A Fish in Water
Recently, I asked a district to describe their goals for social emotional learning (SEL). They responded, “To have goals for SEL”. I appreciated both the humor and honesty in that response. After twenty-plus years of evidence regarding the benefits of comprehensive SEL school programs, that response gives me pause and left me grappling with my own goals for SEL: How can we address the current barriers to successful implementation of SEL? On my way to an answer, in this post, I unpack the current state of SEL.
Despite decades of research and more than 100 formal school-based programs, SEL has an image problem. Recently, that problem has become political, leading some departments of education to look for substitutes for the acronym, SEL, but not the associated programs. I suspect attempts to hide SEL programming under another name and the politicized attacks will pass. More enduring is the confusion around exactly what we mean when we say SEL.
First and foremost, it seems we cannot overcome the deeply held belief that SEL is distinctly separate from and less important than academic learning. Even when researchers and consultants espouse, “SEL is not one more thing on the plate, it is the plate” or “All learning is social and emotional” these attempts to underscore the inextricably intertwined nature of SEL do not resonant or help us understand the nature of SEL in the way that, “Women’s rights are human rights” helped clarify rights. Even when departments of education and programs adjust SEL to actively include the word “academic”, as in social emotional academic learning (SEAL) or social emotional academic development (SEAD), it creates a list rather than a complement.
Rather than taking the supporting role for academics, attention to social and emotional development must have primacy in schools. Research has demonstrated how efforts to teach SEL have immediate and long-term benefits, e.g., reducing behavior challenges and increasing lifetime learning and earnings. Some elements of SEL have even made it to the student report cards and teacher evaluations, typically the hallmark of acceptance by educational institutions. And yet, I suspect SEL continues to take second position because it is clouded by a lack of clarity, about what it is and how it operates.
SEL operates every day in schools because socialization is something that occurs automatically, largely through families and schools, as adults interact with children. With or without a program, adults are operating out of their default or skillful responses and students are learning how to regulate emotions, develop an awareness of self and others, make decisions, and build relationships, albeit with varying degrees of competence. In short, social emotional learning is always part of the hidden curriculum and always influencing academic learning, resilience, happiness, and productivity.
SEL is like water in the parable/joke David Foster Wallace recounted:
“Here are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” ”
And so, for many educators, like fish unaware of water, we are left wondering, “what the h--- is SEL?”, while it is all around us.
In an effort to promote SEL as part of the explicit curriculum, well-meaning organizations like The Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) have done yeoman’s work to articulate 5 overarching categories that comprise SEL. Even if there isn’t complete consensus on the category titles, most social emotional competencies (SEC) could be subsumed by them. So, what’s missing? Context. Historically, SEL has been presented as a one-size fits all proposition and it is simply not true that social and emotional competencies are universal and separate from culture. SEL perspectives are shifting, but recent efforts do not erase a de-contextualized (and therefore unconsciously biased) representation of what is best for ALL students when it comes to SEL. Further, for decades SEL was something taught to students and adult competencies were ignored or assumed. In addition, the complexities of school climate and culture were often overlooked as teachers implemented SEL lesson plans that were very separate from the daily experiences of staff and students.
Things are changing. I am not the first to notice shortcomings related to culture and context in our valiant efforts to bring SEL into the explicit curriculum. Programs specifically aimed at adult social emotional competencies are being implemented with success. Organizations, like CASEL, are broadening their understanding of SEL as program and research focus are expanding. While these changes make their way to policy and practice slowly, I believe there is something we can do right now: I believe we can re-imagine SEL as something close to you, like water to fish. It isn’t something outside of you, to memorize like a timeline or algorithm, it is the very essence of who we are and how we are, constructed and expressed daily in the company of others. And with that understanding, could there be anything more consequential to address in schools; in life?
