Education Week - November 16, 2022 - 7

Third-grade teacher Stephanie
Brugler works with her class
during an SEL lesson in November
at the Jefferson PK-8 school in
Warren, Ohio.
is something that is commonplace. And we have
parents and families who understand the need for
social-emotional well-being, and they're moving
beyond this idea that social-emotional well-being is
for others or indicates that something is wrong. "
Even with a surge of interest and funding, schools
are still battling headwinds when it comes to
teaching social-emotional learning-a concept that
involves teaching kids non-academic skills, such
as resiliency, empathy, goal setting, responsible
decisionmaking, and emotional management to be
successful in school, work, and life.
Nearly half of educators surveyed by the EdWeek
Research Center this fall say that trying to catch
students up academically is a major challenge to
teaching SEL. Insufficient professional development
and students' overwhelming social-emotional needs
rounded out the top three barriers to teaching socialemotional
learning, according to the survey.
More than half of educators describe efforts
to incorporate social-emotional learning into
academic subjects as challenging. Fifty-three
percent said it is " somewhat challenging, " and 9
percent said it is " very challenging. " Twenty-nine
percent indicated it is " not very challenging, " and 9
percent said it " not at all challenging. "
The vast majority of educators indicate that the
impact of SEL on students' academic outcomes has
been positive, with 83 percent saying that is the case.
But the force of that impact is somewhat muted: 51
percent say it has been only somewhat positive, and
32 percent say the impact of SEL on classrooms has
been very positive.
1. Start with the adults
There are some key factors that contribute to the
success of social-emotional learning, such as highquality,
evidence-based curricula; integrating socialemotional
learning into academic subjects;, and,
finally, a school culture and climate that supports
social-emotional learning.
Leaders in all three districts that Education Week
spoke with were emphatic on this point: The adults
in the school building need to build their socialemotional
competencies before they can impart
these skills to students.
It's a lesson several of them said they had to learn
the hard way.
" We focused a lot on the children at first, and
we had quite a few principals tell us that they felt
the adults-the teachers and administrators-
really needed to do their own SEL work and
evaluate what their skill sets were and the areas
they needed to work on in order to be able to
effectively model and teach those skill sets to the
kids, " said Caroline Chase, the former assistant
director of SEL for Austin schools. " That was a
huge one we learned, early. "
That means professional development is a must-
and not just one-time PD, but a continuous drip,
said Statia Paschel, the current director of socialemotional
learning for the Austin district. Like
any other subject, educators need to have a solid
understanding of what social-emotional learning is
in order to feel prepared to teach these skills.
But according to the EdWeek Research Center
survey, not all educators are describing their SEL
professional-development experiences as home
runs. Nearly 3 in 10 described their experiences as
" ineffective. "
Putting SEL to work with adults doesn't just
mean professional development around how to
teach social-emotional skills, it's also important for
educators to know how to incorporate those skills
into their daily lives and interactions, said Mike
Gifford, the principal of the Academy of Arts, Careers
and Technology in Washoe County.
" One thing I think we could have done a better job
of is prepping the school leaders with why we were
doing this work and how they could incorporate it
into their daily interactions at school, " said Gifford,
who used to work in the district's SEL department.
" It doesn't have to be this brand-new thing; it can be
how you greet people in the hallway. "
2. Get teacher and principal support in
meaningful ways
In addition to robust professional development,
coaxing out teacher and principal buy-in instead of
strong-arming educators into taking on SEL is another
important strategy.
The Washoe school district started rolling out its
social-emotional-learning initiative first with the
principals and teachers who were interested in it-an
approach Gifford said created a lot of SEL ambassadors
and organically seeded interest in the idea.
But even with the best strategy, there will be holdouts
and people who push back, he said. As a principal,
Gifford makes time to meet with them individually to
hear their concerns.
" A lot of people who are skeptical of SEL are
numbers people, and they don't see the numbers in
SEL, so you have to show them what the data says, " he
said.
School and district leaders shouldn't expect to get
100 percent buy-in, but they can get close, Gifford said.
And it's important to emphasize that teaching SEL
"
Each role, from the
superintendent to bus
drivers, to principals,
to teachers, needs
to understand what
piece of socialemotional
learning
they own.
TRISH SHAFFER
Washoe County, Nev., school
district
By
Arianna
Prothero
Education Week - November 16, 2022

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