Knowledge
Let’s take up the #SELforMySchool Challenge!
Awareness of social and emotional needs and managing them becomes important in such a dynamic environment.
So, this new year invites you to take up the #SELformySchool Challenge!
Why is it needed? The academic pressure is immense! The teachers are not trained! Parents don’t feel we should waste time on it! My management will not support me, after all, they are giving salaries to teach! We are already doing it!
You may have one of the above as your ready response and all may be valid. Fine, let me share why I am going to take up the #SELformySchool Challenge! Why I plan to pay more impetus on it. Well through this article I am not planning to persuade you or tell you why you should but it is for me. Since my childhood, I have been a learner who registered the knowledge best by writing or making notes and this is what my plan is. I am putting my words in printed form so that I will be resolute and determined and feel better connected to my thoughts. You too have the choice to pick whatever seems sensible and meaningful to you!
Social and Emotional Learning is taking center stage as a coherent philosophy across the globe as an affirmative response to the challenges of these VUCA times. The rapid rate of change and the array of choices are both the biggest boon as well as bane for this generation. The networked and sans-boundary world of today expects an altogether different set of skills. It demands more open-mindedness, tolerance, and collaborative skills to be acquired, as learners interact with bigger and more diverse environments.
The aim of school today is to prepare the child to navigate the change successfully in this uncertain and unpredictable “New Age”. The new age is in a state of constant flux, evolving, and strangely sometimes simply turning completely upside down. The world is going to be steered and led by the new-age learners, who are being taught content that gets obsolete the very next day. Hence, evolving young brains must be equipped with the skills required for the unpredictable future.
Social and Emotional Learning is not a fixed ideology but an open-ended attempt to embrace the complexity and wholeness of human life. SEL aims at helping individuals be the most that they can be. In its true sense education with a holistic perspective aims at the development of every person’s intellectual, emotional, social, physical, artistic, creative, and spiritual potential. It seeks to engage students in the teaching/learning process and encourages personal and collective responsibility. This becomes achievable when the focus is not just on building the cognitive but also the effective domain. Social and Emotional Skills regulate an individual’s thoughts, emotions, and resultant behavior. These skills majorly impact managing emotions, self-awareness, and empathy.
Social and emotional learning is not just for students. It’s for all stakeholders involved with the young people. SEL as a practice is now essential to teach social and emotional skills to students, their families, and their educators. Through social and emotional learning (SEL) children and adults acquire and effectively apply the KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities) essential to manage emotions, set and achieve life goals, nurture empathy, maintain effective relationships, and take mindful decisions. Acquisition of Social and Emotional Intelligence directly correlates to how academically, socially and professionally skilled a child will be as an adult. It helps in developing individuals who will be able to find solutions and innovate to the challenges of the future. Studies and reports also indicate that lack of SEL also correlates with undesirable personal and professional outcomes in life, like unemployment, maladjustment at the workplace, bad health, and violent and criminal behavior.
We need to have a proper plan in place about how to implement SEL in schools. SEL programs need to be designed to foster children’s social and emotional skills and competencies by: (a) teaching specific skills through direct instruction which ensures introducing and explicitly modeling SEL skills and facilitating children to apply them across diverse situations and settings through real-life case studies; (b) making classroom and school climate conducive and supportive, by improving teacher’s practices and school rules and regulations; and/or (c) shaping student mindsets like their self-perception, their connection with the immediate environment, etc.
In this era of information-free flow, for sure an aware educator knows that at the core of optimal learning is a school community that promotes, teaches, and models Social and Emotional Intelligence. Today our children have to invariably cope with complex human and physical world relationships that demand them to identify and manage their emotions, have assertive interpersonal connections, respect and define healthy boundaries, and courageously take responsibility. According to Daniel Goleman this “intelligence”, can be made part of our pedagogical practices by adopting various Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) methods and strategies.
It is hence essential for educators to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of SEL and have a proper plan in place to implement it. The best is to engage students in experiential activities and case studies with clear real-life connections. As an SEL practitioner for more than a decade and a half now I can vouch that even though the focus is on building the SEL skills of the students but it deepens the self-awareness, empathy, and social skills of the teachers, enriching their Social and Emotional Intelligence. Various tools and strategies used by teachers for developing skills in children to deal with the concerns related to conflict management, stress reduction, and resilience, empower not just the students but also the SEL educator.
The action plan for promoting SEL is very organic. It evolves and gets more effective through reflection, experience, and sharing, and gradually creates the path that best fits the unique school community.
Now the point is why still most schools have not successfully identified the value of developing SEL. Why our classroom focus is still on the academic syllabus? Well, this new year invites you to take up the #SELformySchool Challenge! Who can deny that Social and emotional skills are indicators of how well a person adjusts to their environment, how well they adapt to change, and, ultimately, how successful they will be in life? The core skills such as extroversion, conscientiousness, adaptability, emotional stability, and amicability are equally or rather even more vital than cognitive skills in determining personal and professional success. Hence, understanding how consequential these skills are to live, the school leaders will have to put in all efforts required to eliminate the struggles of the teachers to find effective ways to include, prioritize, teach and assess social and emotional skills.
We as schools need to understand that the core competency in the coming future as humankind which is on its way to creating and inventing a device or an app for almost most any need, is Social Emotional Learning. It is important as it only can nurture and develop individuals who are sensitive enough to navigate such brilliant systems and not get overwhelmed feeling too powerful for having created something phenomenal or at the other end feel disconnected and lonely. Hence, awareness of social and emotional needs and managing them becomes important in such a dynamic environment.
So, when we practice Social-emotional learning at the school level, it helps students to learn to manage their emotions and be aware of their feelings and also identify the reason for what is making them feel that way. This also helps to learn the important skill of empathy and how to show care and concern for those around them. Not just this, but this also enables students to learn to solve problems effectively and find logical solutions, rather than agonizing about the problem. Students learn to value people more, without feeling judgemental or biased. So a total awareness at social and emotional levels reduces distress and reactions, resulting in fewer disciplinary issues. The outcome reflects improved class engagement, higher test scores, and better grades.
So much work needs to be done, Phew!!! We need to come together as a collaborative learning community to provide a bank of resources, support, and capacity building to assist teachers to aid the transition from a purely content-focused curriculum to a competency-based one. These skills need to be incorporated into collaborative, experiential learning classrooms. A teacher can develop these skills by planning activities that involve students working collaboratively in teams.
As all stakeholders including parents acknowledge the power of SEL strategies and their proven success, the effectiveness, and efficacy of implementing SEL improve. We all will have collaborates and share all knowledge and resources to felicitate this transition. The school leaders will have to come together to share the best pedagogical practices to incorporate SEL, forge a more well-rounded education system, and nurture more socially aware and responsible citizens who will be better prepared to work together to design better communities, nations, and as a result, a better world.
Author – Dr. Neha Sharma, Principal, GD Goenka Public School Ghaziabad, Former Deputy Secretary, CBSE