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September 2004 For
more information about CASEL, SEL, and this listserv, including how
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In
This Issue:
From CASEL's Leadership SOCIAL
AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING—THROUGHOUT THE SCHOOL DAY Welcome back to the new school year!
We at CASEL hope the year will be a productive one in which you
renew your commitment to social and emotional learning (SEL) and
find new ways to make children’s social and emotional development
a priority. All of our work here at CASEL is undertaken to help you
achieve that goal. CASEL’s focus has turned
increasingly to practical aspects of implementing SEL effectively in
schools and accomplishing true integration of SEL into the school
day. Two of our major projects at present are (1) an action guide
and accompanying materials designed to help educators improve
implementation of school-based
SEL programming and (2) our work with nine collaborating schools and
districts in Illinois in which we are examining approaches to
effective SEL implementation and assessment. We encourage you to
visit our web site (www.CASEL.org)
for regular updates on these projects. In addition, look for more
information in future issues of this e-newsletter. One of the things we
occasionally hear from educators new to SEL concepts is, “I want
to do SEL, but at my school we don’t have time for it.” We at
CASEL have found that when a school is committed to evidence-based
SEL, staff discover that SEL is not an “extra.” It is an
essential element of K-12 education. Even when schools do not have
explicit approaches to SEL, they invariably affect children’s
social and emotional development in many different ways.
Well-planned, evidence-based SEL programming makes social and
emotional education explicit and its effects more positive. As shown
in our latest publication, Building Academic
Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does the Research
Say? , effective SEL programming is a key part of achieving
a school’s academic mission. How can schools integrate SEL
into the already crammed school day? The feature article in this
issue presents inspiring ideas from some of the country’s best
researchers and program developers. They have understood the
challenges and worked closely with educators to address the reality
of today’s schools and the needs of young people. The ideas and Web links that
follow are just a beginning, of course. True integration of SEL is a
long-term undertaking. Stay tuned. Roger P. Weissberg,
Ph.D.
Mary Utne O’Brien, Ph.D.
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INTEGRATION
OF SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING: FROM IDEA TO REALITY Teaching students core
social-emotional competencies—for example, problem solving,
conflict resolution, and self-management—is basic to social and
emotional learning. CASEL identified 80 different curricula for
teaching these skills in our 2003 program review Safe
and Sound: An Educational Leader’s Guide to Evidence-Based
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs. The experience of educators who
have implemented SEL programming for many years suggests, however,
that in addition to instruction in SEL skills, it’s important to
convey the message and the method of social and emotional
education throughout the school day. If students are encouraged to
resolve conflicts peacefully in the classroom, that learning
should be supported in the hallways, the cafeteria, and the
playground. If understanding and respecting others is an important
aspect of your SEL curriculum, the same skills and values should
be promoted in all school activities. That includes other aspects
of the classroom curriculum such as language arts, social studies,
mathematics, and science. Numerous resources are now
available to help educators integrate SEL instruction with core
academic content areas. Research has demonstrated that this type
of integrated instruction not only enhances students’ social and
emotional competency but can also promote deeper understanding of
academic content and provide a more meaningful learning experience
for students. In the October
2003 issue of CASEL Connections, we shared information
about resources and programs for integrating SEL with academic
content areas at the secondary level. Another CASEL resource is How
Social and Emotional Development Add Up: Getting Results In Math
and Science Education,
edited by, among others, CASEL Leadership Team member Norris
Haynes (Teachers College Press, 2003). In this issue we
offer information about newly developed programs and resources for
integrating literacy and SEL, pre-K-12.
This list is by no means
exhaustive. If you have a favorite SEL or prevention program not
mentioned here, contact the developer to see if they have
materials to support curricular integration. Many do, as they
increasingly realize that time-pressed teachers need
“two-fers”—programs that address two learning goals, such as
literacy and social-emotional skill development, at once.
School-wide and classroom integration of social and emotional
learning will continue to be a major theme in CASEL’s work and
in the SEL field generally.
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New
Reports on the Well-Being of Young Adults Two
major reports on the well-being of youth in the United States have
been released in the past month. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) High School Violence Report According
to this report, based on data from the National Youth Risk Behavior
Survey, most violence-related behaviors have decreased among high
school students in the past decade. However, a greater number of
students report missing school because they feel too unsafe to
attend. In 2003 nearly one in 10 high school students reported being
threatened or injured with a weapon on school property during the
preceding 12 months. You
can download the report at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/wk/mm5329.pdf. Child
Trends Portrait of Well-Being in Young Adulthood This
new brief from the Child Trends DataBank describes key
characteristics of young adults in the U.S. at or around age 25. It
provides the latest available data in areas such as educational
attainment, financial self-sufficiency, and health behaviors. It
also includes profiles of the white, African-American, Hispanic,
Native American, and immigrant populations among this age group.
