Tonic wants to know: What is the most important thing for your children to learn?
Pause for a minute; think about it. If your kid could emerge into adulthood knowing only one thing, what would it be?
Leaders in education gathered last week for a break-out session during a day-long leadership forum on a subject called "social and emotional learning" (SEL) asked themselves that very question.
The unusual cast of characters around the table -- pediatrician Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, Peter Yarrow of the folk-music group Peter, Paul and Mary and best-selling author and psychologist Daniel Goleman, to name a few -- reached consensus immediately and definitively. They agreed that if we teach our children nothing else, we must teach them to treat other people well.
"I think it's so important that we give children the feeling that they can care for each other, respect each other, get responses back from each other," Dr. Brazelton told me after the break-out discussion.
Was that your answer too? If so, you're onto something good.
A Force Multiplier
It turns out that teaching students to recognize, manage and communicate their emotions has benefits beyond creating good people, important as that is. The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the Chicago-based NGO that organized the forum, has found that imparting these skills boosts learning outcomes, improves behavior and creates more positive school environments. The process also keys kids in to the deeper meaning of education -- showing them that it is about more than just gathering facts -- which helps them engage with school.
The positive impact of this approach is so striking that Congressmen Dale Kildee (D- MI) and Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Congresswoman Judy Biggert (R-IL) have introduced the Academic, Social and Emotional Learning Act of 2009, H.R. 4223, to the House in an effort to support SEL and get SEL standards included in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which Congress is now hashing out.
SEL programming acts as "a force multiplier," Congressman Ryan told the group assembled at the forum. "You get the teachers, you get the parents, you get the students, you create an environment, you create a community, you create success, you create the kind of compassionate society that we all want. I'm completely on board."
A Complete Education
Congressional action is necessary because the US education system has put teaching of social and emotion-management skills on the back burner. Federal legislation would help by clearly defining, supporting and setting high standards for SEL.
The irony is that learning to constructively manage and express emotions actually improves students' academic performance. In systematic assessments of multitudinous schools that are implementing SEL, researchers have found that teaching these skills triggers notable upticks in standardized academic test scores, improves school retention rates and increases students' attention spans.
Further, students who participate in SEL tend to make more responsible decisions, have fewer behavioral problems and demonstrate less emotional distress. SEL also creates supportive school environments in which students thrive; students engaged in SEL programming develop a sense that school is a safe place and build strong connections to teachers and other students.
Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence and a founder of CASEL, explained why learning these skills is particularly beneficial to children: "The circuitry for emotion regulation, for empathy -- social and emotional circuits in the brain -- are the last part of the brain to become anatomically mature, not until the mid-twenties, so we have a window of opportunity to give our children the right systematic experience to teach them the skills for life that they will need. And that is the premise of SEL."
It's a premise with a lot of quality research supporting it. Indeed, the work of SEL proponents makes clear that a child's social and emotional competence is such an essential factor in his or her ability to learn that we might as well call the effort to promote SEL a movement to simply provide our children a complete education.
A Window of Opportunity
It's easy to assume that SEL amounts to touchy-feely, self-affirmation, but even a brief examination of the available curricula will quickly convince you that SEL is more about skill-building than ego-stroking.
In a video on the subject -- created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a champion of the SEL approach -- Alexus, a poised fifth-grader at P.S. 24 in Brooklyn, works with a second-grade class to role-play constructive conflict resolution skills.
"Let's say if me and Gabriella had a problem, then we're going to go inside the Peace Corner and express our feelings with the Peace Helper," she says to the class.
"So you had a book first, and a girl snatched it from you?" the appointed Peace Helper asks the offended party.
"Yeah," says the boy sitting next to him.
"How do you feel?"
"I feel mad."
After a little while, Alexus intervenes to engage the rest of the class. "When the Peace Helpers were helping solve the conflict, what did you see the Peace Helpers do?" she asks them. Hands shoot into the air.
Real-deal Reform
The forum's participants are busy figuring out the best ways to insert this critical missing piece widely into US schools and to invite policy makers, parents, teachers, unions, school boards and superintendents into the effort. Thanks to a gift from Jennifer and Peter Buffett, whose NoVo Foundation supports SEL, the possibility of large-scale action to promote that agenda is now a reality.
"Our goal is to start a movement," stated Timothy Shriver, Chairman of CASEL's Board of Directors. "It's a movement dedicated to creating knowledgeable, responsible and caring children and communities."
But don't let the idealistic rhetoric fool you; this movement is anything but a mushy, Kumbaya-fest. This is real-deal education policy reform based on exacting research and proved by early success in thousands of schools in a number of districts.
"This is not a feel-good organization," said Shriver. "We believe in rigor. We believe in results. We believe in ... rigorously holding ourselves to the highest standards of program design, implementation and school change."
It's good to know that an organization with some teeth is aiming at systematic transformation. In a country where bullying is rampant, school shootings all too common, aggressive and divisive rhetoric commonplace in the media and the fabric of community can seem dangerously frayed, perhaps we all could use a more complete education. At least we can give one to our children.