I paraphrased a comment Alisa made today on SEL:
There is a national educational ‘trend’ right now – lots of public schools are talking about SEL (Social Emotional Learning) this year. It’s their initiative du jour. SEL means creating a positive, trusting, low-anxiety learning and playing environment.
I will intentionally seek hope with this new stated direction. Perhaps the overwhelming science is actually influencing educational policy. Maybe the pendulum is actually swinging back from all the ravages of NCLB and Race to the Top – which never delivered on the promised benefits from all the high-stakes testing data.
It never did inform and improve instruction – it actually ate up the most crucial resources of time to teach, and funding for hands on deck (which got traded out for more expensive test-taking, analysis, & technology…)
In my district they are talking about faculty SEL, saying that students cannot hope to have appropriate SEL if their teachers don’t first have it.
Maybe we are about to wake up from our broad collective nightmare.