Posts in category: Educators

It often looks like a classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees.

School curricula typically favor teaching kids ‘applied knowledge.’  This is the type of knowledge that can easily be tested and graded.  But this tunnel approach often backfires later when graduates enter the workforce.  According to the recruiting firm THE PRINCIPLE GROUP, such ‘soft skills’ as effective problem solving, time management  and collaboration – skills that are given less of a priority in their curricula –  are among the top eight skills that hiring managers value in 2022.

Teachable Skills  

The non-academic ingredients for success are all teachable life skills that Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum provides.  Otherwise known as EQ or Emotional Intelligence, these skills are measurable and deemed critical for creating a successful workforce, notes the National Network of Business and Industry Associations. Still just a small fraction of schools, less than 30%, include comprehensive SEL training in their curriculum.

Increasing the number of schools implementing comprehensive SEL by just one percent means approximately 400,000 more kids gaining critical skills for success in school, work, relationships, and life.

EQuip Our Kids! to the Rescue

EQuip Our Kids!,  a national nonprofit campaign, has taken the lead in raising awareness about addressing this vacuum.  We recognize that parents and businesses can be important partners in advocating for the adoption of SEL curriculum which this nonprofit aims to include in every preK – 12 classroom by 2030.

To help jump start those conversations with key school contacts, EQuip Our Kids! is now offering a free downloadable school engagement kit for parents, loaded with conversation starters and all the talking points needed to start those discussions that can influence decision-makers at the adminstration as well as teacher level to consider the critical benefits of including SEL training into their total curriculum. 

Parents can also help their children continue to  hone these SEL skills at home by taking advantage of EQuip Our Kids! weekly parenting tips. 

Patricia Kutza is a partner (with Connie Payne) in DGMS & Co. Their company offers books and workshops based on social and emotional learning principles to schools, labor workforce units and senior living communities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

In his December 2021 report, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a new Advisory to highlight the urgent need to address the nation’s youth mental health crisis. This important report has recommendations for individuals, families, employers, and others to improve the mental health of children, adolescents and young adults.

“Mental health challenges in children, adolescents, and young adults are real and widespread. Even before the pandemic, an alarming number of young people struggled with feelings of helplessness, depression, and thoughts of suicide — and rates have increased over the past decade,” said Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

Murthy continued, “The COVID-19 pandemic further altered their experiences at home, school, and in the community, and the effect on their mental health has been devastating. The future wellbeing of our country depends on how we support and invest in the next generation. Especially in this moment, as we work to protect the health of Americans in the face of a new variant, we also need to focus on how we can emerge stronger on the other side. This advisory shows us how we can all work together to step up for our children during this dual crisis.”

The report is a call to action for various groups. Here are some key takeaways that highlight social-emotional learning as part of the solution.

We Can Take Action

Support the mental health of children and youth in educational, community, and childcare settings. This includes creating positive, safe, and affirming educational environments and expanding programming that promotes healthy development–social and emotional learning being a prime example. Also, as a society we need to provide a continuum of supports to meet the social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs of children and youth. To achieve this, we must also expand and support the early childhood and education workforce.

What Young People Can Do 

Since many of the challenges young people face are outside of their control, we need a whole-of-society effort to support children’s mental health and wellbeing from birth to adulthood. That said, below are important steps children and young people themselves can take to protect, improve, and advocate for their mental health and that of their family, friends, and neighbors: 

• Remember that mental health challenges are real, common, and treatable.
• Ask for help.
• Invest in healthy relationships.
• Find ways to serve.
• Learn and practice techniques to manage stress and other difficult emotions.
• Take care of your body and mind.
• Be intentional about your use of social media, video games, and other technologies.
• Be a source of support for others.

What Family Members and Caregivers Can Do

Families and caregivers play a critical role in providing the safe, stable, and nurturing environments and relationships young people need to thrive. Below are recommendations for how families and caregivers can engage with kids during this youth mental health crisis, helping them become more resilient and addressing emerging: 

• Be the best role model you can be for young people by taking care of your own mental and physical health. 
• Help children and youth develop strong, safe, and stable relationships with you and other supportive adults. 
• Encourage children and youth to build healthy social relationships with peers. 
• Do your best to provide children and youth with a supportive, stable, and predictable home and neighborhood environment. 
• Try to minimize negative influences and behaviors in young people’s lives. 
• Ensure children and youth have regular check-ups with a pediatrician, family doctor, or other health care professional. 
• Look out for warning signs of distress, and seek help when needed. 
• Minimize children’s access to means of self-harm, including firearms and prescription medications. 
• Be attentive to how children and youth spend time online. Digital technology can help young people connect with friends and family, learn about current events, express themselves, and access telehealth and other resources.
• Be a voice for mental health in your community.

