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What is SEL?
What is SEL?
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.
Having SEL skills help people to become more resilient, which helps them to deal with effects of difficult or adverse events in their lives. Resiliency is the ability to bounce back over and over again, which is a skill we all need to thrive. SEL skills equate to being responsible for yourself and the consequences of your decisions and behaviors. Research shows that these skills lead to better academic achievement, improved behavior, and improved mental health.
If we are not promoting SEL, then incidentally we are promoting unhealthy mental states for our communities. Imagine if Dentists didn’t promote dental hygiene and regular dental checkups? Imagine if Medical Doctors didn’t promote a healthy lifestyle?
Teaching these skills is another story. This means to provide a place to offer information for students to discover how and to practice to regulate their actions, their behaviors, and their awareness, and also to gain emotional, social, and sensory self-management.
What does SEL entail?
What does SEL entail?
5 Components of SEL:
Self Awareness
Self Management
Responsible Decision Making
Relationship Skills
Social Awareness
SEL Topics
Executive Functioning
Trauma Informed Practices
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Risk and Protective Factors for Resiliency
Resiliency
Gratitude
Empathy
Cultural Responsiveness and Competency
Fixed vs Growth Mindset
Self Awareness
The ability to accurately recognize one’s emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism, and a “growth mindset”.- Identifying Emotions
- Accurate Self-Perception
- Recognizing Strengths
- Self-Confidence
- Self-Efficacy
Self Management
The ability to successfully regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes effectively managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals.- Impulse Control
- Stress Management
- Self-Discipline
- Self-Motivation
- Goal Setting
- Organizational Skills
Responsible Decision Making
The ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of oneself and others.- Identifying Problems
- Analyzing Situations
- Solving Problems
- Evaluating
- Reflecting
- Ethical Responsibility
Relationship Skills
The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes the ability to communicate clearly, listen actively, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate social pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and to seek and offer help when needed.- Communication
- Social Engagement
- Relationship Building
- Teamwork
Social Awareness
The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.- Perspective Taking
- Empathy
- Appreciating Diversity
- Respect for Others
Executive Functioning Skills
Executive Functioning Skills
Trauma Informed Practices and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Trauma Informed Practices and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Being trauma-informed means knowing and recognizing our own trauma experiences to help us understand our students’ experiences too.
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, in collaboration between the CDC and Kaiser Permanente, looked at the possible health and social effects of ACEs over the lifespan. This study found that experiences of abuse, neglect and family dysfunction between birth and age 18 can disrupt brain development and limit social, emotional and cognitive functioning, impairing the child’s ability to think, organize thoughts, control emotions, and their overall ability to learn. ACEs are often the root cause of many serious academic, social and behavioral problems that have the potential to prevent a child from receiving the full benefits of education.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/acestudy/index.html
With the COVID pandemic uprooting all of our normal lives, and political unrest simmering throughout the county, a presidential election in Nov 2020, and wildfire danger in our area, all of our students are experiencing trauma right now! Trauma can affect how our brain functions and can cause us to “flip our lid” more often. See “The Hand Model of the Brain” below for more information on this.
ACES.pdf
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Risk and Protective Factors for Resiliency
Risk and Protective Factors for Resiliency
Child/Person: Abilities and Needs
Family: Circumstances and Relationships
School: Practices and Environment
Life Events: Opportunities and Stressors
Social: Access, Inclusion, and Social Cohesion
Resilience
Resilience
Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress.
Our ability to bounce back.
https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience
A combination of factors contributes to resilience. Many studies show that the primary factor in resilience is having caring and supportive relationships within and outside the family. Relationships that create love and trust, provide role models and offer encouragement and reassurance help bolster a person's resilience. Several additional factors are associated with resilience, including:
The capacity to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out.
A positive view of yourself and confidence in your strengths and abilities.
Skills in communication and problem solving.
The capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses.
Resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have. It involves behaviors, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone.
Being resilient means to have the capacity to adapt to difficult and challenging situations and to be able to overcome adversity in life, to have toughness. Those with strong resilience are able to bounce back quicker from challenging situations with less stress than someone with low resiliency skills. Resilience is the ability to continue down our paths without growing weary or losing heart.
The American Psychological Association gives 10 Ways to Build Resilience:
Make connections
Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems
Accept that change is part of living
Move towards your goals
Take decisive action
Look for opportunities for self discovery
Nurture a positive view of yourself
Keep things in perspective
Maintain hopeful outlook
Take care of yourself
The Resiliency Wheel
The Resiliency Wheel
Provide Opportunities for Meaningful Participation:
This strategy views young people as resources and involves them as active participants. They take on responsibility by making decisions, planning, evaluating, and implementing projects.
This strategy views young people as resources and involves them as active participants. They take on responsibility by making decisions, planning, evaluating, and implementing projects.
Increase Pro-Social Bonding:
Strengthening connections between the individual and pro-social persons or activities. e.g. in schools increase family involvement, create engaging afterschool programs.
Strengthening connections between the individual and pro-social persons or activities. e.g. in schools increase family involvement, create engaging afterschool programs.
