Expressing Feelings Through Creativity - Kelly Griffin

Meet Kelly Griffin! Most of her 500 students call her Miss G!! Miss G rocks the schoolhouse by teaching social-emotional and character development skills at an elementary school in San Diego. She has a master's degree in elementary education from Rockhurst University (back home in the Midwest) and a certification in Social-Emotional and Character Development from Rutger's University online program. She is the co-creator of a program that provides universal SEL instruction to all students. Miss G is passionate about emotional literacy! In today's world, she believes it is more important than ever. Much of what she does is give a voice to the emotional lives of her students. She builds community and helps create a space where students feel emotionally safe, connected and cared for. This is where the magic happens. Walls come down, hearts open up and students can express their feelings and connect as human beings. These are moments of growth, moments of change that create ripples in our school--ripples of belonging. As said best by L.R. Knost, "It is not our job to toughen children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless." Much of her focus right now is on how her students are feeling. She imagines something roller-coaster-ish…When those feelings of anxiety, loneliness and frustration come up, we tend to conceal them rather than feel them. But this only holds us back, when we name our emotions and acknowledge them we can then figure out coping strategies on how to manage them (Marc Brackett, Permission To Feel).