Social-Emotional Learning

Graduation season is here — an exciting time when students are making plans for their futures. Parents and teachers will send them off, hoping they have prepared them well for college, trade schools, the military, jobs or wherever they go next. 

But with artificial intelligence poised to replace some of the very skills that college and career readiness programs have focused on developing over the last few decades, it’s time to redefine what it means for students to be ready for this new technological era and a rapidly changing job market. 

To be future ready, students need strong academic knowledge, workplace skills and training, all coupled with social and emotional skills like collaboration and initiative. While many are concerned AI could replace workers and technical tasks, it’s clear to us that these human skills are the most in-demand skills in the marketplace, and the need is not going away. 

Already, business leaders consistently rank social and emotional skills such as self-awareness, conflict resolution and effective communication among the most valuable in prospective candidates. Scan the job postings for the top in-demand careers, and you’ll find that getting hired as a nurse, software developer or lawyer all require flexible problem solving, teamwork, self-discipline and a host of other foundational social and emotional skills. 

By their very nature, social and emotional skills require human interactions that AI will never fully replicate. While AI may one day be able to display surface-level empathy and creativity, it cannot replace the deep introspection or meaningful connections that create successful teams and thriving workplaces.

This is why, now more than ever, we need to help young people develop critical social and emotional skills that will set them up for success in a rapidly changing, highly competitive job market. These skills can be intensified as a result of experiential learning via paid internships that allow workplace skills to be acquired along with needed academic preparation.

Social and emotional learning — a well-researched approach to developing students’ self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making — should be integrated along with all educational efforts in both K-12 and postsecondary education to prepare young people for career success. If we fail to prepare our children in this way, expect employers like former Google VP Claire Hughes Johnson to start looking elsewhere.

Hughes Johnson puts self-awareness at the top of her recruitment wishlist. To Johnson, technical job skills and experience were secondary to skills like self-awareness since the technical skills could be learned on the job — or, as we’re seeing now, can be replicated by AI. And she’s not alone.

Global companies like Citi have simultaneously increased their digital services while also putting greater focus on new hires’ social and emotional skills required to support the face-to-face interactions clients are still demanding.

Research shows high-quality SEL programs can develop the personal and interpersonal skills that give young people a competitive edge in the workplace. SEL encourages the development of self-awareness, or the ability to understand one's own emotions, thoughts and values — and how they influence behavior across contexts.

Self awareness is critical at work because it allows you to be honest with yourself about where you need to improve, which helps you to be open to feedback to help you grow, learn and become a leader. When working on a specific project, self-awareness enables you to be open to changing course when things are not going in the right direction — by keeping you honest about what’s working and what isn’t.

SEL also develops skills like empathy and curiosity that are crucial to building strong and innovative teams. While AI will replace some technical skills and improve productivity, it’s no substitute for a motivated team member or inspiring leader who sparks creative, out-of-the-box thinking that drives business growth. It can’t replace the networking sessions or the human relationships that create sales and clients, and it has not yet replicated the flexibility needed in unpredictable problem-solving jobs.

The future of work is bound to evolve now that AI has the capability to take on some tasks. But this very evolution is what requires social and emotional skills like adaptability, problem-solving and perseverance.

It is now more crucial than ever to invest in teaching these durable social and emotional skills that apply across industries and integrate them with an effective, high-quality academic curriculum. SEL offers a pathway that helps our young people succeed, no matter what the future holds.

Teens ages 13-18 said their mental health, motivation, relationships with friends and overall happiness have improved since the early months of the COVID pandemic, according to a survey conducted by Morning Consult, a business intelligence company, and EdChoice, a nonprofit that advocates for school choice.

Black teens, Hispanic teens, teens from urban areas and adolescent boys were somewhat more likely to report feeling better than other groups. LGBTQ students, adolescent girls, and those living in rural areas were least likely to say they were thriving.

Around half of teens reported they feel supported by their schools when it comes to academics and their future, but only one-third of survey respondents said they feel supported by their schools in terms of mental health. 

The survey, which included a sample of 1,000 teenagers questioned between March 24 and April 5, revealed more than half of respondents reported feeling happy, hopeful and having a sense of purpose. But while 42% said they felt satisfied with their academic performance, only 29% said the same about their mental health. 

When asked if school contributes to their well-being, 61% said school contributes "a lot" or "a little." Some 22% said school harms their well-being.

Although higher percentages of respondents reported positive views of how their schools address guns (40%) and violent behaviors (36%), only 31% reported positive viewpoints on how their schools support mental health. 

