Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)

SEL Used to Happen In Teachable Moments

One spring day, a 7th grade student, Ariana, was sitting on a bench in the school courtyard with her head down at the end of her lunch period as the other students returned to their classrooms. Her body language signaled that she was in distress. Instead of telling her to hurry on to class, I sat down next to her, looked at her tear-streaked face, and asked what was wrong. Ariana’s silent tears became quiet, strangled sobs and she could not speak. I put my arm around her shoulders and we just sat for a moment as she struggled to control herself. Finally she said, “My grandma is dying.” 

Moments like this happen every day in school classrooms, hallways, restrooms, offices, locker rooms, playgrounds, or anywhere else that a child is overcome by an emotional reaction to something going on in their life. Whether it is a sick and dying family member, divorcing parents, the loss of a beloved pet, a parent taken to jail, moving to a different place, or anything else on an unending list, life events interrupt formal school learning. When this occurs, the adults in the school must be prepared to help the affected student as well as the other students who witness the struggle of their peers. All human beings have to learn how to cope with an emotional stab to our hearts as life goes on around us. We are not born with this coping skill any more than we are born knowing our times tables. However, we cannot learn our times tables or any other academic lesson until we begin to heal from our emotional wound. This concept is not new, but is now called Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). Academic learning is the reason for the existence of public education, but to ignore SEL is futile for schools. 

SEL in schools has historically been called “teachable moments.”  I remember catching students in my English classroom sharing answers on a quiz. We had a conversation about honesty and there were consequences for those students. 

Current events may also be an instance where teachers put away the planned lesson and have an SEL discussion with the students.  When I was an English teacher at Thurman White Middle School back in the 1990’s, tragedy struck in our girls Physical Education class.  While the class was running/walking a mile, a girl suddenly dropped to the ground, stopped breathing and turned blue in front of her classmates. The class watched from a distance as paramedics came and rushed her to the hospital. Rumors of what had happened flew around the school amongst students and adults as we waited for news on her condition. At the end of the day, the adults were told that this sweet young girl had passed away due to a previously undetected heart condition. The next morning, students were shocked and saddened to hear what had happened. Many were crying or just quietly trying to deal with their emotions. We could send the students who were the most upset to the library where the school counselors were helping them cope, and in some cases, calling parents to come and pick them up. In our classrooms, we allowed the students time to ask questions and discuss what had happened. We all needed some time for processing this event. 

On September 11, 2001, I heard the news of the terrorist attacks on the radio as I was driving to Coronado High School in Henderson, Nevada, where I taught English and Journalism classes. This was another time when we teachers needed to put away much of our planned lessons and discuss what had happened. 

The most difficult part of these types of discussions is for teachers to avoid advocating for their own beliefs, or to stereotype and condemn a certain group of people. The point is that we cannot expect school classrooms to never discuss anything that is off the main topic of the planned daily lesson. We can, however, expect that teachers will avoid pushing their own potentially controversial beliefs and value systems onto their students. 

In their book, A Search For Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K-12 Education, Frederick M. Hess and Pedro A. Noguera found agreement on the need for SEL in schools. According to Hess, cultivating emotional skills in our children was ignored during the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era, “where it increasingly felt like students were being treated as cogs in a giant test preparation machine.”   Hess goes on to say:

There was too little emphasis on cultivating skills like impulse control and persistence, or even on teaching students to respect and listen to one another. SEL offers the opportunity to rectify that while putting brain science to work and promoting vital virtues like integrity, empathy, and responsibility.  

Noguera points out that SEL is not a new idea and that “it seems like common sense to acknowledge that we cannot separate a child’s academic needs from their social.”   Noguera agrees that NCLB forced schools to focus narrowly on academic achievement and many thought this meant ignoring “the other needs kids bring with them.” Both authors agree that any SEL push should not “displace content instruction, burden teachers, or pitch dubious pedagogy.”

Silvestri JHS purchased a book in 2016 for every teacher called Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom by Kristin Souers and Pete Hall. We used it for a book study with teachers for nearly the entire school year and it was both practical and eye-opening. One new practice that was most helpful was that we began sharing information amongst a student’s teachers and their counselor if any of us discovered that the student was having an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE). For example, I alerted Ariana’s teachers and counselor that she was experiencing an ACE that day, without telling them all of the details of her heartache at the thought of losing her grandmother, so that they were prepared if she needed any additional emotional support.