Social Emotional Learning In Schools Lifts Student Grades, Says Loyola University Chicago Study

According to a study led by Loyola University Chicago professor emeritus Joseph A. Durlak, learning about social skills in the classroom may increase students' academic success.

The report specifically focused on the effects of social and emotional learning (SEL) initiatives in K-12 classrooms. The study concluded:

"[It] appears that SEL programs are successful at all educational levels (elementary, middle, and high school) and in urban, suburban, and rural schools... Results from this review add to a growing body of research indicating that SEL programming enhances students' connection to school, classroom behavior, and academic achievement."

SEL programs focus on social themes rather than academic study, letting students role-play and take part in problem-solving activities to learn how to react to and process emotions.

The Courier-Journal reported on one such program in Jefferson County, Kentucky. Through the district's Care for Kids Initiative, students are educated on different conflict resolution strategies and other themes related to effective communication.

Wilt Elementary School teacher Jessica Hill participates in the Care for Kids Initiative. Once she started teaching her pre-kindergarten class SEL themes, they wanted to get involved. She told the Courier-Journal:

"The kids have been learning about various community organizations and have developed a particular interest in the effort to help stray or abandoned animals in our area."

Aside from encouraging social responsibility, the study suggests that SEL programs cultivate habits that will help the student learn more effectively. The report stated:

"Students who set high academic goals, have self-discipline, motivate themselves, manage their stress, and organize their approach to work learn more and get better grades."

The study also showed that programs initiated on a one-teacher, one-classroom basis fared much better than national programs. Durlak told Education Week,

"The more-comprehensive and broader programs tended to have more implementation problems. Trying to do more in the schools tends to be harder, takes more coordination, involves more people -- they're a lot harder to pull off."

Comments

[jeff albin]

01:08 PM on 02/10/2011

I'm glad this is finally getting national attention. Some of us working in schools have been trying to get this across for years. On my blog I publish emotional intelligence activities every week to help teachers connect with kids.

http://loudfartnoremorse.blogspot.com/2011/02/landing-and-launching-installment-16.html

[chaya]

11:11 AM on 02/08/2011

"Students who set high academic goals, have self-discipline, motivate themselves, manage their stress, and organize their approach to work learn more and get better grades"

The study didn't need to be done. This is a fact that has been known for hundreds of years. What is different is the fact that teachers are now needing to do this--instead of parents.

[bryanzth]

11:08 AM on 02/08/2011

@ sheeple herder (10:15 am)
Who writes: "The point is that moral upbringing should be done in the home not in the schools."

My reactions:

"Should be done in the home"

Yes, from birth, *social* upbringing of a new kid among other kids among a family among a larger family and among neighbors and a neighborhood gradually becomes understood by the learner as _moral_ upbringing. This cannot be done starting at school (even as early as daycare or kinder, much less waiting for 1st grade), because building a socially conscious person must start at the very day of birth. I don't know how a person can gain social emotional learning all of a sudden in a class.

"not in the school"

I presume you mean "not in place of in the home", no? Because that, beyond mom and dad, kids, larger family, neighbors, neighborhood and even the school itself (sans the class) are places where a new human gradually refines his social maturity. All of this should be happening under the guidance of the family and environs as the kid is growing (Mrs. Potatoes complains about destruction of flowerbed to the parents -- she is is involved, but not the final say of course).

There is nothing wrong with a fine-tuning or a larger conversation and interaction about what one has learned since birth, how families differ in their social understanding and how now different cultures can seek to find balance and complement each other to preserve the peace.

So, not one or the other, but a process that starts at home with responsible parents (who once themselves were responsibly educated in this matter) and transitioning to a program/curriculum that allows for the careful parental standards to meet in public peaceably without exploding into violence. It's for the benefit of all that we do this.

BZ.

[sheeple herder]

11:57 AM on 02/08/2011

Absolutely, social/moral growth doesn't stop in the home. The point is that in an institutionalized system the point of view of the instructor can be viewed by a student as infallable, afterall, teachers are there to teach fact and instruct in proper application of these facts. In that sense I see a very dangerous situation where your "social responsibility coach" aka your teacher is pushing a one sided viewpoint. It would be the same as you sending your child to school and the teacher turns on Limbaugh (or Schultz depending on your viewpoint) and explains to the children what the men on the radio say is fact.

As you say though, there is obviously nothing wrong with fine-tuning social skills, as that is done daily with every personal interaction one has. I also don't have any issues with teachers reenforcing the ideas of setting high academic goals, having self-discipline, motivating themselves, managing their stress, and organizing their approach to work, these are necessary life skills, but broad terms leave room for possible abusive interpretation that students could be subjected to.