"Schools play a crucial role in the overall wellbeing of our youth, and it's concerning to see a relatively small proportion of teens feel supported by their schools when it comes to mental health," said Paul DiPerna, vice president of research and innovation at EdChoice, in a statement. 

DiPerna said the disparities found in the survey point to a heightened need to make sure students are in learning environments that meet all their needs. "We hope this survey serves as a wake-up call for policymakers, parents, and educators to prioritize giving families more choices in where and how their children are educated and where their social-emotional needs are met," he said.

Other results from the survey include:

• In-person or remote. Students were split on in-person versus hybrid learning, with 42% saying they prefer five days a week of in-person learning and 47% saying they would like to learn remotely up to four days a week.
• College plans. More teens this spring — 35% compared to 29% the year before— said they expect to enroll in a four-year, in-state college after high school.
• Changing schools. About 33% of students said they have changed schools over the past three years, other than moving from middle to high school. About 40% of those who changed schools had done so two to four or more times.
• School safety. Fewer students (28%) than parents (52%) said they were worried about a violent intruder entering their school.
• Learning areas. Over half of respondents (58%) said learning skills for future employment was "extremely important." Fixing social problems and learning core academic subjects came in last as "extremely important", identified by just 38% of students each.

Writing exercises such as memoir-style essays or letters to their future selves can help students make connections to their feelings, allowing them to reflect on their emotional states while strengthening both their writing and social-emotional skills.

Literacy experts suggest reading and writing prompts can serve as mirrors or windows, helping writers including students better understand themselves and others, said Heather Schwartz, practice specialist for the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning. And these assignments can be used in any subject and across grade levels.

“While it may seem like the purview of humanities classes, teachers in any subject area can use writing to help students explore and strengthen their academic mindsets,” Schwartz said.

“Integrating writing and SEL can be as formal as students studying iambic pentameter to write sonnets about an experience in their lives or as informal as an opportunity to journal independently,” Schwartz said.

Very young students can draw pictures to express their feelings and ideas about a story, or dictate their narrative or thoughts to their teacher. Older students can start writing from sentence prompts. Schwartz recommends “I Am From” poems as a way for classes to “explore their identities through the senses,” she said. 

Other activities Schwartz suggests include learner autobiographies, which allow students to think about the kind of learner they are and explore life experiences that may have shaped them. She understands many students may not have confidence in their writing abilities, but said encouraging them to have fun with their work — and bringing writing into their classroom activities often — can help to strengthen their belief in their abilities, voice and confidence.

“Challenge students to keep writing even if they don’t know what to say,” Schwartz said. “Don’t worry about spelling and punctuation during a first draft or journal prompt. There will be plenty of time to practice those critical skills.”

However, Schwartz does caution educators to be sensitive to the environment they’re creating when encouraging students to write or talk about their thoughts and feelings. Classrooms should be structured so pupils know they are both safe and supported — no matter what, how or if they decide to share. In that way, students will feel more comfortable talking about their ideas and working with classmates, which can in turn help to build stronger classroom communities.

“While it is not necessary that students share their reflections every time, providing opportunities to share out answers with peers can strengthen classroom relationships and give insight into your students’ lives,” she said.

While the middle school years have often been a challenging time for both young people and their educators, social media and the social-emotional fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic have brought even more hurdles.

After two years at the district level as director of learning and innovation for Georgia’s Grady County Schools, principal Derek McCoy returned to North Carolina to lead the 400-student Havelock Middle School in 2022. He had previously led middle schools in the state’s Rowan-Salisbury and Cumberland County school districts.

K-12 Dive recently spoke with McCoy to learn more about what it takes to guide students through these changes and how he works with teachers and families to build a proactive school culture.

K-12 DIVE: The middle school years can be a difficult and complicated time to guide students through beyond just academic needs. How much more complex has the social-emotional side become following the pandemic and amid things like TikTok challenges? 

DEREK MCCOY: Oh my gosh, yes. So, it's tough. Typically, elementary gets a lot of focus and unique attention, and high school gets a lot of unique and different attention. And middle school just typically kind of gets left off. When people want to come into education, they typically want to come work with elementary age kids, or if they're strong in content … they want to go to high school. 

Middle school is like that last piece, but we have to find those gems, and that's what makes it worthwhile. So add growing a staff to those things that you just mentioned. 

