Social & Emotional Learning

Every child is known by every adult at Cold Spring. We care about the social/emotional development in children as much as we care about academic learning.

The smallness of our school provides us with multiple opportunities to build community in genuine ways in both classrooms and at school as a whole. Respect, gratitude, compassion, empathy, and resilience form the core of the social/emotional curriculum. Classroom charters provide the opportunity for children to practice the language and skills required to be responsible and positive community members. Both “window and mirror” opportunities are offered for children to see themselves reflected in their work and to learn about and appreciate differences in people and their lives within and beyond our school walls.

In This Section

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is about creating awareness and space between our thoughts and actions. It is about noticing these thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and anything that may be happening at the present moment. We practice mindfulness in our classrooms with the intention of centering our minds and bodies. We believe that by doing this, children are able to make better decisions, control impulses, manage stress, and pay attention. At our weekly School Meeting, children in our 2/3 classes lead the entire school community in ‘breathing’ exercises.

Persistence

Through these early years, classroom experiences allow for children to develop the skills to persist through challenges. We teach children to identify and verbalize challenges that might get in the way of thinking, learning, and social development, and then we help them build strategies to push through these moments and acknowledge the hard work of such diligence in spite of obstacles.

Resilience

Self-Advocacy

Self Advocacy

Developing ownership in learning is one of the hallmarks of a Cold Spring education. We believe that empowering children to speak for themselves is important, and we do so by creating classroom environments that are comfortable for children. Teachers value and encourage students to voice their concerns, questions, and wonderings as integral partners in learning.

Problem-Solving

Through academic, musical, artistic, and physical challenges, teachers develop and strengthen problem-solving skills in children. We teach children to employ strategies to solve problems and help them develop problem-solving mindsets. Risk-taking, collaboration, perseverance, reflection and empathy are some of the integral strategies we teach students at Cold Spring to use when they first come across a new problem or challenge.

Independence and Collaboration

In all grades from preschool through sixth grade, children produce work both independently and collaboratively. Learning to communicate with each other, listen to one another, solve problems together, compromise ideas, and make decisions as a group are all part of the learning process. At the same time, children also engage in many experiences that allow them to work independently on classroom work or individual research projects that show the building of skills or the development of an independent study. Both collaboration and independence are essential skills for children to learn.

Empathy

The inherent structure of mixed grades at Cold Spring is based on empathy. Each child switches roles from being the oldest in a year to the youngest the following year; they must learn to be in community and work with different aged children each year. All students practice listening to and understanding multiple perspectives, thoughts, and feelings of classmates in both academic and social situations. Through teacher language involving open-ended questions, teachers guide students to see situations from another point of view, consider the feelings of others, and make a mutually beneficial choice or decision.

CSS is part of my life now through songs I sing to my son, respect for others, confidence to pursue my interests and passions as well as those things that are challenging to me.

julia, CLASS OF ’93