What is Social Emotional Learning?
We have adopted the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework for SEL.
SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions (CASEL, 2020).
SEL skills are foundational to success in school, college, career, and life. With these skills, adults and kids can engage in positive learning communities that are caring, safe, inclusive, and welcoming. Through SEL, students learn and practice the five essential competencies of:
Self-Awareness: The abilities to understand one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts. This includes capacities to recognize one’s strengths and limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence and purpose. Examples are integrating personal and social identities, identifying personal, cultural, and linguistic assets, identifying one’s emotions, demonstrating honesty and integrity, linking feelings, values, and thoughts, examining prejudices and biases, experiencing self-efficacy, having a growth mindset, developing interests and a sense of purpose
Self-Management: The abilities to manage one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations and to achieve goals and aspirations. This includes the capacities to delay gratification, manage stress, and feel motivation and agency to accomplish personal and collective goals. Examples are managing one’s emotions, identifying and using stress management strategies, exhibiting self-discipline and self-motivation, setting personal and collective goals, using planning and organizational skills, showing the courage to take initiative, demonstrating personal and collective agency.
Social-Awareness: The abilities to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. This includes the capacities to feel compassion for others, understand broader historical and social norms for behavior in different settings, and recognize family, school, and community resources and support. Examples are taking others’ perspectives, recognizing strengths in others, demonstrating empathy and compassion, showing concern for the feelings of others, understanding and expressing gratitude, identifying diverse social norms, including unjust ones, recognizing situational demands and opportunities, understanding the influences of organizations and systems on behavior.
Relationship Skills: The abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups. This includes the capacities to communicate clearly, listen actively, cooperate, work collaboratively to problem solve and negotiate conflict constructively, navigate settings with differing social and cultural demands and opportunities, provide leadership, and seek or offer help when needed. Examples are communicating effectively, developing positive relationships, demonstrating cultural competency, practicing teamwork and collaborative problem-solving, resolving conflicts constructively, resisting negative social pressure, showing leadership in groups, and seeking or offering support and help when needed.
Responsible Decision-Making: The abilities to make caring and constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions across diverse situations. This includes the capacities to consider ethical standards and safety concerns, and to evaluate the benefits and consequences of various actions for personal, social, and collective well-being. Examples are demonstrating curiosity and open-mindedness, learning how to make a reasoned judgment after analyzing information, data, and facts, identifying solutions for personal and social problems, anticipating and evaluating the consequences of one’s actions, recognizing how critical thinking skills are useful both inside and outside of school, reflecting on one’s role to promote personal, family, and community well-being and evaluating personal, interpersonal, community, and institutional impacts.