Whole Child
Whole Child Education stresses that students learn best when their academic, emotional, physical, and social needs are met. The Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) has established a major new multi-year Whole Child initiative advocating a broader definition of educational achievement and accountability. Specifically, the initiative calls for communities to make sure each student:
- Enters school healthy and learns about and practices a healthy lifestyle.
- Learns in an intellectually challenging environment that is physically and emotionally safe for students and adults.
- Is actively engaged in learning and is connected to the school and broader community.
- Has access to personalized learning and is supported by qualified, caring adults.
- Is challenged by a well-balanced curriculum and is prepared for success in college or further study and for employment in a global environment.
Promoting physical, social, and emotional health as the foundation for success in school is the essence of the approach defined by The Whole Child. As such, the initiative recognizes SEL as an essential component of local, state and national policies and practices to support healthy and high-quality education for all students. ASCD’s report on The Whole Child specifically calls for SEL polices and practices, using the SEL policy work established in the state of Illinois as an example. (See pp. 12-14 of The Learning Compact Redefined: A Call to Action).
Character Education
Many programs refer to themselves as both SEL and character education
(CE). The CE movement seeks to create schools that foster ethical,
responsible, and caring students by modeling and teaching good character.
CE emphasizes common values, such as respect, responsibility, honesty,
fairness, compassion, courtesy, and courage. The goal is to help
young people develop socially, ethically, and academically by infusing
character development into all aspects of the school culture and
curriculum.
Although SEL and character education have much in common, SEL programs
tend to address a broader array of outcomes, such as drug use, violence,
social relationships, academic engagement, and health. SEL can be
thought of as helping students develop the social and emotional
skills necessary to enact good character.
Service-Learning
Service-learning integrates community service into the classroom
curriculum. Students learn and use academic skills, perform needed
service, reflect on and learn from their experience, and provide
tangible benefits that serve the community. Young people, guided
by teachers, are encouraged to take the lead, at levels appropriate
to their age and skills, in responding to genuine needs in their
school or community. SEL can enhance the quality of service-learning,
both for the students and the community. Students who prepare for
their service-learning activities and reflect on them using self-awareness,
social awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible
decision-making will be more effective in their service roles. Similarly,
service-learning can be one component of integrated, schoolwide
SEL programming. Particularly at the high school level, service-learning
offers schools a developmentally appropriate way to practice and
reinforce core social and emotional competencies.
Positive Behavior Supports (PBS)
PBS evolved from the special education tradition as a method to
address the emotional and behavioral needs of students who experience
significant difficulties. PBS as an intervention model for individual
students has evolved in recent years to address the broader student
population and school environment. Schoolwide PBS focuses on establishing
consistent expectations for behavior, positive approaches for teaching
the requisite behaviors, and strategies for reinforcing the expectations.
The targeted behaviors are determined by individual schools and
form the basis of systematic “management strategies”
(Lewis & Sugai, 1999). PBS and SEL programming both address
the needs of all children; however, SEL has a slightly different
focus, with an emphasis on emotions and development: developmentally
appropriate, sequenced skill-building instruction provided in a
caring school environment that promotes children’s positive
development and success in school and life. SEL extends beyond the
management and discipline emphasis of PBS to focus on the development
of the whole child. See the Illinois PBiS Network web site to learn more about the PBS approach and its relationship to SEL.
Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups in
which students work together to maximize their own and each other's
learning. The research clearly indicates that cooperation, compared
with competitive and individualistic efforts, typically results
in (a) higher achievement and greater productivity, (b) more caring,
supportive, and committed relationships, and (c) greater psychological
health, social competence, and self-esteem (Johnson & Johnson,
1989). Because of its positive effects on many important outcomes,
cooperative learning is a valuable tool for educators. Cooperative
learning plays an important role in fostering the SEL competencies
of social awareness and relationship skills by systematically structuring
the basic elements of cooperative learning into group learning situations.
Those essential components are positive interdependence, face-to-face
promotive interaction, individual and group accountability, interpersonal
and small group skills, and group processing (Johnson, Johnson,
& Holubec, 1993). Development of these skills both promotes
academic success and also prepares students for teamwork required
in work settings.
Differentiated Instruction
Differentiated instruction is a teaching theory based on the premise
that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted to individual
and diverse students in classrooms. It allows students to take greater
responsibility and ownership for their own learning and provides
opportunities for peer teaching and cooperative learning. Differentiating
is now recognized to be an important tool for engaging and addressing
the individual needs of all students (Tomlinson, 2001).
Just as with SEL, at the heart of differentiated instruction is
attention to knowing the individual child. Schools committed to
differentiated instruction will find SEL to be wholly compatible
with this orientation, since SEL can enhance the connections between
students and teachers, in turn improving the ability of teachers
to identify and respond to the needs and strengths of individual
students.
Prevention
Research has shown that the skill development promoted by SEL programs
helps prevent high-risk behaviors such as drug use, violence, and
early sexual activity that put adolescents at risk for HIV/AIDS
and other sexually transmitted diseases, adolescent pregnancy, and
suicide. Because these behaviors have roots in many of the same
factors and can be addressed by similar prevention strategies, there
is growing support for a coordinated approach with the goals of
preventing risky behaviors and also promoting positive youth development.
SEL provides a framework for coordination of school-based prevention
efforts.
Positive Youth Development
Positive Youth Development (PYD) refers to "supports, services, and/or skills that promote healthier youth attitudes and abilities" (Nystrom et al., 2008). Instead of working to prevent specific high-risk behaviors, this approach focuses on developing protective factors and assets that promote thriving and help youth develop to their full potential. Youth preparation, participation, and shared leadership are key principles. SEL and PYD both seek to enhance student resilience by fostering students' social and emotional competence, and by establishing caring environments characterized by high expectations and youth participation. PYD places a larger emphasis than SEL on out-of-school, community-based programs, activities, and organizations. At the individual level, beyond social and emotional competency, PYD also specifically stresses youth autonomy, nurturing a belief in a positive future, youth voice, youth participation and youth empowerment.
Restorative Justice
Restorative Justice is used in school or youth settings as a means of redressing student misdeeds or harm to others, and is intended to serve as an alternative to in-school or out-of-school suspensions or other punitive disciplinary practices for certain types of student misbehavior. Rather than punishing students in a way that may further alienate them from the school community, the goal of restorative justice is to allow students to learn from their mistakes and retain or regain acceptance in the school community by repairing the damage they have inflicted, while still holding students accountable for their actions. In addition, since victimization can also engender feelings of alienation, the caring and support shown by the community to the victim can also help reintegrate victims with the community.
As summarized in a recent article:
"The principles and philosophy of restorative measures are congruent with many programs and curricula that teach social emotional learning and classroom and behavior management. Restorative practices- circles to repair harm or restorative group conferences, as well as family group decision making and restorative peer juries- give educators an effective means of helping students practice the social skills they have been taught, under real and significant circumstances." [ Riestenberg, N. (2008). Positive youth development and restorative practices. Journal of Youth Development, 3(1), 080301PA003].
Community Schools
A community school is both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources. Using public schools as hubs, community schools bring together many partners to offer a range of supports and opportunities to children, youth, families and communities. Schools become centers of the community and are open to everyone – all day, every day, evenings and weekends. The integration of academics, health and social services, youth and community development and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families and healthier communities. (References: Coalition for Community Schools (www.communityschools.org); Communities in Schools (www.cisnet.org).
The Community Schools Movement shares many values with SEL including the importance of safe and caring school environments; the nurturing of life skills by building social and emotional competencies; the development of the whole child who learns from various experiences; and an emphasis of family support and involvement.
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