End of Year Teacher Spotlight- Patricia McDonald-Morland

It’s an honor to spotlight Patricia McDonald-Morland, a 50 year veteran educator at Denver Discovery School, for her work teaching the Life Skills Middle School curriculum to her physical education students. Ms. McDonald-Morland’s inspiration for teaching young people comes from her desire to be a part of the village, encouraging and helping every student become the best learner and person they can be.  

McDonald-Morland believes in teaching social emotional learning.  “We discuss real life, age-appropriate situations and this teaches students how to better respond to conflict which makes them mindful of how they are feeling before entering a difficult situation.  It provides  students the opportunity to think about someone other than themselves.  Social emotional techniques allow students the chance to learn how to de-stress and calm themselves. All these social emotional techniques provide a juncture for students to learn better decision making  and critical thinking skills, that ultimately lead to their success. I do this through lots of discussion and sharing of situations students have experienced. I also get to share some of my experience and results of the situation being discussed.”

Botvin Life Skills Training, a research-validated substance abuse prevention program proven to reduce the risks of alcohol, tobacco, drug abuse, and violence,  is the curriculum McDonald-Morland uses to bring social emotional learning to her students at Denver Discovery School.  The goals of the curriculum are to:

• Teach students the necessary skills to resist social (peer) pressures to smoke, drink, and use drugs

•  Help students to develop greater self-esteem and self-confidence

• Enable students to effectively cope with anxiety

•  Increase their knowledge of the immediate consequences of substance abuse

• Enhance cognitive and behavioral competency to reduce and prevent a variety of health risk behaviors

Ms. McDonald-Morland’s is an inspiration to everyone around her and she has some great words of wisdom for all of us working with students:

1. Greet students with joy in your heart (be genuinely happy to see them) and ask how they are.  

2. Call home with praise (and concern when necessary).  Parent like to know you have an interest in their child.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from your colleagues or someone you trust in education.