What is controversial about SEL?

Critics of social-emotional learning, like Parents Defending Education, a group tracking what it says is “liberal indoctrination,” say the programs focus too much on children's identities. It shouldn't matter what a child's race or gender is, these parent groups say.

Why are parents against SEL in schools?

Those accusations have surfaced during school board meetings, within parent-teacher associations, and during routine parent-teacher conferences, said Hughes. Parents express fears that SEL is a slippery slope—or even an indoctrination tool—to teach kids about racial inequality, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

What is negative about social emotional learning?

It can perpetuate a victim mentality. Some SEL programs focus heavily on identifying and coping with emotions like anxiety, fear, and sadness. While it's important to address these issues, there's a risk that children could become too focused on their negative emotions and begin to see themselves as victims.

Does SEL teach gender identity?

Through self-reflection and social awareness, SEL helps teach skills needed to connect across race, class, culture, language, gender identity, sexual orientation, learning needs and age.

Should social emotional learning be taught in schools?

Research shows that SEL has a positive impact on student emotional well-being and academic performance. Educators should always be proactive in communicating the benefits of SEL and why it is a priority in their classrooms.

Understanding The Social Emotional Learning Controversy

What are the barriers to social and emotional learning?

A recent report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) identifies five of these barriers: poverty, exclusionary discipline practices and policies in school, lack of trauma-informed practices, implicit bias and educator stress and burnout.

What states are against social emotional learning?

In the past two years, following the peak of the CRT backlash, several states including Virginia, Indiana, and Oklahoma have tried to enact legislation that restricts the use of social-emotional learning or bans the use of government funding to support these programs.

What are the negatives of SEL in schools?

At its best, SEL is something of a secular character education stripped of virtue. No longer do students learn of prudence, temperance, and courage but open-mindedness and acceptance. No longer do students apply an objective ethics to their lives but choose their own subjective values.

Is SEL a hidden curriculum?

And, because we can also learn unhealthy social and emotional skills and mindsets—like racism, aggression, and helplessness—from our surroundings, it's especially important for educators to bring awareness and intentionality to the hidden SEL curriculum.

How is SEL culturally relevant?

Culturally responsive and sustaining SEL refers to practices that actively draw upon (responsive) and explicitly support (sustaining) students' diverse backgrounds, identities, strengths, and challenges as a strategy to deepen learning.

Why do SEL programs fail?

So SEL is rushed, shortened, or even skipped. Note to administrators: you cannot put one more thing on a teacher's plate without at the same time taking something off. The less obvious but perhaps most important reason that SEL programs fail is that they conflict with the SEL program the school already has.

Why social emotional learning isn t enough to help kids?

SEL ignores spiritual, physical, and societal well-being. It doesn't encourage students to learn outdoors in nature and become stewards of the environment. It has nothing to say about physical fitness. Nor does it address young people's spiritual hunger to feel part of something greater than themselves.

What is character education vs SEL?

Character Education tells you what values someone must have to be a good citizen. Character Ed is the what. Put another way: SEL is about self-awareness, developing healthy relationships, and making appropriate and responsible decisions. Character Ed is focused on developing morally accountable individuals.

Can you opt out of social emotional learning?

Parents have the right to ask to see lessons and material, including copies of the SEL surveys, prior to instruction. Under Federal Law, parents do have the right to opt their students out of surveys. The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, commonly referred to as PPRA, gives parents this right.

Can SEL reduce school violence?

Research shows that preventative measures focused on developing social and emotional competencies and supportive learning climates can foster emotional safety and help reduce violence. By cultivating skills like self-regulation and problem-solving, SEL promotes mental wellness and reduces risky behaviors.

Which states have SEL standards?

All 50 states have adopted SEL competencies into their frameworks or standards that guide instruction for at least pre-K students. Twenty-seven states have SEL competencies as part of their standards for all students, in pre-K through grade 12. Other states have such standards in place primarily for younger students.

How effective is SEL in schools?

The Benefits of SEL

From an academic standpoint, students who participated in SEL programs saw an 11 percentile increase in their overall grades and better attendance.

What is the core of SEL?

The following descriptions of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) are from CASEL. They address five broad, interrelated areas of competence and provide examples for each: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

What is the best SEL curriculum?

How does SEL impact school climate?

Social and emotional learning promotes the development of students' social and emotional skills. School climate promotes a positive, safe, and engaging environment, which allows students and adults to develop and use their social and emotional skills.

How does SEL impact mental health?

While SEL and mental health are not the same, SEL can promote positive mental health in many ways. By promoting responsive relationships, emotionally safe environments, and skills development, SEL cultivates important “protective factors” to buffer against mental health risks.

Why should schools implement SEL?

Students and Schools. Social-emotional learning (SEL) helps improve kids' academic performance, curtail bullying, reduce dropout rates, and build character.

Who is behind social emotional learning?

Founded in 1994 by a group that included Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence, and educator-philanthropist Eileen Rockefeller Growald, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has been a pioneer in the field of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).

Is social emotional learning an evidence based practice?

Across these studies, there is a consistent, reliable effect of tested, evidence-based SEL programs on students' social, emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes in PreK–12th grade, including the development of social and emotional skills, improved academic engagement and performance, growth of positive social ...

What is the difference between SEL and Tsel?

TSEL is a form of SEL implementation toward the aim of concentrating SEL practice on transforming inequitable settings and systems and promoting justice-oriented civic engagement. One of its core features is enhancing and foregrounding social and emotional competencies needed for civic engagement and social change.