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Choosing Love Program Comes to Deep River Elementary School

As part of a new initiative, Deep River Elementary School is piloting the Choose Love program developed by Sandy Hook parent Scarlett Lewis, who lost her young son in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012. The Choose Love program, geared for students in grades K-12, was developed to bring social and emotional learning into the school curriculum focusing on ways that parents, teachers, and entire school districts and communities can come together and focus on not only academic success for students, but additionally the four core character values of courage, gratitude, forgiveness, and compassion to cultivate optimism, resilience, and personal responsibility.

The concept is that through this program, children learn that choosing love means being compassionate individuals. It seeks to teach kids about self-management, self-awareness, social awareness, and relationships skills.

“We have a very positive environment here at Deep River Elementary School and we see great value in the lessons our students are receiving through this new program,” said Deep River Elementary School Principal Christian Strickland. “The program is well designed and addresses not just school-based issues, but life-based issues as well. It has a strong alliance with both the academic goals for our students, as well as the social and emotional wellness goals for our students and it implements several powerful concepts and teachings.”

Using examples such as gratitude breaths, where children are taught to put their hand on their hearts and their belly and say what they are grateful for, students are taught ways to look at what they can do and also what they can’t do and be grateful for both, because that’s why they are learning.

“The Choose Love program definitely promotes a positive impact on the students,” Deep River Elementary School Kindergarten teacher Angela Hruska said. “When a five-year-old tells me he needs to take a ‘brave breath for a moment,’ that’s pretty amazing and powerful.”

Hruska added, “The program is aligned with the common core curriculum and because it is designed for all grade levels, it builds upon itself and the students use the same terminology each year so they are familiar with the concepts, which makes it easier for them to grasp. I think the program is wonderful because our students need to know how to cope with school situations as well as out-of-school situations, and this program is really geared to teach the whole child.”

Other ways the program is being implemented in the lower grades is having children talk about how they feel and draw pictures of their feelings so they can relay those thoughts and tie the teaching into the first steps of reading and writing.

In an effort to fold the parents and the entire community into this new teaching idea, there will be an informational meeting on the Choose Love Program at the Deep River Elementary School on the evening of Thursday, Jan. 24, at 6:30 p.m.

In addition, Scarlett Lewis will be speaking at John Winthrop Middle School in February, date and time to come.