The reality that we all face as teachers and leaders, and that no one seems to be talking about, is how the demands on our schools and curricula are so vast that we are now asked to do much, much more than inspire skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic.
My how times have changed.
As schools are thrust into the intriguing demands of social-emotional learning (SEL), we have to wonder how we ever got here without it. We also have to ponder what the end-game of schooling will be someday if we must figure out how to navigate the pressures of covering so many content standards in so little time along with teaching our children how to manage their emotions, build strong relationships, improve their social skillsets, and gain life-long confidence.
What we might find out is that these social skills are the very things that our schools should have been teaching all along. It is not to say that we don’t want our students to be highly accomplished as readers, writers, artists, scientists, and mathematicians. That sounds good to me.
Still, it is more accurate to say that if something has to give, the emotional health of our kids cannot be the thing that we don’t get around to.
Why? Because their lives are on the line. Because there are worse things than not mastering advanced equations or iambic pentameter.
SEL: What life has to teach us about, you know, life
The American Psychological Association has produced some fine research for us to apply to this work. One of the recent articles I enjoyed was about the social-emotional requirements of being married or staying married (not counting, of course, “saying you’re sorry”). The APA points out that marriage requires a much more demanding skillset than dating, probably because it demands that we navigate struggles over the long-term in creating a sense of confidence that we will get through this no matter what.
I am not sure if this is called grit or perservance or street-smarts. Whatever we call it, our kids desperately need it and our parents and schools must consider infusing these skills into our curricula somehow, someway.
It is also connected to the very real challenge we find when our students leave high school (and their homes) to attend college, only to find that they cannot handle it and return home without much succcess.
As a place to begin, let us review four key college-readiness and life-readiness skills adapted for our use as SEL lessons (and with thanks to the APA for its research):
Four skills that our kids must master to succeed in, you know, life
Separate emotionally from your family in developing your own identity.
- One such skill is independence. This is hard to define, though it is related to having self-confidence and maintaining strong emotional security. Whatever we call it, we can all recognize it in people when we see it. This is evident and quite impressive in young people when they can fully articulate their life plans with such purpose and excitement that you can see their lives unfolding before you. This is especially true when we hear young adults express a series of life steps and core beliefs that do not sound as if they are coming from someone else, such as their parents or high school guidance counselor. This separation from our families is not to say that we won’t forever maintain a deep love and gratitude for our parents, counselors and teachers. It just means that we must reach a point where our lives are truly our own, where we stand up and say: I seek my own identify. I am unique. I have purpose. I know what I want and I’m going for it.
Learn to confront and master the inevitable crises of life.
- Another series of tools that we can help our students to master are coping skills. In the end, the very most we can wish for our children is that they do not shrink from the challenges of life, that they are not consumed by the very real crises that arise, and that they are not drawn asunder by the crushing failures they may face. This is not simply a tough-it-out message that our parents or teachers sometimes offer our kids (for some things are not so easy to endure). These skills have more to do with working through a series of emotional and practical mechanisms for tackling life’s problems as they arise, learning from our mistakes, and coming out stronger on the other side. It is important for young people to know that things in life will go very, very badly at times, but that strength and positivism and hope can rise out of darkness.
Express differences, frustrations and conflict in a safe and positive manner.
- Conflict management is another key competency that we should wish for our children. In fact, let’s go even further and suggest that resolving differences isn’t only possible, but can be accomplished in a productive and respectful manner if we work to meet each other half-way. Differences of opinion dominate much of our adult lives, from politics to marriage to the workplace. Expressing ourselves in a respectful manner is not only a critical endurance skill, it is a sign of intelligence and confidence. It is one way of saying that I value you and your opinions, that I hope to learn from you, that I don’t know it all, and that we can learn from each other. I find your ideas compelling and thought-provoking. I am honored to be in the conversation, even if we agree to disagree.
Use humor and laughter to keep things in perspective.
- One of life’s earliest and most enduring human qualities is knowing how to laugh, to tell a joke, and to take a joke. It is often listed on the standard inventories of pre-school competencies, mostly because telling and understanding jokes requires higher-order skills like listening, picking up on the nuances of the joke, understanding the wordplay involved, and appreciating things like irony and understatement. Beyond all that, humor and laughter are shown to have positive health benefits as stress-reducers and perspective-givers. Our young adults would be well-served to know that life really is too short and that the quicker they learn not to take life too seriously (or themselves too seriously) the better they will be at keeping the good and the bad in perspective.
Like you, I am not quite sure how all of this will play out in our schools over time, except that our kids need these skills and it is our job as adults to provide them what they need to succeed. As much as I really do not want our schools to take on one more thing, we have to question who will grow our young people emotionally if we do not do it. We have to admit that some of our school content has grown too dense and too distant for many of our learners and embedding social-emotional lessons may be one way of increasing their engagement. We must ponder if our current curricula and lessons that are heavy on content and light on context are designed to meet our students’ needs and interests or our own. And, to be perfectly honest, we have to consider if there are worse things in life than not mastering advanced equations or iambic pentameter.