Set Clear, Consistent Boundaries:
Be consistent and fair in implementing policies and regulations; this might be most effective in combination with youth participation.
Be consistent and fair in implementing policies and regulations; this might be most effective in combination with youth participation.
Teach "Life Skills":
Teaching such as conflict resolution will help people navigate environmental changes.
Teaching such as conflict resolution will help people navigate environmental changes.
Provide Caring and Support:
Caring relationships are elements of promoting resiliency. Research increasingly points out that supportive environments and climates are essential for learning.
Caring relationships are elements of promoting resiliency. Research increasingly points out that supportive environments and climates are essential for learning.
Set and Communicate High Expectations:
High and realistic expectations are excellent motivators; cooperative and interest-based learning strategies such as service learning are effective.
High and realistic expectations are excellent motivators; cooperative and interest-based learning strategies such as service learning are effective.
Gratitude
Gratitude
When practiced regularly, gratitude can significantly increase our well-being and productivity. It has been shown to improve life satisfaction and happiness, help build peer connections, and decrease feelings of anxiety and depression as well as peer conflict.
There are 4 types of Gratitude. Each person experiences and responds to gratitude differently, and knowing another’s gratitude type can maximize the effort.
Gratitude Types:
Public Recognition: receiving appreciation out loud (kudos during staff meetings, shout out section of bulletin, recognition awards, etc)
Private Recognition: receiving appreciation one-on-one (notes of gratitude, personal emails, conversations, etc)
Acts of Service: receiving appreciation by making life easier (helping in the classroom, sharing lesson plans or templates, making copies, etc)
Notes and Gifts: receiving appreciation by receiving something (gift card, favorite snack, special note, etc)
Empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings and emotions. It is essential to building good relationships, both at work and in your personal life. People who don’t exhibit empathy are viewed as cold and self-absorbed, and they often lead isolated lives. Sociopaths are famously lacking in empathy. Empathy is not agreement, it is understanding. Conversely, someone who is empathetic is perceived as warm and caring.
The research shows that empathy is partly innate and partly learned. Everyone can improve, however. Here are eight ways to strengthen your own empathy altered from Andrew Sobel:
1. Challenge yourself. Undertake challenging experiences which push you outside your comfort zone. Learn a new skill, for example, such as a musical instrument, hobby, or foreign language. Doing things like this will humble you, and humility is a key enabler of empathy.
2. Get out of your usual environment. Travel, especially to new places and cultures. It gives you a better appreciation for others.
3. Get feedback. Ask for feedback about your relationship skills (e.g., listening) from family, friends, and colleagues—and then check in with them periodically to see how you’re doing.
4. Explore the heart not just the head. Read literature that explores personal relationships and emotions. This has been shown to improve the empathy of young doctors.
5. Walk in others’ shoes. Talk to others about what it is like to walk in their shoes—about their issues and concerns and how they perceived experiences you both shared.
6. Examine your biases. We all have hidden (and sometimes not-so-hidden) biases that interfere with our ability to listen and empathize. These are often centered around visible factors such as age, race, and gender. Don’t think you have any biases? Think again—we all do.
7. Cultivate your sense of curiosity. What can you learn from a very young colleague who is “inexperienced?” What can you learn from a client you view as “narrow”? Curious people ask lots of questions (point 8), leading them to develop a stronger understanding of the people around them.
8. Ask better questions. Bring three or four thoughtful, even provocative questions to conversations you have with others.
https://andrewsobel.com/eight-ways-to-improve-your-empathy/
Here is another resource, a NY Times article "How to Be More Empathetic": https://www.nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-be-more-empathetic
Cultural Responsiveness and Competency
Cultural Responsiveness and Competency
Culture is a constantly changing, learning pattern of customs, beliefs, values, and behaviors, which are socially acquired and transmitted through symbols, rituals, and events and which convey widely shared meanings among its members. Culture includes gender, age, sexual orientation, geographic location, ethnicity, values, personality, ability status, marital status, and job position.
Cultural Responsiveness is the ability to learn from and relate respectfully with people of your own culture as well as from other cultures.
Cultural Competency is the ability ability of individuals and systems to respond respectfully and effectively to people of all cultures, classes, races, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, ability statuses, and faiths or religions, in a manner that recognizes, affirms, and values the worth of individuals, families, tribes, and communities, and protects and preserves the dignity of each. Cultural competence is a continuous process of learning about the differences of others and integrating their unique strengths and perspectives into our lives.
3 Types of Cultural Competency:
Surface: Observable and Concrete; Food, dress, Holiday traditions.
Shallow: Unspoken rules around social norms and concepts of time, non verbal communication; required interpretation of social behavior and "social violations", which can create anxiety.
Deep: Knowledge and unconscious views, ethics; when we are not in Deep Cultural Competency is when cultural shock can happen.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MCm9aNZiViZnTdaD8bfGEMjXFbpkG-0U/view?usp=sharing
Fixed vs Growth Mindset
Fixed vs Growth Mindset
SEL Frameworks, Research and Data
SEL Frameworks, Research and Data
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