As part of the citizenry, we instinctively know that basic needs must be met before education can take place. Those basic needs include necessities such a safe place to live, and food to eat. Once those needs are met, urgent health and emotional issues must be addressed before learning can happen effectively. I think most people would agree with the idea that emotional stability is important as a precursor to learning. In addition, most people believe in helping those in unstable situations. It is likely that these widely shared beliefs have enabled the concept of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) to permeate our schools.
Shockingly, SEL is just as destructive and arguably even more destructive than Critical Race Theory (CRT), since its methods allow CRT in the door. Like Critical Race Theory, it has neo-Marxist underpinnings and, in its current iteration, SEL unabashedly seeks to prepare students to strive for social justice-oriented citizenship. It removes the focus on achievement expectations in favor of competency-based metrics, reduces effective traditional student discipline in favor of restorative discipline approaches, and stresses collaborative and collective pursuits over the individual. Unlike CRT, the public at large has not yet keyed into the dangers of SEL. After all, we all want to help individuals who need emotional support and we instinctively know that emotional needs must be met before effective learning can take place.
The CASEL (Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning) model of SEL is commonly used by school districts across the country and has been implemented in Grand Haven Area Public Schools. According to the website, the CASEL model of Social-Emotional Learning is defined as:
“We define social and emotional learning (SEL) as an integral part of education and human development. 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.”
“SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities.”
The CASEL model focuses on five areas for developing emotional skills.
Self-awareness
Self-management
Responsible decision making
Relationship skills
Social awareness
To the average person not familiar with the programmatics of SEL, these skillsets appear beneficial, but let me translate these code words of the SEL vernacular. In terms of SEL, the concept of self-awareness really means what identity groups are you associated with. Self-management means be sure not to commit any microaggressions against people in different identity groups. A microaggression happens when an idea is misinterpreted, and the person communicating the idea is always responsible for the way the idea is interpreted by the receiver. Responsible decision-making means make sure to make decisions that are inclusive and equitable in favor of the collective. Relationship skills means be familiar with your position on the Wheel of Power and Privilege and act accordingly. In order to have equitable relationships, one must be guided by their position on the power wheel. Social awareness refers to how your power and privilege can be used to influence outcomes. Being socially aware means we can participate and be active in opposing oppression when it occurs.
Filtering lessons through an SEL lens can be used to encourage activism. For example, a history lesson on Jim Crowe naturally begins with a discussion on how racism is wrong. Students are then taught to examine all situations within the SEL framework. This could lead to a discussion about a student sharing how they were discriminated against when they were not invited to a party hosted by another student. While the true reason likely had nothing to do with the student’s race, the student’s belief, their LIVED EXPERIENCE, would start a conversation. The conversation could examine how the student hosting the party should have been more self-aware of their identity and those around them. It could lead to a discussion about the lack of self-management of the person hosting the party. They committed a microaggression by excluding someone. They certainly did not make a responsible decision because it was not equitable. The person hosting the party lacked relationship skills and was unconscious of their position on the power wheel because they did not ensure everyone felt like they belong. The class does have social awareness, and could discuss what they could do to create justice for the person who was discriminated against. The true reason the person was not invited to the party is irrelevant during the discussion because the entire conversation is predicated on the perceived discrimination and the lived experience.
The following photo was taken during a ninth-grade history class at GHAPS. It shows how a lesson on history turned into a discussion on gender ideology and demonstrates that these types of discussions are taking place in local schools.
On CASEL’s website, you can follow this link to their definitive paper on Transformational SEL (TSEL), which is the current strain of SEL they’re pushing. The paper is extremely weak on providing evidence of SEL’S academic benefit. Rather than academics, I think its true goal can be summed up by this single sentence (which is referring to the five competencies listed above) on page 6:
“We view these competencies as interrelated, synergistic, and integral to the growth and development of justice-oriented global citizens.”
First of all, what do the authors mean by ‘justice-oriented’? From the context of the paper, it’s clear that they are referring to distributive justice. Wikipedia defines distributive justice as “Distributive justice concerns the socially just allocation of resources, goods, opportunity in a society”. In other words, it’s socialism, which these days is hidden under its new moniker of equity. Secondly, what do the authors mean by ‘global citizens’? Last I knew, my children are citizens of the United States of America and I don’t care about the development of ‘global citizens’. The term is meaningless because citizenship conveys allegiance of a person to a state, and there is no such thing in a global context. Even if there were, why would any American surrender allegiance to a global entity? It appears that the authors want a program that softens up younger people to the idea of future global collectivism.
We agree that emotional needs must be met in order for effective learning to take place, but there is a huge cognitive disconnect that has enabled SEL teachings (now TSEL) to proliferate in our schools. SEL treats all children as if they are suffering from trauma. However, the definition of trauma is nebulous and can include such ideas as unconscious biases. SEL will ultimately create more loosely-defined trauma where there is none and schools will respond by advocating for more SEL.
As a side note, SEL works in lockstep with the whole child approach, a topic we wrote about previously.