Building Classroom Communities of Caring: A Social Skills Residency
Using music, dialoguing, and self-reflection lessons, ICS will work with the students over the course of a week or with students daily for five weeks to help instill in them an understanding of the many ways people can work and play together in spite of perceived differences.

Residency Goal
The goal of the residency is to teach specific social skills and principles of social responsibility to students by providing them with a series of memorable, real life, hands-on experiences which touch on important issues in their lives.

The Residency provides:

Interactive sessions that touch on real-life issues
belonging
fitting in
being different
problems with bullying and other aggressive behaviors

Social-skill training
Understanding the impact of one’s choices
practicing compassion and empathy
resolving conflicts
managing anger
communicating effectively with others

Staff workshops on building classroom communities of honor

Parent workshops on effective communication with children

In workshops and training sessions during the course of the residency, students will explore some or all of the following topics:

understanding differences: working with issues of diversity
managing one’s feelings including anger
the need to belong & have friends
the impact of choices towards others
the power of effective communication
labeling and judging vs listening and supporting
leadership and modeling for younger students