Having a vision of success in bringing social–emotional learning and emotional intelligence (SEL/EQ) into one’s school or system is a necessary but insufficient condition for achieving that success. Much depends on the process of turning one’s ideas into action.
The Collaborative for Academic, Social, Emotional, Learning (www.CASEL.org) has devoted extensive time to studying the implementation of school-based efforts to promote social–emotional skills; to create caring, safe, drug-free communities of learners; and to prevent an array of problem behaviors.
CASEL’s approach has been field-based, derived from many years of observing and working in schools as they have sought to carry out SEL/EQ curricula and schoolwide procedures. Many of their findings were summarized in Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators (Elias et al., 1997). These guidelines, which are in a constant state of analysis and refinement, are summarized in the section that follows. This version is based on the most current work, at the time of this writing, by Hank Resnik and the CASEL Leadership Team.
1. Effective EQ schools are built around specific, developmentally sequenced instruction in life skills and social–emotional competencies using evidence-based approaches. EQ is a skill area, not a disposition or set of character attributes. As a skill area, it requires specific instruction every year, much as math and reading do. It cannot be infused into other areas or it will lack the salience needed for children to access and use their EQ skills in a wide variety of situations, especially stressful ones, when no adult is present to prompt them. And like other subject areas, it is least likely to be internalized if it is presented in isolation or if it is not coordinated with instruction in related areas. Examples of those areas include health education; efforts to prevent, smoking, alcohol, drug, and steroid use; HIV/AIDS prevention, violence prevention; and citizenship and service education. Furthermore, EQ strategies need to be incorporated into disciplinary procedures and efforts to remediate identified problems in students.
2. Communications between school leaders and staff members and among the school, parents and families, and the community must emphasize the relationship of SEL/EQ to academic success. It is important that school leaders not allow themselves to be passive in light of the tyranny of negative publicity around schools and test scores. Sheldon Berman, superintendent in Hudson, Massachusetts, found that parents and community members were at least as interested in having children living in the community who were kind, caring, and nonviolent as they were in having kids who were smart. Berman’s point was that schools and communities need not choose; it is possible to have both. He saw that communications about his SEL/EQ programs and activities were not only sent home on a regular basis but also provided to local newspapers. The coverage allowed parents and other community members to understand what the schools were doing that had clear relevance to the enhancement of community life.
3. Effective EQ schools provide their EQ-building efforts with clear administrative support, adequate staffing, attention to infrastructure, sufficient time for implementation, and stable funding. It is important that the district administration, school board, and educators’ unions show explicit support for the design and implementation of EQ in schools. Curriculum leaders need to ensure that EQ curricula and related activities are aligned with district goals and relevant state and national standards. (The CASEL Web site will serve as an ongoing resource to assist in these efforts.) SEL/EQ cannot be an add-on. It must be someone’s clear responsibility, and that someone will need access to a budget, resources for training and supervision, and administrative support. (There is an additional element to this that will be discussed in a concluding section.)
4. Classroom-based SEL/EQ instruction serves as a launching pad for the use of SEL/EQ skills throughout the school day and in school-linked activities. A launching pad provides a powerful send-off, and so it is not uncommon to find that schools with effective SEL/EQ programs engage students as active partners in creating a classroom atmosphere characterized by caring, responsibility, trust, and a commitment to learning and service. More than that, there is a clear expectation created that what is being learned are skills for sound character, which means that children are expected to use their EQ on the playground, at dismissal, on the bus, and on class trips. This expectation is part of what it takes to shift norms in schools to ones in which learning, caring, leading, and striving for a productive future are not nerdy, but typical. Two middle schools in Ridgewood, New Jersey, adopted innovative SEL/EQ norms. At George Washington Middle School, the community knows that the school is “a Learning Place, where Caring is shown, Dreams are born, and Leaders are made,” and academics and school activities are organized around those themes. At Benjamin Franklin Middle School, students learn that, “You are the news,” a powerful metaphor enacted in an extensive media-based approach to SEL but even more widely affirming that the school is about them and that their deeds define who they are and what their school is and will be.
5. In EQ schools, skills from formal SEL instruction in the classroom are continually transferred to everyday life and reinforced in all aspects of the school day and throughout the school community. For SEL/EQ to have a powerful impact, it is important for efforts to extend outside the classroom and into academic subject areas; with a focus on creating positive climate, grade level themes are carried through into special projects and other schoolwide activities that give visibility to SEL/EQ efforts. In addition, the approaches and skills used in SEL/EQ curricula should be coordinated with mental health, health, and other support services in the school district and community for children and youth. Finally, cultural sensitivity to sociodemographically diverse students and communities is essential when planning SEL/EQ activities in the school and community. Synergy allows a strong, consistent message to be conveyed.
