November/December 1998
Schools Need to Help Kids Be Emotionally Ready to Learn
An Interview with Maurice Elias, professor of psychology at Rutgers University and member of the leadership team at the Consortium for the Advancement of Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL).
HEL: In a recent article you wrote, you referred to social and emotional learning as the "missing piece" in most students' learning. Can you explain that term and why you use it?
Elias: The role of education is for children to be knowledgeable, responsible, and caring. Any two of these is not adequate.
When you look at early childhood education, you see that social/emotional learning is a centerpiece of it. We get away from that as kids get into first and second grade, and it's not clear why. There's a need we see in kids when they're very young and we assume as they get older that it no longer applies. I think that's a big error.
When we look at everything we know about learning, human memory, and the brain, everything points to context. What is the context in which learning is supposed to be taking place? The context of learning is, for many kids, one of the most salient things going on in the school. To not attend to this context is really to deny the reality of the learner. That's why I see social and emotional learning as the missing piece.
Until and unless we recognize that the learner has an emotional and social life that 's going on parallel to the curricular goals of educators, we are not going to be able to capture his or her true attention.
HEL: Critics of SEL programs say they usurp the role of parents in nurturing children's social and emotional development and divert attention away from what school should be focusing on -- specifically, academics. What would you say to such critics?
Elias : One thing that I ask many skeptics to do is to remember their own learning histories. If you think back, you remember that just about all learning is relational. Very few examples of learning occur outside a relationship, whether that be student/teacher, student/classmates, or cooperative learning with group members. Think about the importance that peers and other people played in your own learning. The importance of those things increases as you get into the teenage years, it doesn't decrease. So, to remove these considerations from the classroom makes very little sense.
There are several reasons why people are skeptical. They might have a philosophical belief that social and emotional issues belong outside the classroom. But one thing that James Comer and Daniel Goleman have done a great job of pointing out is that however true that may have been at one time, there are social forces going on right now that make it clear children need extra help in this area. It would be simple for schools to say that parents should be taking care of these issues, but we know that for many kids this just isn't the case. And schools cannot function and carry out their educational missions if kids are not emotionally ready to learn.
Another question I ask skeptics is, "what would your ability to learn be with a tremendous toothache?" If they can understand the same level of discomfort in psychological terms, I tell them that that's what kids are dealing with emotionally. And we essentially tell those kids to leave their pain at the door. Unfortunately, the analogy breaks down at the place of a cure. Tooth pain remedies seem to be a lot quicker than those for social and emotional pain.
HEL: What advice would you offer to teachers or school administrators who are interested in implementing an SEL program?
Elias: Talk to teachers or administrators who have been doing this for a while and learn firsthand from them what it's like. Ask them what issues they've had to overcome to get to the point where they are now. There's a lot of literature that states pretty clearly that teachers learn best from other teachers. The same is probably true of administrators. The appendix in Promoting Social and Emotional Learning, published by ASCD provides the names of contact people who have implemented each of the SEL programs listed. Administrators should contact them to talk about the issues.
The next step is to contact CASEL. They are constantly updating their website. Things have changed just in the short time since Promoting Social and Emotional Learning was written. There may be regional programs near you. The programs listed in this book were, at least at the time of writing, those that had passed several tests: ongoing support for implementation, empirically sound success data, recognition by accrediting agencies or external sources such as the National Mental Health Association or the American Psychological Association; they have been in operation for substantial period of time.
HEL: What do you think are the most important elements in a successful SEL program?
Elias: The first would be continuity. We need to give this kind of instruction the same consistent attention we give reading and math. If we taught reading and math in the same way we teach social and emotional learning, we'd have a nation of illiterates who can't add. As it is, we have a lot of social and emotional illiterates.
Another important element is comprehensiveness. As kids grow up, we can't expect everything to go fine. We have to teach kids basic social and emotional skills and then be prepared to build on these skills. We have to recognize that there are going to be pressures as kids get older to take drugs, start smoking, have sex before they're ready. Just as we can't throw complex books at them without their knowing the fundamentals, we can't expect kids to be able to handle these pressures on their own. If a smoking prevention effort, for example, is linked to prior skill development that kids have, it has a much better chance of success.
Programs also need to be ready to handle kids' specific needs. There are times in children's lives when things happen that are destabilizing: parents may divorce, become unemployed -- some students have parents who die. To think that a child will just continue on his or her normal learning curve in the face of those events is to be so out of touch with kids. Yet, what we do now is let those kids' wounds fester until they develop symptoms: they hit somebody, their grades deteriorate. Then we come in with intervention.
School systems such as New Haven's have had some success with event-triggered intervention, which is brought in not when symptoms appear but as soon as something happens in a child's life. And each community will have its own specific needs. For example, I've done some work with the schools in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, where many children have parents who are on business travel for extended periods of time. This is the kind of thing that has an impact on kids.
HEL: What do you believe are other benefits to SEL besides those you've already mentioned?
Elias: One thing a lot of SEL programs encourage in kids is a motivation to positive contributory service. Being an asset to your family or your school in tangible ways can be very self-esteem building. Also, if we truly want kids to gain a multicultural perspective and to be able to take on the perspective of another person, we need to get kids into the position of thinking about it from the earliest grades. Finally, the need for social and emotional learning seems to go beyond childhood. In Dan Goleman's new book, Working With Emotional Intelligence, he makes a very good case that this kind of orientation is not only good for kids; it's also good for the bottom line.
The Consortium for the Advancement of Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is an organization dedicated to the development, promotion, and evaluation of social and emotional learning programs.
We would like to hear from you. Do you have any questions to ask or comments to add about SEL learning? Please send email to: hepg@harvard.edu. We will post questions periodically and keep an archive of them for your review.
|
