RULER: Promoting Social-Emotional Literacy
RULER is a social-emotional literacy curriculum developed by Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence. In order to manage one's emotions to successfully negotiate life experiences, whether at school, work or home, RULER promotes:
Recognizing
Understanding
Labeling
Expressing
Regulating
The Anchors of Emotional Intelligence
The Anchors of Emotional Intelligence are evidence-based tools designed to enhance the emotional intelligence of school leaders, teachers and staff, and students and their families.
RULER includes four primary tools: (Click on each to learn more)
Charter - is a promise that teachers and students create together for how they want to feel in the classroom, what actions will promote those feelings, and agreed upon actions for how to prevent and manage conflict. At the beginning of the school year, sub-groups of staff members created Charters. A school-wide Charter was also created to consolidate the feelings of staff throughout our school community. In the beginning of the year, each teacher facilitated creating a Classroom Charter with their students.
Mood Meter - is a tool used to recognize and understand emotions. The Mood Meter helps staff and students to understand that all emotions are ok as they learn to accurately label their emotions.
Meta-Moment - is a 6-step process that teaches students self-regulation strategies and how to handle challenging moments daily. Teachers teach and model how students can deal with stressful situations and make appropriate choices when problem solving.
Blueprint - is a vehicle for conflict resolution. It teaches students how to be empathic and compassionate. Students use The Blueprint to talk with another student or students they are in conflict with and work together to solve the problems that they are experiencing.
A team of school leaders attended a multi-day RULER training sessions and have in turn shared this training with the rest of their school staff. Staff members then created Staff Charters before introducing the 4 RULER “anchor tools” in order to promote system-wide emotional literacy training. Our belief is that teachers and administrators cannot train students to manage their feelings and emotions if they have not first practiced these skills themselves.
Family Resources Links:
Watch this short video from Yale Center of Emotional Intelligence: