Student Well-Being

3 Ways to Avoid Hurdles for Social-Emotional Learning

By Lauraine Langreo — September 26, 2022 4 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Schools have been putting a much greater emphasis on mental health and social-emotional learning as a core part of their strategy to help students recover from lost learning time and other hardships brought on by the pandemic.

But in recent months, there has been some pushback against social-emotional learning, as some critics have lumped it together with politicized debates on teaching about racism and gender and sexuality.

Research has shown that students need to feel secure and emotionally stable in order to learn and perform at their best. The types of skills that students learn in SEL lessons include managing emotions and making good decisions—skills that contribute to a healthier learning environment. As students recover from the widespread disruptions—and in some cases, trauma—brought on by the pandemic, how should school and district leaders best promote and explain the kind of learning that will serve their students well beyond their K-12 years?

During a Sept. 21 Seat at the Table online discussion, Education Week opinion contributor Peter DeWitt, Education Week staff writer Evie Blad, elementary school counselor Tommie Glover, and social-emotional learning specialist Sydney Mitchell shared their ideas.

Clarify misconceptions

The first step is to clarify any misconceptions about social-emotional learning and mental health, the panelists said.

SEL and mental health initiatives sometimes overlap, but it’s important to note their distinctions. Social-emotional learning is a concept that describes helping nurture certain skills in children, such as self-awareness, problem-solving skills, and effective communication. It also describes schoolwide initiatives to create a healthy and supportive environment for kids.

Social-emotional skills have also been called “soft” skills or “future-ready” skills because employers have highlighted those as qualities they see in their most successful employees.

See also

Photo of children working together at table.
Getty

And while the term mental health is sometimes colloquially used to refer to someone’s emotional well-being, school-based mental health programs describe direct treatments for students with diagnosable conditions, such as depression and anxiety.

“People can often get on the same page if they understand what the words actually mean,” Blad said.

Bring parents into SEL work

Schools should include parents and the rest of the school community when social-emotional learning initiatives are rolled out, the panelists said.

Schools could include parents by hosting workshops that teach parents what SEL is and what it means for their relationship with their child, Mitchell said.

“One of the most intimidating things, I think, as a parent, is [when] this is not something that I know. This is not something that I’ve learned,” said Mitchell, a social-emotional learning specialist for Carole Robertson Center for Learning in Chicago. “So for you to be teaching my child this seems very intimidating, because now my child’s coming home and asking me questions, and maybe, even correcting me in the way that I’m speaking to them.”

Blad also said that schools should explain programs “without using jargon.”

“Schools are recognizing that when parents are concerned about these programs, [school leaders] need to identify as specifically as possible what [parents are] concerned about so they can discuss that with them,” Blad said.

Provide support for teachers

It’s also important for school and district leaders to provide support for the teachers who have to put SEL into practice in the classroom.

Support could be in the form of training sessions, Glover said. For example, his school district, Richland School District Two in South Carolina, is training educators about “co-regulation,” which is the process of helping a student regain their composure after misbehaving.

See also

Conceptual Illustration
Adolfo Valle for Education Week

But it’s also important to remind teachers that they don’t have to be trained in psychology in order to help their students, Mitchell said.

“You just have to be willing to work things through with your students,” she said.

“If you’re having a bad day, you can tell kids, ‘I’m having a really hard day today. I’m feeling really anxious, I’m feeling this way, but here’s what I’m doing to work on it,’” Mitchell said. “You don’t have to self-disclose personal things, but you could say, ‘I’m having a hard time right now. I’m feeling a little bit anxious. So I’m going to try deep breathing. Do you guys want to try this with me?’”

Providing more student-support staff would also be helpful, not just for students but also for teachers, the panelists said. Schools around the country have faced shortages of student-support personnel for years, and even though there’s funding available, positions are often still hard to fill.

Some communities are starting a “grow your own” pipeline to train counselors, psychologists, and other support staff, Blad said.

Without the proper staffing, teachers are most likely feeling “overwhelmed,” Mitchell said. “What happens is teachers feel like they have to now deal with students with mental health concerns and students with social-emotional learning gaps,” along with teaching the core academic material.

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Reflections on Evidence-Based Grading Practices: What We Learned for Next Year
Get real insights on evidence-based grading from K-12 leaders.
Content provided by Otus
Artificial Intelligence K-12 Essentials Forum How AI Use Is Expanding in K-12 Schools
Join this free virtual event to explore how AI technology is—and is not—improving K-12 teaching and learning.
Federal Webinar Navigating the Rapid Pace of Education Policy Change: Your Questions, Answered
Join this free webinar to gain an understanding of key education policy developments affecting K-12 schools.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Student Well-Being Opinion Netflix's ‘Adolescence' Asks How Cruelty Can Go Unnoticed in Schools
Peer bullying can be more complicated than many adults realize, write three psychologists.
Marc Brackett, Robin Stern & Diana Divecha
5 min read
Paper cutout children, one of which is being ostracized
E+/Getty
Student Well-Being How Medicaid Spending Cuts Could Harm Schools
Districts use Medicaid to cover costs of special education, student services. Cuts to the program would hurt, superintendents said.
4 min read
Vivien Henshall, a long-term substitute special education teacher, works with Scarlett Rasmussen separately as other classmates listen to instructions from their teacher at Parkside Elementary School on May 17, 2023, in Grants Pass, Ore.
Vivien Henshall, a long-term substitute special education teacher, works with Scarlett Rasmussen as other classmates listen to instructions from their teacher at Parkside Elementary School on May 17, 2023, in Grants Pass, Ore. Proposals to change Medicaid spending could impact the classroom, where special education services are often covered by the federal health insurance program.
Lindsey Wasson/AP
Student Well-Being How a School Nurse Convinced Parents to Vaccinate Their Kids Against Measles
“We know that parents trust not only nurses, but especially school nurses," said Kate King, a school nurse in Columbus, Ohio.
6 min read
Vials of the MMR measles mums and rubella virus vaccine are displayed Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, in Lubbock, Texas.
Vials of the MMR measles mums and rubella virus vaccine are displayed Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025, in Lubbock, Texas. As the West Texas measles outbreak grew, a school nurse in Columbus, Ohio, persuaded parents of unvaccinated children at her school to get immunized.
Julio Cortez/AP
Student Well-Being Quiz Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Student Mental Health & Well-Being?
Answer 7 questions about the state of student mental health & well-being.