[bryanzth]

09:57 AM on 02/08/2011

My relatives, who have two teens, claim that you can't force children to learn social graces and that they have to explore these things themselves While cultural Catholics they are not really religious, and the kids have little or no knowledge of ethics, philosophy and religion of any culture, much less their own. I am not sure if that is good or bad (I barely escaped the nuns with my sanity). They are not goths, and the kids are now in their mid teens (15 and 16), but they are not exactly social, not really having more than one regular friend each, and not really close.

Can they learn social graces, the art of negotiation, leadership skills (as well as loyalty and obediance) and how to live with others who are very different than us? I dunno. Can that be done without guidance? I am not sure at all. They should not give robotic nor oblivious responses, but it appears to me that we can't let that happen without guidance or we get a combination of libertarian isolates, Columbine victims and neoconservative economic combatants without soul or grace.

Social Emotional Learning, if not done by socially mature parents? How done? I say not at all. And then we will have the anti-social problems we are seeing all over the country.

BZ.

[bryanzth]

10:00 AM on 02/08/2011

EDIT: Last paragraph: "They say, not at all. If not at all, then we will have the anti-social problems we are seeing all over the country."

BZ.

[lowery2008]

05:18 PM on 02/08/2011

Your parents are responsible for teaching you ethics and how to act appropriately in a social setting. If parents think a child can learn such complicated things on his or her own than they don't really understand the topics themselves.

[uniquindividual]

09:40 AM on 02/08/2011

When the parents don't do it schools are forced to.

[GSch]

09:20 AM on 02/08/2011

" SEL programming"

Interesting choice of words. So many of these excercises promote the values of those who set them up and lead them. Since most many of acedemics feed at the table of government the tendency will be to push guilt on these kids and the need for more social programs for assistance.
Teaching self reliance, honestty, respect for authority and others, learning of the greatness (and some not so greatness) of our country will enhance our society. More melting pot less division.

[uniquindividual]

09:42 AM on 02/08/2011

Curricula are often refered to as programs.

"The PE program includes a unit on sex education" for example.

or

"The school has started an anti bully program"

[hlk46]

09:00 AM on 02/08/2011

In too many communities, education has become big business. When there is a profit margin to consider, cost-effectiveness takes over and long-term quality can suffer.

[uniquindividual]

09:43 AM on 02/08/2011

What?

[sheeple herder]

08:42 AM on 02/08/2011

So comes the indoctrinization of morality.

[gavrielle]

09:35 AM on 02/08/2011

That's how it has been throughout human existence. Society enforces certain social rules on its members like obedience to the law, the gods, the city, the tribe, the family. Without a clear social structure there is chaos.

[sheeple herder]

09:48 AM on 02/08/2011

Who sets the standard? I wouldn't want my children's sense of morality developed by a teacher, who is essentially a stranger. Furthermore, where are the checks and balances to insure that the individuals "teaching" do not abuse their positions? The sense of purpose and achievement should start in the home, then, as you said, built upon and grown through interaction with "the city,the tribe". We're trying to run before we crawl.

[uniquindividual]

09:45 AM on 02/08/2011

When the parents don't do it schools have to try.

Are you forgeting that one of the big instigators of universal education was the importance that , in a democracy, all citizens be literate in basic civics?

[sheeple herder]

10:00 AM on 02/08/2011

What about the parents that do try and suceed? Do we establish a blanket policy because of the failure of others? Also, basic civics and shaping the moral code of children are separate ideas. Basic civics refers to an understanding of how to sucessfully function in society. Moral code on the other hand covers a more broad spectrum of what is wrong or right. There leaves too much to be abused in establishing doctrine to teach what is acceptable in "civil society".

[StAlphonso]

08:17 AM on 02/08/2011

Back in high school I a SELL program. Unfortunately, it wasn't very successful since I was my own best customer.

[joefoss]

08:03 AM on 02/08/2011

The essence of "character building" is taking responsibility for what we do. So, it's not surprising that students who learn "social responsibility" also improve their grades--i.e, they take responsibility for their own learning as well as their own behavior.
=Back in the early '90s when we were being warned that Japan was about to overtake America as the world's leader, their ed
ucational system was widely praised: Japanese children
had a much longer school day than American children, teachers in Japan were among the top paid professions and were respected accordingly, Japanese schools had fewer & shorter
vacations, etc.
=But, a study comparing the attitudes of American versus Japanese students towards school,
I think, revealed the critical difference. The survey found that when they encountered academic difficulty, the response of most Japanese students was "I must work harder"; the typical response from most American kids in the same situation was "It's the teacher's fault."
=Indeed, it's all about taking responsibility!

[karenopinnow]

07:50 AM on 02/08/2011

Christian schools build character not public schools.

[WhatDaBleep]

07:55 AM on 02/08/2011

Christian schools build fear and teach Not to question authority!