What Employers Can Do

Employers can play an outsized role in supporting the mental health of children and young people. They can directly help younger employees, such as high school students working part-time jobs or young adults starting out in the labor force after high school or college. For example, employers can provide affordable health insurance that covers mental health needs. Employers can also support children and youth indirectly. Below are some recommendations for how employers can support the mental health of young people:

• Provide access to comprehensive, affordable, and age-appropriate mental health care for all employees and their families, including dependent children. 
• Implement policies that address underlying drivers of employee mental health challenges, including both home and workplace stressors. Employers should: Offer paid family leave and sick leave where feasible. 
• Create a workplace culture that affirms the importance of the mental health and wellbeing of all employees and their families.
• Regularly assess employees’ sense of wellbeing within the workplace.

Want to do more in response to the youth mental health crisis? Find out how.

In education today, academic and social-emotional issues are often considered separate. Anything that doesn’t directly relate to students’ academic performance must be dealt with outside the classroom. 

Barely 25% of schools offer a comprehensive approach to Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) along with academic learning. This even though applied knowledge accounts for just a quarter of the skills employers desire. The other three quarters? Well, those are Emotional Intelligence (EQ) skills that are taught through SEL curriculum.

SEL provides an education in emotional life skills that is more than just grades. It can benefit individuals, societies, and even nations on a larger scale. Here are just five of SEL’s many benefits:

SEL Lowers the Mental Health Crisis Among Students

According to the National Alliance of Mental Health, nearly three in 10 parents (29%) say their child is “already experiencing harm” to their emotional or mental health because of social distancing and closures, lack of routines, and other recent and past traumatic stressors. Untreated or undiagnosed mental health conditions are likely to affect a student’s emotional wellness and their ability to learn, develop, and grow.

SEL can equip students with the emotional life skills and competencies they need. It helps kids to develop resilience and effectively manage their behavior, emotions, and relationships with others. An important focus of a social-emotional learning curriculum is the promotion of positive development through fostering social skills. Positive social skills give children feasible tools to regulate their emotions and make good choices about their behavior. 

Research indicates that focusing on social-emotional needs can help reduce anxiety, suicide, substance abuse, depression, and impulsive behavior in kids. This concentration can also help to increase test scores, attendance, and prosocial behaviors such as kindness, personal awareness, and empathy. Teaching kids coping skills, mindfulness, effective communication skills, and self-regulation gives them the resources needed to address various social, emotional, and mental health challenges that hinder learning.

SEL Enhances Personal Career Success

In order for students to achieve success in school, career, and life, children must be taught social and emotional skills—just as they learn reading, math, and science—through instruction and practice. 

Research shows the skills taught in SEL curricula have wide-ranging benefits that affect children’s success in school, career, and life. For instance, kindergarteners with stronger social and emotional skills are more likely to graduate from high school and college and have stable, full-time employment and are less likely to commit crimes, be on public assistance, and have drug, alcohol, and mental health problems.

SEL Benefits Business and the Economy

SEL and employability skills benefit businesses by helping provide qualified job candidates who thrive in their positions. The Harvard Business Review reports that 90 percent of career success comes from emotional intelligence, not academic intelligence. Google found that their most successful teams were ones with psychological safety, not geniuses. 

Self-motivation, time management, communication, problem-solving, and relationship building—some common aspects of SEL—are the types of skills employers often look for. Employers want to hire and retain employees who have the ability to think critically and work effectively with others. Employability skills matter and school-based SEL programs are a way to begin building them. If individuals, businesses, institutions and policy makers declare a full-fledged support for SEL, it will not only benefit the overall economy but even pay for itself many times over.

SEL Reduces School Violence

Violence in schools is a complex societal issue and must be addressed in comprehensive ways. Schools need to implement universal approaches to promote physical and psychological safety. Research has found that social-emotional skills can lead to safer schools. 

A landmark meta-analysis examined 213 studies of K–12 school-based SEL programs and found that students in schools that implemented such programs had significant improvements in social-emotional skills (such as identifying emotions, perspective taking, and conflict resolution) and fewer conduct problems. These schools also reported less aggression and delinquent acts, showing a direct link between SEL and safer schools.

Parents Prefer SEL

There has been a positive change over the past couple of years. Recent research indicates that more than 80% of parents support education that grows their child’s emotional life skills. Parents believe working through social-emotional issues productively within a specific curriculum has many positive outcomes for students. They regard education to be more than just academics, to be more than grades.

SEL guarantees many more benefits. What’s needed now is for policy makers and the education system to give SEL the priority required to support an education that is more than grades and to ensure the success of an emotionally and socially equipped U.S.

Written by Devyani Nagbhirey