needs of all students. Read more about their guidance and strategies here.

Umoja builds deep social emotional learning skills in educators to transform the ways young people experience schools and the ways schools exist to serve society. Umoja believes in schools that center equity, love, and connection as the foundation to all learning and preparation for successful life beyond high school. To learn more, visit www.umojacorporation.org