This year, for the first time, all Junior School students worked together to create a classroom charter, which serves as a community agreement about how they want to feel when they’re learning or playing together.
The charters were initiated as part of Punahou’s ongoing effort to incorporate Social, Emotional Ethical Learning (SEEL) at all grade levels through the RULER curriculum, which was developed at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Punahou officially became a RULER school during the 2019 – 2020 school year.
“Students are having rich conversations around how they can help support everyone to have positive experiences, feel safe and feel like they belong,” said Molly Takagi,” the School’s K – 8 Social Emotional and Ethical Learning Coordinator, who is facilitating the rollout of the charters along with faculty Lauli‘a Phillips ’98 Ah Wong.
Some examples from recently drafted charters: “Treat others how you want to be treated,” “Give one another space” and “Use your manners to show others you appreciate them.” “I was able to be in a second grade classroom when they were discussing behaviors,” Ah Wong said. “They were talking about how they could help each other feel confident, and one little girl said, ‘Well, you can tell your friends, ‘You can do this – good job.’ It was just so beautiful. To see it in progress was really fulfilling for me.”
Along with the classroom charters, faculty are also creating charters among their departments and teams.