Colorado Springs-area schools embrace social-emotional learning to mixed reactions

Jan. 28—Social-emotional learning has taken root in classrooms across the country as schools commit to teaching not only standard reading, writing and arithmetic, but also emotional well-being.

Education professionals say student achievement excels when SEL is built into the school day to help students learn how to regulate their emotions and communicate what they're feeling with staff and each other.

"You can't learn if you're not regulated," Wilson Elementary School counselor Cassidy Bristol said. "That's just the truth. You can't."

As schools expand their instructional focus, however, SEL has earned the ire of some critics, who say the programming is an overstep at best, or indoctrination at worst.

SEL focuses on educational equity by helping students "develop healthy identities, manage emotions, and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others," among other objectives, according to CASEL.org.

Proponents say SEL is a positive way of developing people skills and managing one's own feelings, thus decreasing violent behavior, depression and anxiety among young students. At Colorado Springs District 11's Wilson Elementary, suspensions have decreased and academic success has improved since the school bolstered SEL programming and counseling in recent years, according to Bristol.

Wilson builds SEL into the schedule so Bristol can make classroom visits to teach on a given topic, such as building healthy friendships, or students can meet with her in her office for more personalized counseling. Teachers also use the time for "Random Acts of Kindness" lessons, which helps "schools create a culture of kindness," according to the curriculum website.

Bristol was named the 2022 elementary school counselor of the year by the Colorado School Counseling Association. District 11, which Bristol said embraces SEL and supports its counselors, swept last year's awards with middle school and high school recognition as well.

Neighboring School District 49, however, has weathered a more tumultuous relationship with SEL as some community and board members criticize the programming as dangerous and agenda-driven.

The hot topic issue came to a head at a December D-49 board meeting, in which a divided school board approved SEL curricula in a contentious 3-2 vote. The vote solidified a list of 18 programs already in use at district schools.

"We don't need to teach kids to be victims who look for the ill of society in this great country of ours," said board member Ivy Liu, who has taken the mantle of opposition in a passionate effort to preserve kids' innocence and can-do spirits. "I think that's what some SEL programs are pushing toward — not I think, I know based on the website description."

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Liu and like-minded individuals say emotional development is best left to parents rather than teachers, who are overburdened as is. If an instructor lacks proper experience or training, she said, the programing could veer into critical race theory teachings on social justice and equality. Liu further described SEL as a behavioral psychology tool to transform children's core values and attitudes.

Sarah Clapham, another of D-11's award-winning counselors at West Middle School, said lessons do sometimes tackle topics like race or difference. Discussions are driven by what the students are asking for, she said, not by an agenda.

"If we choose to avoid those conversations because of the controversy, then we really lose out on knowing who our students are and responding to their needs," Clapham said. "We really dive into those conversations and try to create an environment where we can have those real, really rich conversations, and people can share their experience and feel safe enough to share those experiences."

The tenets of SEL are nothing new in concept. Educators for decades have managed the emotions of their students in some form, whether that be a restorative conversation in lieu of punishment or encouraging kindness among peers. This approach only developed into a formal curriculum in the 1990s, when the term SEL was officially coined.

School counselors say SEL programming has only become more important since COVID-19 sent kids home for extended periods of time, depriving them of socialization skills that typically develop at their respective stages in life.

"A lot of them came back with super low compassion," Bristol said, citing survey data collected from students after returning to in-person instruction.

Students had for more than a year been taught to avoid touching others. Masks further complicated matters by obscuring a person's face, making it hard to interpret what emotion they might be feeling.

"That was a huge developmental time where they didn't learn, 'Oh, you feel sad? I should probably ask how you are feeling or what's wrong,'" Bristol said. "It's kind of teaching what you would think are the basics. That's something kids just don't know."

Bristol teaches children how to identify and label their feelings rather than using nonspecific terms like "weird" or "off." This way, staff can best understand how to help each student based on their emotional needs.

"Kids who don't know how to calm down are going to grow up to be adults that don't know how to calm down," Bristol said.

That, Bristol said, is her motivation to teach SEL now, for a more peaceful future.

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