The hard truth is, Education is Changing...
We walked into our schools with passion, pedagogy, and freshly-sharpened pencils. But lately, we've been met with behavioral, social, and emotional needs of students we simply aren't prepared for.
As education has evolved, these needs of students have just been increasing. We're now expected to teach beyond academics without ever being trained on how to do that. It leaves educators feeling overwhelmed, ill-equipped, and burnt out.
At least, that's how I felt.
That was, until I faced this challenge head on. As a special education teacher, I started to focus specifically on behavioral, social, and emotional learning. In time, it became my favorite part of the job. While I wasn’t using the term “BSEL” yet, I started sharing these concepts and strategies with colleagues and on social media, as well as pursuing a masters degree in applied behavior analysis. I felt like I found the missing piece in my teaching practice.
Then, in January 2022, I experienced a head injury that benched me from the classroom.
I lost so much in that moment. My recovery was a slow, painful process. I spent months relearning how to live again, regaining the most basic of skills like driving and cooking and reading. But I didn’t lose my education, experience, or passion for behavioral social emotional learning. I had more to share with the world. In fact, my injury inspired a new personal mission: to make sure no other educator hit the same rock bottom I did.
If I was going to come back after my injury, I had to be brave. I had to be brave enough to tell my story and believe in the power of BSEL to change lives for the better. I had to be brave enough to start hard conversations, challenge the status quo, and question what truly matters in education. And I had to invite other educators to be brave with me.
Thus, Braving BSEL was born. Now, we provide ethical and research-based education, training, coaching, and resources for all educators. We want to give you the confidence to meet the behavioral, social, emotional needs of students while promoting teacher well-being along the way, through consulting, workshops, and more.
This is new, hard, vulnerable, meaningful work, for me and for all of us. But none of us are braving this alone.
As education has evolved, these needs of students have just been increasing. We're now expected to teach beyond academics without ever being trained on how to do that. It leaves educators feeling overwhelmed, ill-equipped, and burnt out.
At least, that's how I felt.
That was, until I faced this challenge head on. As a special education teacher, I started to focus specifically on behavioral, social, and emotional learning. In time, it became my favorite part of the job. While I wasn’t using the term “BSEL” yet, I started sharing these concepts and strategies with colleagues and on social media, as well as pursuing a masters degree in applied behavior analysis. I felt like I found the missing piece in my teaching practice.
Then, in January 2022, I experienced a head injury that benched me from the classroom.
I lost so much in that moment. My recovery was a slow, painful process. I spent months relearning how to live again, regaining the most basic of skills like driving and cooking and reading. But I didn’t lose my education, experience, or passion for behavioral social emotional learning. I had more to share with the world. In fact, my injury inspired a new personal mission: to make sure no other educator hit the same rock bottom I did.
If I was going to come back after my injury, I had to be brave. I had to be brave enough to tell my story and believe in the power of BSEL to change lives for the better. I had to be brave enough to start hard conversations, challenge the status quo, and question what truly matters in education. And I had to invite other educators to be brave with me.
Thus, Braving BSEL was born. Now, we provide ethical and research-based education, training, coaching, and resources for all educators. We want to give you the confidence to meet the behavioral, social, emotional needs of students while promoting teacher well-being along the way, through consulting, workshops, and more.
This is new, hard, vulnerable, meaningful work, for me and for all of us. But none of us are braving this alone.
You’ve just read the “long story short” version. For the full story of how Braving BSEL came to be, click here.
