March 10 marks International SEL Day. If you haven鈥檛 heard of it, you can be forgiven because it鈥檚 only the fourth year for the annual event.
SEL Day 2023 finds social-emotional learning at a unique moment.
Interest in SEL is high as students struggle to adjust socially after the pandemic and as fast-changing technology continues to present new challenges to kids鈥� social-emotional development. At the same time, SEL is also facing high-profile resistance as it鈥檚 become a political football in the larger debates over what should be taught in schools.
Educators may find themselves stuck in the middle of that tug-of-war. They are trying to walk a public relations tightrope as scrutiny intensifies from some parents and politicians, who argue that social-emotional learning is teaching liberal values that don鈥檛 align with those of their families and communities. At the same time, 糖心动漫vlog are trying to shore up their students social-emotional skills.
Students sorely need those skills. Seventy percent of 糖心动漫vlog鈥攖eachers, principals and district leaders鈥攕urveyed by the EdWeek Research Center in January and February of this year, said that their students have been misbehaving more compared to the fall of 2019. Thirty-three percent said students were misbehaving 鈥渁 lot more.鈥�
Here鈥檚 a collection of articles and expert opinions on the challenges facing 糖心动漫vlog as they try to teach students鈥� social-emotional skills.
What Does SEL Mean Anyway? 7 Experts Break It Down
SEL can be a nebulous concept, which opens the door to misunderstanding or misrepresenting the idea. So, Education Week reached out to researchers and practitioners in the field for their jargon-free definitions and examples of social-emotional learning.
How School Leaders Can Respond to Pushback Over Social-Emotional Learning
SEL has faced some serious headwinds lately as it鈥檚 been conflated with critical race theory and gotten caught up in larger debates and legislative bans over teaching 鈥渄ivisive鈥� topics about racism and sexuality. Most recently, around the state calling for a review of a well-known curriculum provider鈥檚 SEL curriculum that state officials say has run afoul of the state鈥檚 new laws鈥攎ostly like the Stop W.O.K.E. Act which limits what schools can teach relating to racism. Here are 6 tips for 糖心动漫vlog on how to address the pushback and communicate more clearly with the community about SEL initiatives.
Families Are Students鈥� First SEL Teachers. Here鈥檚 How to Engage Them
Nearly 9 in 10 parents said in a recent survey that they have the most influence on their children鈥檚 character development, but they acknowledged there is a role for teachers. Nearly 70 percent said they lean on their kids鈥� teachers to reinforce the values they鈥檙e teaching at home, according to a survey by polling firm Ipsos for the nonprofit Character.org. In an opinion piece for Education Week, Alexandra Skoog-Hoffman, the director of research-practice partnerships at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL, lays out four steps for building stronger partnerships between families and schools.
5 Social-Emotional Skills Kids Need to Lead Healthy Digital Lives
The time kids spent on devices and social media skyrocketed during the pandemic, and research shows screen time is not coming back down to pre-pandemic levels. Social media and technology can challenge kids鈥� social-emotional growth and mental health. But SEL programs aren鈥檛 always adapted to teach kids about how to apply the social-emotional skills they know to their online lives. Here are 5 tips on how to do that.
Can Bite-Sized Lessons Make Social-Emotional Learning Easier to Teach?
The number one barrier cited by 糖心动漫vlog to teaching social-emotional learning is not politics or resistant teachers, it鈥檚 time. Forty-six percent of 糖心动漫vlog told the EdWeek Research Center in an October poll that helping students catch up academically leaves limited bandwidth for SEL. That reality is why one Harvard professor has set out to develop and study an approach to SEL called kernels or practice.