They reveal distinct patterns of well-being in early adulthood that
can inform future policies directed towards these groups. To
read the brief, “A Statistical Portrait of Well-Being in Young
Adulthood,” or for a link to the full report, go to http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/PDF/Young%20Adults%20Brief.pdf. A
number of other resources on the state of children and youth are
excellent for planning purposes and for comparing local conditions
with national and state trends. One of the best is the Annie E.
Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Book,
with state-by-state information on a wide range of indicators.
Another is The
State of America’s Children Yearbook from the Children’s
Defense Fund. The federal government also releases an annual report
titled America’s Children:
Key National Indicators of Well-Being, available at http://childstats.gov.
A recent book by CASEL’s Roger Weissberg, Mary Utne O’Brien, and
others provides a more historical perspective on the issues: Long-Term
Trends in the Well-Being of Children and Youth. Social
and Emotional Development in Early Childhood Child
Trends Chartbook In
partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics' Center for
Child Health, Child Trends has released Early
Child Development in Social Context: A Chartbook. The
115-page document reviews 33 indicators of social, emotional,
health, and intellectual development for children up to age six and
of family and neighborhood characteristics that affect children's
readiness for school. It includes brief research-based explanations
of the importance of the indicators and considers steps policy
makers, practitioners, and parents can take to improve children's
well-being. The
report distinguishes between “socioemotional development” and
“emotional development.” As noted in the executive summary,
“Socioemotional development refers to the ability of young
children to interact and sustain relationships with others,
including parents, siblings, peers, teachers, and other adults.
Emotional development, on the other hand, refers not to
relationships but to children’s feelings about themselves and
others. It includes such characteristics as self-control,
self-efficacy (the sense of being able to affect events), and the
ability to properly interpret the emotions of others. Which
behaviors constitute healthy social and emotional development vary
greatly by the age and developmental stage of the child. For
example, at age two, markers of good social development focus
heavily on relationships with parents and caregivers, whereas during
kindergarten they would include working cooperatively and playing
well with fellow students and being able to make friends… Good
social skills and positive emotional characteristics are important
outcomes in and of themselves. Also, they can have strong influences
on intellectual development and early school performance.” You
can download the document at http://www.cmwf.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=237483. Developmental
Psychology Research Study A
recent study in Developmental
Psychology examined the interaction between select classroom,
family, and school factors on changes in children’s competence
from the beginning to the end of first grade. The results highlight
the important role schools can play in buffering children from
adverse emotional and behavior effects of certain school and family
risk factors by creating prosocial classroom environments. Over the
course of the year, children who had experienced multiple household
moves before first grade, whose mothers had lower levels of
educational attainment, or who attended disadvantaged schools with
large numbers of families on income assistance showed increases in
behavioral and/or emotional problems. However, children in
classrooms with high levels of prosocial (caring, helping, and
sharing) behaviors demonstrated increases in social competency over
the course of the year. If children were in classrooms with high levels of prosocial behavior,
they did not show increased behavioral or emotional problems by the
end of the year, even if they attended disadvantaged schools,
experienced frequent moves, or their mothers had low levels of
education. Source:
Hoglund, W.L. & Leadbeater, B.J. (2004) The effects of family,
school, and classroom ecologies on changes in children’s social
competence and emotional and behavioral problems in first grade. Developmental
Psychology,40(4), 533-544. Note: In Safe and Sound: An Educational Leader’s Guide to Evidence-Based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs, CASEL reviewed several outstanding SEL programs specifically designed for pre-K-3 classrooms. Two in particular are Al’s Pals and the High Scope/Educational Approach. The majority of the highly rated CASEL Select programs are also designed to be implemented throughout the elementary grades. You can find more information about all of these programs on our web site at http://www.casel.org/about_sel/SELprograms.php SEL
and Classroom Management The
two articles below describe how some schools have made SEL the
cornerstone of their classroom management efforts. To read the
articles click on the following links. Looking
at Classroom Management through a Social and Emotional Learning Lens
by Jacqueline Norris. Good
Behavior Needs To Be Taught: How a Social Skills Curriculum Works
American Educator, Winter 2003/2004 SEL:
Beyond the Classroom and On the Field Effective SEL programming extends beyond the classroom and permeates all school activities, including co-curricular activities. The feature article in the August 29, 2004 Parade Magazine shows how for one football coach, Joe Ehrmann, competition is not about annihilating or humiliating an opponent but rather giving an opponent the best challenge one can by playing one's hardest. The article describes how the “false masculinity” too often foisted on boys can leave them feeling isolated and alone and damages community. As described in the article, Ehrmann encourages boys to develop “strategic masculinity” by attending to their relationships and having a cause beyond themselves. Not incidentally, the teams Ehrmann has coached enjoy outstanding winning records, including a recent state championship. You
can read the article at http://archive.parade.com/2004/0829/0829_coach.html.