[karenopinnow]

08:30 AM on 02/08/2011

That isn't character, that's rebellion.

[bryanzth]

10:12 AM on 02/08/2011

ChristianIST schools foster fear as barrier to questioning authority, right.

But we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are good Christian schools that teach personal responsibility, social maturity and community organizing, just like Jesus said.

Often, people who don't understand Jesus's Beatitudes, Parables, Lord's Prayer and the Letter of James kinda get bogged down in the authoritarian perversions of Christianity. Eh? ;0)

BZ.

[Candide33]

07:58 AM on 02/08/2011

I taught in a Catholic school... it wasn't the kind of character that is useful except in social circles of the very wealthy.

[UpNorthGuyWI]

07:34 AM on 02/08/2011

This sounds like self esteem classes. It doesn't work.

[chouette1789]

09:12 AM on 02/08/2011

The Loyola University study says it does. I look forward to reading the results of your research proving that it does not.

You do have some research to back up your findings, right? I'd hate to think that you are just coming to conclusions based on your particular biases.

[gavrielle]

09:55 AM on 02/08/2011

It seems they build self-esteem only in so far as the children learn that through their efforts they can do or create something that gives them personal satisfaction at the end of the project. Since we no longer join as communities to build the school house, raise the barn, lift the new bell to the church tower, or attend hangings to see justice done, some means must be found to inculcate community spirit.

For example, I'd like to see us return to making Election Day a national holiday. One of the things I remember was going with my father to the polling place and seeing all our neighbors voting. It made it seem very important and special. Something to look forward to when I was grown and to take pride in doing each year. Going into the mysterious curtained box with my father and pushing the lever he pointed at was very much like roll playing, I suppose. To this day I have never missed voting in an election unless I was hospitalized - and then I was p.o.'d that I couldn't vote.

If children gain a measure of self-esteem through improving their communities, while learning the skills necessary to solve problems in a socially and morally acceptable way through role playing, I see no harm in such a program.

[UpNorthGuyWI]

07:32 AM on 02/08/2011

Teaching them social justice makes them learn better. Oh please. Teach them that they have to study to be successful and get quality teachers.

[Lynn Brown]

08:31 AM on 02/08/2011

For starters, the article has nothing to do with "social justice". It has to do with facilitating situations where students lay down a foundation for learning from peers, monitor their own focus, and develop the capacities to understand their world, so that adults don't have to monitor their every move to tell them what to do and what to think. I understand it might be scary to face a bunch of kids who think for themselves, but thats it in a nutshell.

Secondly, self esteem classes, when separated from authenticity, will never work. I don't read this as self esteem classes. Its teaching to the whole child, because we are whole people. It is one avenue to reaching the different modes in which we learn.

Thirdly, understanding (not spitting back empty dates from history that mean nothing to them) is built not in isolation, but interaction. The most powerful learning in the classroom comes from peers. It is built across "disciplines" and it gets integrated into lives in a way that benefits the individual, as well as the community.

Finally, this curriculum seems to be suggesting some new possibilities. Isn't the definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over, but expect a different outcome? Well, thats "traditional" education.

Its pedagogically sound, it addresses specific goals (I don't read this as ALL they teach), is backed by research, and teachers see growth and learning. What's the problem with that?

[Ldcook]

08:57 AM on 02/08/2011

Yes you are right. I think that is it not necessarily the teaching of social skills itself that is causing the increase. I think the key is the teaching of the kids to take responsibility for their actions.

One of the KIPP school pillars is choice and commitment. (I am not a KIPP teacher/member/involved in anyway) They say that the choice of going to the school and the full commitment to the school is one of the most important things. I agree that taking responsibility and buying into one's education is the important factor here.

If these SEL classes are teaching kids to take responsibility for their education and their actions is the important factor here.

[Pjbeard]

07:12 AM on 02/08/2011

Interesting article outlining key reasons why I sent my 6 yo to a school with this type of education in Sydney.

[greasefire11]

06:50 AM on 02/08/2011

I'm sorry, I can't teach those. They aren't on the test. Must teach test. Must teach test. Must...teach..

[UpNorthGuyWI]

07:33 AM on 02/08/2011

tests measure what was learned. What other way to measure? Unions don't want tests.

[WhatDaBleep]

07:59 AM on 02/08/2011

Greasefire11 is talking about the Bush - every child left behind tests that if kids don't pass certain tests they get no money. This does not teach anything else but narrow mindedness and what the government wants them to learn.

[Candide33]

08:01 AM on 02/08/2011

Tests only measure who was lucky at filling in bubbles randomly. You should see some of the elaborate drawings kids can do on a scan-tron sheet. Life is not multiple choice..... you have to be able to think and reason or you end up a republican.