Social Emotional Learning

Why does SEL belong in schools?

Students spend most of their time in school, so to ignore their social-emotional learning needs for the 30+ hours a week they spend in classrooms would be a waste of precious developmental learning time. School is also the place where students encounter the bulk of their social interactions, challenges, and opportunities for personal growth. Certainly, schools and teachers have been providing way more than academic learning for decades. However, research shows that by providing consistent, purposeful, and robust SEL programs, students can benefit in multiple ways.

According to The Pennsylvania State University and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation research brief Social Emotional Learning in Elementary School, “extensive research shows that SEL programs can promote academic achievement and positive social behavior, and reduce conduct problems, substance abuse, and emotional distress. Benefits of SEL in the elementary years have been documented in reviews by independent research teams and through meta-analyses which demonstrate the immediate and long-term positive outcomes of well-designed, well-implemented SEL programming.”

An NPR report on SEL notes that “kids who act up a lot in school and at home — even very young kids — are more likely to have mental health problems and commit crimes years later as adults.” Thus, researchers have set out to create SEL programs that serve as emotional intelligence interventions, discovering that much like we teach academic subjects, emotional intelligence can also be taught.

Why do we need social-emotional learning more than ever?

Students who receive social-emotional interventions early and throughout their learning careers demonstrate impressive and measurable benefits later on in life. The research is hard to ignore: The development of social-emotional skills in kindergarten leads to the higher likelihood of obtaining a college degree, adult employment, and lessens one’s chance of substance abuse or getting into trouble with the law as an adult (Jones, Greenberg, & Crowley, 2015). A Teachers College Study showed that, on average, for every dollar invested in SEL, there is a return of eleven dollars — a return on investment most investors would envy. Further, SEL practices could be highly effective when it comes to closing the achievement gap, disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline by furnishing undeserved populations with the critical foundational skills necessary to succeed in higher education and the workplace. SEL also includes Restorative Justice programs that have been known to reduce suspensions and keep kids in school.

The lasting impact of SEL

Long-term, SEL improves our students’ attitudes toward learning and their self-efficacy. The mounting research is staggering and it all points to social-emotional learning as a key to bolstered graduation rates, increased enrollment in institutions of higher learning, greater capacity for workplace success, improved mental health, reduced crime, and overall healthier relationships and self-efficacy amongst citizens. In a 2017 follow-up study to a 2011 SEL study, it was found that the effects of SEL continue to benefit students even years after their learning. “In follow-up assessments, an average of 3.5 years after the last intervention, the academic performance of students exposed to SEL programs was an average 13 percentile points higher than their non-SEL peers, based on the eight studies that measured academics,” the study notes. “SEL continued to boost student well-being in the form of greater social and emotional competencies, prosocial behavior, and prosocial attitudes. Furthermore, SEL students showed lasting decreases in negative outcomes such as conduct problems, emotional distress, and drug use, compared to control groups.”

As the collective understanding of trauma-informed practice deepens, this necessitates a move toward classrooms that cover emotional intelligence, self-awareness, emotional regulation, interpersonal relationships, and positive decision-making. SEL is a powerful mechanism for instilling long-term social and emotional resilience and addressing student trauma.

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