6. Active involvement of parents and family members in many different aspects of the students’ learning is a way to bring EQ into the home. Schools need to review their patterns of regular communication with parents and families and strive to make them more effective and inclusive. Programs and support resources that will help build families’ EQ skills and sensitivities only serve to help children come to school ready to learn and to contribute. Yet these efforts must also respect cultural differences and build on family strengths and values.
7. An infrastructure to allow coordinated, sustained SEL/EQ efforts in schools includes well-planned, high-quality professional development and supervision at all levels of administration and instruction. Someone needs to have clear responsibility for EQ enhancement in school buildings and in a district overall. Superintendents and principals can be so charged, but often their duties and backgrounds do not make them the best choice. Therefore, a designated committee or individual who will coordinate social–emotional development considerations is associated with long-term success of SEL/EQ in schools. Duties include focusing on continued training needs for new and experienced staff members, arranging for coaching and other teacher supports, and emphasizing and operationalizing peer leadership, teamwork, and mutual support among school staff in all aspects of SEL programming.
8. There is an ethical and practical responsibility to ensure that formal and informal SEL/EQ activities have clear implementation and outcome criteria and are monitored regularly to ensure that they are carried out as planned and that their desired outcomes are achieved.
The key question for administrators to be asking of themselves and their staff is, “How will we know when our efforts are successful?” Indicators of progress or problems must be used or developed that make sense to the staff. But time must be allowed for reasonable progress. It is also important to heed the words of veteran principal Tom Schuyler, who said, “That which is valued is checked up on.” Therefore, procedures need to be put in place to ensure that SEL/EQ responsibilities are being carried out as planned. This can include methods such as checking lesson plans and periodically collecting activity feedback sheets, as well as having time for reports on SEL/EQ as part of grade level, subject area, and overall faculty meetings. Feedback from consumers is also important (i.e., staff members who implement, children who are recipients, and families and community groups that are involved). Summer curriculum development time is an excellent way to pull together feedback and make modifications for improvement. Results should regularly be shared with the school community and parents.
The chapters in Part III of this book provide clear examples of different ways to accomplish the task of making SEL/EQ a reality in one’s school. For educational administrators, these guidelines can be a source of information about what has worked in practice. They can serve as guard rails and organizers for one’s efforts. But one essential point that CASEL has come to understand is the following: Successful, enduring, high-quality implementation of EQ + IQ in schools requires mentoring and personal contact with those who have made it happen in their schools or districts, preferably schools and districts similar to one’s own.
Although the chapters have been written to illuminate the path taken, as well as what the destinations look like, many educational administrators will want more specific implementation guidance. In addition to the expertise and experience available from the authors and editors of this book, administrators seeking mentoring and peer support can also look to CASEL. To facilitate sharing of experiences as one’s work in SEL/EQ proceeds, CASEL has created a network of superintendents and other educational administrators.
In addition, CASEL has set up a listserv on its Web site for a range of educators who are implementing SEL/EQ in their classrooms or schools. In these ways, CASEL attempts to facilitate direct contact between aspiring and experienced implementers. The latter have invariably encountered and overcome the same sets of obstacles that often stop fledgling SEL/EQ efforts in their tracks. Representative obstacles documented by CASEL (Elias et al., 1997) include the following:
• “There is not enough time in the curriculum.”
• “We are accountable to standardized tests, not social–emotional needs.”
• “This is the work of guidance counselors, social workers, and school psychologists.”
• “It’s the parents’ job, and they should be doing it, not us.”
• “This has not been part of my training, and I am not qualified to carry it out.”
Finding a human contact and source of support for initiating and sustaining SEL/EQ efforts play a large role in overcoming these obstacles, as well as others linked to initiating and sustaining any school change effort.
Knowing the kinds of information that will be discussed in the chapters in Part III is also highly useful. For example, the implementation cycle requires about 2 to 3 years to get a curriculum program established in several grades or to initiate a buildingwide SEL/EQ plan. Moving into adjacent grade levels and coordinating across buildings takes an additional year or two, and moving to a district level realistically is a 5- to 7-year process. Once in place, however, IQ + EQ becomes the basic operating modality of one’s educational system—a rich reward of transformation as a return on systematic, sustained, supported efforts.
Having an ongoing forum for support and tangible assistance and problem solving can often make the difference between implementation success and failure. What has distinguished the contributors in this book is their unwavering commitment to their vision of implementing high-quality SEL/EQ in their schools as an essential complement to their academic efforts. They are also singled out by their willingness to network, borrow, adapt, and refine and improve their efforts continually as changing student needs and staff resources dictate. Resource B contains additional resources to help administrators find support for beginning, improving, or expanding, SEL/EQ efforts. We wish you support and success.
Elias, M. J., Zins, J. E., Weissberg, R. P., Frey, K. S., Greenberg, M. T., Haynes, N. M., Kessler, R., Schwab-Stone, M. E., & Shriver, T. P. (1997). Promoting social and emotional learning: Guidelines for educators. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.