Everybody has felt the stress of returning, and we're back in school, but we’re still feeling the implications of the pandemic — job-wise or moving-wise or even stress- and economic recovery-wise. Or the trauma that people deal with from their home life that comes to school. For a lot of schools, that's compounded by people who are still learning to teach and deal with the normal part of teaching but then also have to deal with this new added layer of need that presents itself. 

Then you have social media challenges. I'm a proponent for growth with social media. My learning trajectory has changed because of social media. But we have young influencers now, young followers now, who will see a challenge or they'll have entire emotional cycles through social media. Conflict will start, and it will go to a whole other level on social media. And then it comes to school. And [students] don't know how to handle that conflict. 

And again, some schools are dealing with cuts. So we're dealing with less staff to deal with more significant recent problems. We're fortunate that our school district is just rethinking some things, trying to do some things different, to help support new people, new personnel, and our community and what we do. It really is tough. 

With all the problems social media can present, how much more important has it become for you as a principal to make sure there are digital citizenship lessons in the school? 

MCCOY: It's critical. Our district pulled together a couple of good resources for that.

As a school, we have an everyday mission about being kind and being the kind of person you want people to be to you. So it is constant. We cannot do enough and say enough for that piece. 

We dedicate morning time every day, from 8:15 to 8:30, for kids to engage in those lessons and some other kinds of lessons, just for that awareness piece. It's critical, and it's needed. 

There's a lot that we have to rethink in education. We still are pretty much trapped by reading, writing, math, classes and blocks of time. We have to get a more integrated and better approach to how we integrate and prioritize the kindness and the stability and the emotional health and respect we need our kids to show one another. 

You've touched on this a little bit already, but in the elementary school years, you're basically building students’ foundational academic skills, and then you get to middle school, and that's when students are really starting to discover their voices and explore who they are. As a principal, how do you help teachers in your building navigate meeting both those academic and human growth needs? 

MCCOY: What we do here at the middle school level cannot be just about reading, writing and arithmetic. It has to be about the cultural part, the societal part, of being a middle schooler, where they are looking for a different level of socialization. They are looking more into their culture in terms of what they like to do and who they like to do things with. 

Often, our piece has to be teaching them more of the value of inclusivity rather than the drama of exclusivity. Because that's where a lot of kids get isolated or they feel mistreated, they feel bullied, when they feel like they're being left out intentionally. And there could be some of that, but it's often that we're developing our social circles, and we don't know how to include, but it's easy to exclude. 

So our talks with teachers have to be about, “Here's what the 11-, 12-, 13-year-old brain does.” And again, it's still developing. It’s still growing. So we have to paint that portrait of a middle school learner. And we have to paint a bigger picture. It can't just be about the learning that happens within our four walls.

When we can create authentically curious learners, that makes everybody's job and everybody's work and fascination that much deeper and that much easier. It's incumbent upon us to not just think like the teachers we were, or the teachers we had when we were in middle school. In the book, we say, “Don't be the teacher you had as a student. Be the revolutionary your learners need you to be.”

What you were saying about brain development really stands out, too, because at that stage of life and growth, in those preteen and early teenage years, the brain's a lot more geared toward instant gratification without as much thought to consequence.

MCCOY: Yes, sir. And add to that the new value system that social media is presenting out there. What I mean by that is, “How many followers do I have? If I do this short video, can I get a bunch of likes? Can I get a bunch of followers?” That instant gratification — with very little thought of consideration to the value that it has or to the implications that it may have. 

There's a lot of content out there, people who might be doing some self-aggrandizing things, but they might also be doing some unkind things or whatnot. But it's all toward getting more looks, it's all toward getting likes — that instant gratification piece. 

It is incumbent upon the schools to have that component where we talk about being socially responsible, being kind, sticking up for one another, and what kind of person — what kind of friend — do you want to be?

And again, all of that is compounded with a lot of the ramifications from the pandemic and the recovery from it and how slow it is to get things to a different and better spot. 

Coming back from the pandemic, one of the initial challenges was a viral TikTok trend that involved vandalizing school bathroom fixtures. How are you navigating issues like that?

MCCOY: When that was hitting — one was, like, the restroom mirror, and another was sinks and soap dispensers — it was jarring. 

Thankfully those challenges, I don't wanna say stopped, but they were greatly halted. 

I remember when it happened, not at this school, but at my last school. We didn't know what was going on until somebody shared it with us. We had to do some schoolwide announcements, some community announcements, just to put it out there and let people know. 

