The New York Times Takes On Social Emotional Learning

From The NY Times article

Sunday’s New York Times featured an excellent article on social-emotional learning (SEL) in schools. SEL helps garner psychological intelligence and emotional skills that ultimately helps children regulate emotions. The development of SEL in school is an old phenomenon, as even John Dewey argued that schooling should be intended to teach children ‘deeper habits of the mind’ including “plasticity.”

Research has proven that non-cognitive skills (like self-awareness and restraint) might be excellent predictors of a person’s life trajectory. Channeling emotions essentially allows people to ‘surf the rapids rather than be swamped by them.”

Thousands of schools use social emotional learning in the classroom and the NY Times article highlights Leataata Floyd Elementary in Sacramento and principal Billy Aydlett who made significant changes to boost the school’s academic performance. Aydlett was interviewed in our Fix School Discipline Toolkit about his process instituting Positive Behavior Support (PBIS) and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) at his school. The results have been unsurprisingly positive.

One teacher at Leataata Floyd notes the difference before and after SEL “they may still blow up, but they take responsibility. That’s a new thing: they always used to blame somebody else. For them to take responsibility — it’s huge.” Read More from the NY Times article here.