“The intent of true education is not to fill the minds of learners with information, but to develop in them the desire and ability to critically reflect upon the phenomena around them”
-Beas Dev Ralhan
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), one of the most prominent institutions working in the area of social and emotional learning defines it as “the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.” CASEL has also identified five interrelated competencies that are central to Social and Emotional Learning (SEL): self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
CASEL explicitly states that social and emotional learning can empower young adults to create more equitable and just communities. It aims to create a healthy teacher-student relationship, as well as, healthier family relations. Research evidence suggests that SEL can improve students’ academic performance, citizenship behaviors within the classroom and otherwise, as well as health-related behaviors. It also suggests that these skills predict important life outcomes such as completing high school on time, obtaining a college degree, and securing stable employment.
According to researchers Patricia Jennings of the University of Virginia and Mark Greenberg of Pennsylvania State University, “the quality of teacher-student relationships, student and classroom management, and effective social and emotional learning program implementation all mediate classroom and student outcome”.
In a study by Christopher Murray and Mark T (2006), the authors examined the perceptions children had of their relationships with parents, peers, and teachers; their bonds with schools and neighborhoods; and their social, behavioral, and emotional adjustment. Participants were 96 students in the fifth and sixth grades who were receiving special education services for learning disabilities (n = 40), emotional and behavioral disorders (n = 18), mild mental retardation (n = 18), and other health impairments (n = 20). Findings indicated that both positive and negative aspects of these children’s relationships and bonds were associated with social, behavioral, and emotional adjustment. Furthermore, different aspects of these relationships and bonds were differentially associated with adjustment variables. These findings suggest that it is important to consider how social relationships and social contexts related to the adjustment and functioning of children with high-incidence disabilities. This study also suggested that teachers play a rather huge role in determining their students’ social and emotional development.
Having asserted the importance of SEL, it is imperative to understand how this can be introduced in the mainstream curriculum and teacher training programs. The ISELF foundation, dedicated to the cause of SEL conducted a study and found that teachers consider the following competencies in ranked order, as integral to promote SEL in classrooms: self-management, decision making, relationship management, social awareness, self-awareness. The students, on the other hand, ranked these competencies in the following order: 1) relationship management, 2) self-management, 3) social awareness, 4) decision making, 5) self-awareness
Interestingly, it was noted that both the teachers and students severely undermine the importance of self-awareness as a key competency.
SEL can help to foster a stronger ego resiliency in students and provide them with the necessary skills to cope with stress, manage themselves better and enable a greater self-awareness along with appropriately responding to others’ needs. It may also foster traits such as empathy and pro-social behavior. Kimberly’s research on social and emotional learning and teachers also claims that “Children who feel comfortable with their teachers and peers are more willing to grapple with challenging material and persist at difficult learning tasks.”
However, in order to enable warm teacher-student relationships, the teachers’ emotional health must also be taken care of. According to a survey by the Penn State University in 2017, 46% of teachers report high daily stress during the school year. This is at par with nurses, and only up by 1% for that of doctors. Teacher stress can be a hindrance in maintaining healthy emotional competencies in teachers, which can subsequently obstruct warm relations with students. High stress can also lead to occupational burnout.
The Prosocial Classroom Model by Jennings and Greenburg also illustrates how teachers’ own emotional and mental well-being contributes to a healthy teacher-student relationship, effective SEL implementation, effective classroom management, and consequently, positive academic, emotional, and social outcomes for students. Therefore, teachers’ own emotional health is imperative to be taken into account.
Looking at the Indian scenario of incorporation of SEL, there exists a large scope that remains untapped by the country’s policies. The recent introduction of the “Happiness Curriculum” in Delhi’s government schools may be one step closer to implementing SEL in India. This was followed by Manish Sisodia’s, the deputy chief minister and education minister of Delhi, remark that more than a decade that children spend in educational institutions, “we are successful in making them good engineers, doctors, scientists, managers or other professionals, but do not ensure that they become honest and responsible human beings”.
Having said that, there are a number of private organizations and non-profit organizations such as Light Up, and ISELF which work on creating inclusive classrooms, teacher training programs, and curriculums for school children which incorporate and implement SEL.
It remains to be seen if our country’s education is able to cater to not only rote-based academic learning but also the holistic development of the students.
Bhavyaa Sehgal