But a lot of that goes back to the adolescent mind looking for some things to participate in, looking for some followers, not even thinking about the implications or the consequences, and just making some very poor choices. So we have to monitor. We have to be on top of it. 

I do a monthly virtual community talk the first Thursday of the month. I'll talk for about 15 minutes on schoolwide stuff, and then I'll just open up the floor to the parents for any discussions that they want.

We talk about things like social media or emotional health, just to make whoever can attend aware and to give them some dinner conversations — because that's where the win is gonna be: When we can get parents to help us, when we can inform parents and make them aware. 

When we can make them aware, they can have conversations that head off a lot of these things. The victory for that is not going to be punitive, it's going to be preventive. It’s going to be an education. It's going to be in talks about why we should or should not do this, or the good and the value of not doing that. Those are the talks and the wins we need to have. 

Under a House Republican-led proposal, school districts nationwide would be required to publicly post their curricula, as well as provide parents with a list of library books, according to a fact sheet on the legislation introduced Wednesday. 

The bill would also require teachers to offer two in-person meetings with parents each school year and bar schools from sharing student data with tech companies without parental permission. 

In the first half of 2022, 84 bills in 26 states were pre-filled or introduced that would broaden parents' rights in schools, according to an analysis from FutureEd. Many educational professionals, as well as Democratic policymakers, however, say such legislation is not necessary, and that parent involvement has always been and will be encouraged.

The “Parents Bill of Rights Act” was introduced with fanfare at a Wednesday event on Capitol Hill by House Republican leaders including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee. It currently has 72 cosponsors.

"I know, as all the parents in here know, that children are our greatest blessing and we will do everything we can to help those children succeed," Foxx said.

Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., said there's only a short window for children to stay innocent. "Let's let them learn colors, addition and reading. We don't have time for them to learn anything that's inappropriate," he said.

Some Republicans in Congress, as well as in state and local politics, have been critical of classroom efforts to teach about racial injustice and gender identities or to provide social-emotional learning. There are also claims that parents' involvement has been pushed aside or that parent voice is not respected.

That's not so, said U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in an opinion article published in Newsweek March 1, the same day the legislation was introduced. Cardona wrote that of nearly 10,000 parents he and his staff have met with over the past two years, none said they wanted schools to be the centers of culture wars or partisan politics. 

Among several measures Cardona said the U.S. Department of Education is taking to ensure parents' voices are heard, he said the department is "vigorously enforcing" student and parental rights under federal laws.

National Education Association President Becky Pringle also rejected the narrative that parents' rights are being limited in education decisions. NEA is the nation's largest teachers' union.

"In every community across the nation, parents and educators continue to be partners, working to ensure all students, no matter their race or background, have the opportunity to succeed," Pringle said in a statement. 

Pitting parents against educators is harmful, Pringle said. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., "would rather seek to stoke racial and social division and distract us from what will really help our students thrive: an inspiring, inclusive, and age-appropriate curriculum that prepares each and every one of them for their future."  

The National Parents Union, a network of parent organizations and grassroots activists, also condemned the bill in an emailed statement: "This bill has nothing to do with parent rights and everything to do with the radical culture wars that serve as a distraction from what our students’ really need to recover from the pandemic."

However, in a tweet, Moms for Liberty, an organization that promotes the defense of parental rights, thanked the bill's sponsors for focusing on parents' rights at the federal level. "Parental rights are Fundamental Rights that the government doesn’t give you and can’t take away," the tweet said.

While there's evidence and recognition that students' mental health has worsened over the past few years, the pandemic cannot hold all the blame. Other risk factors, such as systemic racism, anti-gay bias, harmful behaviors related to social media, and other stressors may also carry some of the fault, according to a new report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

These complicated and varied influences on youth can make solutions seem unattainable, and there's a lack of "dynamic and collaborative efforts" to find those solutions, the report said. The report did find "greater willingness" among educators to partner with caregivers and parents to support children's social, emotional and mental health.

Other promising practices noted in the report include purposeful efforts by teachers and administrators to give students agency and greater voice and choice in their learning and development, as well as communitywide coordination in social-emotional learning and behavioral supports. 

CRPE's report draws on input from a four-person panel of education and youth development experts. It is a follow-up to a 2021 paper that called for schools to invest in mental health supports for students in the aftermath of pandemic-related school closures.

Both reports are part of a series included in The Evidence Project, a CPRE initiative studying the impacts of the pandemic on K-12 and related solutions-based research.

