Social-Emotional Learning - why is this important?
As parents and educators, we often focus a lot on the “academic” aspect of school - the curriculum, the academic outcomes, and the learning goals. However, there are other goals that are important not only for our kids’ wellbeing but also that can affect their academics.
Insert: Social-Emotional Learning.
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is one of those terms that you may have heard about, but may not fully understand why it is so important in the context of schools. We get it, there is so much terminology in the world of parenting and education (and even more acronyms that we can list!). We were grateful to have Educational Consultant Robin Bacher as an Expert on our SYT Learn “Social Emotional Learning at Home and at School” to help break it down.
Social-Emotional Learning is defined as “the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.” (CASEL)
It sounds like a pretty big definition, doesn’t it? What does it mean in terms of our kids’ learning?
In short, we want to focus on and promote our learning environments in a more holistic way. We want our communities, classrooms and our homes to focus on academics, social and emotional development for our kids. The well-being of our kids is improved with the integration of our more traditional view of academics with social and emotional goals.
Social-Emotional Learning can be broken down into five domains:
Self-awareness
Self-management
Social awareness
Relationship skills
Responsible decision-making
If we take a moment to consider each of these domains we start to understand how each domain is integral to our childrens’ and students’ academics and their overall wellbeing. For example, how do low skills in self-management affect their life in the community, in school or at home? Without strong self-management skills, we may see kids with low impulse control and outbursts while navigating a busy playground, we may see them interrupting a lot in the classroom, or see them unable to follow through on items that take self-discipline like keeping their stuff organized while at home.
Robin shared some great insights that help us to understand why SEL is so important:
Emotional well being influences educational performance, learning and development
All learning is social and emotional (learning that occurs in the classroom happens in a social context)
Relationships (and communicating effectively) are essential to the teaching and learning process
SEL programs have been shown to improve academic achievement but also increase prosocial behaviours (kindness, caring, helpfulness), positive attitudes towards school and reduce stress and depression.
Of course, as a learning difference organization, we always wonder how these topics are related to kids with ADHD, dyslexia, or another learning disability.
Well, we know that many kids with LD’s already struggle with skills around social and emotional development. This includes things such as the increased risk for mental health challenges, increased risk for anxiety, difficulties with social relationships, increased bullying, and problems with self-esteem to name a few.
Our kids with LD’s are at risk, to begin with. Focusing on their wellbeing from a very holistic perspective, including of course intentional attention to their Social-Emotional Learning, is one more way that we can be there to help them accept, understand, grow and flourish.
If you would like to learn more about this incredibly important topic of Social-Emotional Learning, our SYT Learn Masterclass with Robin Bacher is available now in our SYT Support Library where you can also check out all of our other incredible Expert Masterclasses on topics related to learning, learning differences, parenting, anxiety and more.
We are here to support you however we can. Come into our community and begin the SHIFT with us.