IL Social Emotional Standards

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children develop awareness and management of their emotions, set and achieve important personal and academic goals, use social-awareness and interpersonal skills to establish and maintain positive relationships, and demonstrate decision making and responsible behaviors to achieve school and life success. There is a strong research base indicating that these SEL competencies improve students’ social/emotional development, readiness to learn, classroom behavior, and academic performance. The SEL goals, standards, and benchmarks were initially developed by a broadly representative group of teachers, school administrators, student support staff, human services professionals, and parents with expertise in child development and learning, curriculum design, and instruction. After the standards were written, public comment and feedback provided the writing team with information used in revising the standards before adoption by the ISBE. Criteria for SEL Standards The standards and benchmarks were expected to meet the following criteria: • Be clear and meaningful to educators, students, parents and the community • Include an appropriate combination of knowledge and skills • Be specific enough to convey what students should learn, but broad enough to allow for a variety of approaches to teaching and aligning curriculum • Be specific