"Helping young people right themselves emotionally will require many individuals, organizations, and agencies to organize around a unified vision of what success looks like for young people and to build the tools to measure progress toward that vision," the latest report said.

The report promotes three systems-level strategies for impactful change:

• Embrace technology innovations. Although some technology-based efforts did not work well for all students, there are pandemic practices that have longer-lasting potential. Virtual parent-teacher meetings and virtual counseling sessions, for example, can make it easier for parents and teachers to connect and for students to meet with counselors.
  
  Additionally, some asynchronous learning approaches can free up time during the school day for discussions, collaborative work and relationship-building.

• Don't make SEL compete with other efforts. The panel noted other education initiatives, such as positive behavior interventions and anti-bullying efforts, that may seem in competition with SEL as distinct concepts but are really parts of an overarching goal for mental wellness.
  
  Schools should take a holistic approach with these different but aligned efforts rather than other goals. Conversations about these connections could also prevent the politicization of SEL and the narrative that SEL programs take focus off of academics.

• Build and integrate data systems. Fragmented or incomplete data systems on youth well-being can contribute to less efficiencies in response to concerns and making connections with factors influencing students' mental health.
  
  In making changes to data systems, school and community leaders can ask, “Who is best positioned to design and manage a community-wide data system for youth well-being and development?” Other questions to ask include: What measures need to be tracked, and what barriers need to be overcome to enable policymakers to develop and administer these measures?

In response to controversial new laws with implications for curriculum content, the Florida Board of Education has unanimously approved a required training and certification for librarians, media specialists and others on how to select library and reading list materials. 

Approved during a Jan. 18 school board meeting, the required training includes criteria for books and media. The training would also apply to all teachers who have classroom libraries.

The move follows laws enacted in Florida that LGBTQ and racial equality advocates worry were put in place to restrict inclusive learning content. 

"This very important training will also support educators in making decisions over the appropriateness of literature that are in our libraries," said Paul Burns, Florida's deputy chancellor for educator quality, who introduced the training during the meeting. 

The prohibitions in the statute and training include visual representations of a nude person or body parts and explicit and detailed descriptions of sexual conduct, among other things considered "harmful to minors." 

The training warns educators to "err on the side of caution" when considering materials and reminds them that violating these and other requirements could result in a third-degree felony charge, which in Florida is punishable by up to 5 years in prison, a $5,000 fine and up to 5 years of probation.  

During the school board meeting, the training received mostly supportive comments from members of the public, who asked to increase the materials and content schools must restrict under state law. Many voiced support to further narrow the language in the training that currently allows some materials with "literary value."  

"I'd like to challenge that evaluation of books, because not all literature is beneficial for students — the key word is ‘beneficial.’ Educational value is not equal to literary value," said Jamie Merchant, mother of a 3-year-old and an elementary school teacher's aide. "Literature containing descriptive details of rape, abuse, trauma, etc. does not bring value to 12- to-18-year-olds."

School districts and principals, Merchant said, should not be able to make judgments on what is valuable for all students.

Also speaking at the meeting, Bruce Friedman, Florida chapter president of No Left Turn in Education, said he plans to challenge 1,800 books in total. Friedman said he had already challenged over 500 books, 50 of which had been removed from his children's school. Another attendee asked the department for a list of books prohibited in schools statewide.

Jack Knocke, executive director of Nassau's County Citizens Defending Freedom, told board members he was concerned about materials entering schools that concern diversity, equity and inclusion or teach social and emotional learning. "We need to look further beyond what this issue is talking about … the vendors are laughing at us as they push materials in schools," Knocke said. "So we've got to get smarter."

The few who spoke against the training said it encouraged censorship and sidelined students of color and LGBTQ students.

"My family came from the former communist bloc, and we know censorship, and we know the dangers of censorship," said Donna Kauffman, a Florida bookstore owner who said she has been in the publishing and book industry for 40 years. "And when I hear that there is a government body that is going to decide what is questionable and inappropriate, I get concerned." 

The new required training is another effort by the Florida Department of Education to enforce recent state measures restricting materials on LGBTQ and race-related subjects. Florida, along with Texas has emerged as leading efforts to restrict classroom materials.

Last October, Florida approved a strict implementation of the curriculum restriction laws, including a rule allowing teachers to be fired and have their licenses suspended or revoked if they “intentionally provide classroom instruction to students in kindergarten through grade 3 on sexual orientation or gender identity.” 

In April 2022, the department rejected math materials that included graphs on racial prejudice and lessons with SEL as lesson objectives.