Citizenship
Education Resources Hudson,
Massachusetts Superintendent of Schools and CASEL Leadership Team
member Sheldon Berman has published a noteworthy article on
citizenship education in the September 2004 issue of Principal Leadership, the magazine of the National Association of
Secondary School Principals (NASSP). The article describes the
extensive changes Berman has facilitated in his district’s high
school, with a strong focus on citizenship education. “We
have…restructured Hudson's curriculum, teaching practices, and
organizational structure to better enable students to become
effective citizens,” Berman writes. “Our goal is not only to
graduate students who have solid academic skills but also to help
students develop an ethic of service and civic responsibility and an
ability for the thoughtful questioning and investigation necessary
for informed civic participation. We believe that to accomplish
this, students must gain a deep understanding of civic concepts and
directly experience civic engagement. They must experience
themselves as part of a democratic community that values their
voice. As a result, we have created a core ninth-grade course in
civics; integrated service-learning across the curriculum;
restructured the school into smaller clusters; provided time in the
weekly schedule to engage all students in school governance; and
created a community council that represents students, faculty
members, and administrators.” To
read the entire article go to http://www.nassp.org/publications/pl/index.cfm. Developing
Citizenship Competencies from Kindergarten Through Grade 12: A
Background Paper for Policymakers and Educators,
by Judith Torney-Purta and Susan Vermeer, defines citizenship
education as including civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. It
makes the case for starting to teach citizenship education in the
early elementary grades through high school. Experts
Offer Recommendations for Improving Citizenship Education
is based upon the principles in the paper cited above. It summarizes
the work of experts in the field of citizenship education and
policy, including policy makers, teachers, school leaders,
researchers, and scholars. Their recommendations include reviewing
state standards, establishing community connections, and choosing
among delivery options to develop a comprehensive policy. Both
are available on the ECS/NCLC Web site at www.ecs.org/nclc. Michigan
State Board of Education to Adopt and Adapt CEP’s Eleven
Principles of Character Education™ Last
year Illinois passed the Children’s Mental Health Act, which
requires all schools in the state to adopt a policy to promote
children’s social and emotional development. The Illinois State
Board of Education recently posted its model policy regarding SEL
instruction on its web site (http://www.isbe.net/spec-ed/mental_health/cmh_act_instruction.pdf).
By December 31 the board will post social and emotional learning
standards for students K-12. Moving in a similar direction, the
Michigan State Board of Education has agreed to adopt and adapt the Eleven
Principles of Character Education™ developed by the
Character Education Partnership. The Michigan board has recommended
that the Eleven Principles be used to adopt, implement, and evaluate
research-based programs to teach character education in all public
schools in the state. You
can read Michigan’s “Policy
on Quality Character Education” at http://www.character.org/files/character_policy_final.pdf. Wingspread
Declaration Calls for more Caring School Environments In
a recently released document titled the “Wingspread Declaration”
a group of 23 prominent researchers, educators, and government
leaders has called on schools to make a more systematic and
deliberate effort to help students feel connected to school. The
declaration was produced at a conference sponsored by the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and is accompanied by six commissioned
studies in a special issue of the Journal of School Health
(September 2004). The recommendations are based on research
showing that students who feel connected to school get better grades
and are less likely to use harmful substances, attempt suicide, join
gangs, or engage in sex as teenagers. You
can read more about the declaration in an article (“Declaration
Calls for More Caring Environments in School”) in the September 4
issue of Education Week at http://educationweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=02Connect.h24&keywords=viadero
Our
next issue of CASEL Connections will focus on new research and
articles on creating caring school communities, including the
studies in the special September issue of the Journal of School
Health. Sound Bite Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important. —Bill Gates Jennifer
Miller Moves On What
Is CASEL? CASEL—the
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning—is
dedicated to the development of children’s social and emotional
competencies and the capacity of schools, parents, and communities
to support that development. Based at the University of Illinois at
Chicago (UIC), CASEL is working to create a world in which young
people will have the academic knowledge and skills they need to
achieve their goals and will also be caring, engaged citizens
prepared to participate fully in society. CASEL’s mission is to
establish integrated, evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL)
from preschool through high school.
What
Is SEL? Social
and emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing
fundamental social and emotional competencies or skills in children
and creating a caring and supportive school climate. A large number
of school-based programs and practices are designed to do this. Many
evidence-based school programs that focus on positive youth
development, problem prevention, service-learning, and character
education can be considered SEL. They work to develop students’
social and emotional competencies and create ways to nurture and
support students. The resources in this e-newsletter cover a wide
range of topics under the umbrella of school-based SEL programming.
About
This Listserv The FCASEL (“Friends of CASEL”) listserv is intended to keep you up to date on some of the latest SEL research and best practices. To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to http://www.casel.org/listservs/index.php or send an e-mail to Cynthia Coleman at colemanc@uic.edu with “subscribe FCASEL” or “unsubscribe FCASEL” in the subject line. To receive this bulletin in text format only, please send a message to Cynthia Coleman at colemanc@uic.edu with “e-news text format” in the subject line. We respect your privacy and will not share your e-mail address with others. Collaborative
for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
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