Celebrating Game Changer Success at Alvin Elementary

In October, Career Skills Network staff implemented "Game Changer" a social and emotional learning (SEL) skill development program for the entire 5^th Grade student body at Alvin Elementary. Principal Karla Kylng said, "our 5^th graders are great and we wanted to focus on teaching the whole child. The students and teacher mentors participated in a variety of interactive "Games" that focused on building bravery, social-skills, kindness, self-awareness, self-control, self-motivation and persistence, trustworthiness, and optimism. To ensure the Game Changer skills were practiced once the students returned to the classroom, the teachers received a Game Changer "toolkit" that included behavioral challenges under each skill-set. For example, under social-skills, students sat with new friends at lunch, wrote a kind note to a classmate or teacher, or invited someone new to play to a game at recess. Since the students did so well completing all their challenges for one month following the training and filling their Game Changer Behaviors in Practice posters, Dr. Kathleen Cirillo, Executive Director, came back to the school to Celebrate their wonderful accomplishments with an ice cream party! "We are so proud of the all the great behaviors taking place at Alvin Elementary." Although the research on this training showed that students increased all the social and emotional skill sets upon conclusion of the training, most important result was summarized by one of 5^th grade students. She said, "Game Changers make us more thoughtful and happier at Alvin Elementary!"