One issue in the schools that everyone should agree on is that the push to incorporate Social-Emotional Learning (TM) curricula into actual activities is a whole lot dumber than the usual dumb new education initiative.
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) initiatives aim to connect students with others in their schools, families, and communities. SEL initiatives claim to help students develop empathy and make good decisions.
Of course kids need to develop empathy and learn to make good decisions. Social-emotional learning has always existed; it just was not presented as Social Emotional Learning (TM).
SEL initiatives through the set curricula of Social Emotional Learning (TM), however, are unequivocally not the way to help students develop those traits.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I don’t know of anyone who had heard the term social-emotional learning. However, we've been teaching kids how to self-regulate all along, and we will continue to do so.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers were strongly encouraged to make a connection with each child assigned to their roster, and for good reason. Kids were used to leaving home and settling in with the familiar routine of their school buildings, but COVID-19 fractured those routines.
Many parents left for work, while kids stayed home. The lucky ones were home with a grandparent to tend to them. The unlucky ones were home with an older sibling; the really unlucky ones were home alone, logging into virtual classrooms and looking at their classmates in little boxes on a screen.
Methods teachers found to connect with students varied: Which Meerkat Are You Today images, Show Us Your Pet, Wear a Goofy Hat, the activity didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the kids were able to connect with each other in a pretty authentic way, despite being miles away from each other. Somewhere in that timeline, teachers learned what we were doing was called social-emotional learning, and Social Emotional Learning became monetized.
Once we had gotten through the worst part of the pandemic, we returned to our school buildings & realized things had changed. No one was really sure how, but both students and faculty were different, and our relationships with each other were different, as well.
Maybe it was a rush to make the strain of the physical separation go away as quickly as possible, I don’t know. But all of a sudden, teachers were attending PD after PD about children’s trauma and the absolute necessity of building SEL activities into our lessons.
That point in time is where reintegrating into our school routines went dreadfully afoul.
Teachers have always had ways of connecting with their students. And just like when we were virtual, our means of connecting varied. What we did had no name; we just had our own way of reaching our students as they arrived to class each day. Kids collaborated, they argued, if we needed to, teachers facilitated solutions.
My method - which, I repeat, I never considered a method - had always been something corny: pantomimed karate chops, asking how a student had gotten that weird stain on their shoulder & following with the old fake “gotcha” lunge…many of my students have similar schedules, so I’d ask about the AP US test or if they had gotten their Government homework in on time. And my students always knew they were accountable for both their actions and their inactions in my class.
Colleagues’ methods were different from mine, of course, and their methods were different from each others’. And - I repeat - none of us knew what we were doing was anything past getting class started & following clearly set expectations for behavior.
All of a sudden, though, I felt really pressured to start incorporating these trauma-informed activities into my classes. I won’t speak for colleagues, but I don’t think I was alone. Practice gratitude, practice mindfulness, practice transparency, practice presence.
As I was searching for ways to effectively practice this litany of practices, I was also becoming more and more removed from my own practices. I realized that while we were learning these abstract objectives, we weren’t learning many realistic concrete means of executing them. Very few of our PD sessions provided ideas past using an “emoji meter” for students to articulate their feelings.
Which is exactly what we were doing when our classrooms extended into our students’ homes. What was fun and helpful when our students were virtual was ridiculous and stifling once we were back in the classroom.
SEL activities shared via a facilitator who knew nothing about my district caused the strain & disconnect between teachers and students to get worse. Ditto the strain and disconnect between teachers and our job satisfaction. I’m pretty sure students would say the same.
The more I heard about SEL curricula and its value as a support for students, the more I understood the whole concept is garbage.
Here’s why: at its core, SEL is the practice of being a person. People naturally connect with one another. We - students and faculty - don’t need lessons to teach us a natural process.
SEL curricula makes sense for new teachers, and it makes sense for teachers who ask for guidance on how to make connections. I can even admit it makes sense as a refresher when recertification years roll around. But for now, many of us are over-saturated.
What if a teacher is cold and harsh?
Part of growing up is learning how to work with different types of people. As long as the cold and harsh teacher isn’t harming a child, bullying included, then well, the student will learn how to work with someone who isn’t especially supportive.
As a parent myself, I know how much it hurts to see your child struggle, but putting a wedge between a child and a person whose teaching style you don’t agree with is not protection. It’s the making of someone insufferable, and that person will probably never understand why they repel others.
What about the equity SEL organizations tout?
No matter where a student comes from, no matter the amount of melanin in a student’s genetic makeup, no matter a student’s religion, every student must be supported with the same amount of respect and dignity. Hard stop. The end.
Forcing a bigot to practice mindfulness isn’t going to help them see someone they’ve identified as part of a problematic community in a different way. In fact, I imagine SEL activities to promote equity will promote hostility and little else. We need to purge our schools of -isms for sure, but forced lessons in empathy ain’t the way.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, several businesses were established to provide SEL lessons and trainings to school staff. Having heard the cries of parents concerned their child was being irrevocably damaged by virtual schooling, school divisions across the United States entered into contracts with these companies. The hope was to make the transition back into school buildings easier for everyone involved in the process.
The result, though, was that SEL(TM) programs were tremendously counter-productive to allowing faculty and students rebuild their natural relationships.
Make no mistake, these companies aren’t going to just go away. As long as school systems buy into the fallacy that it’s possible to commodify being a human, SEL programs will remain a lucrative business.
But education is not a business.
School divisions need to stop falling for the quick-fix promise of SEL companies and trust the process of natural relationship building. For some divisions and schools, the students won't settle down until administrators are forced to support their teachers.
It might take a little longer, but naturally developed relationships are authentic. Not only that, naturally developed relationships are built at no cost.
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