The Bonds of Social-Emotional Learning

The cumulative goal of education is to offer students opportunities to develop interrelated academic, personal, and social competencies that have a long-term impact on their lives. But how can this ideal be realized when school leaders and educators feel pressure to prioritize numerous initiatives within a limited amount of time? Questions such as "How could I possibly fit in another curriculum item and still have enough instructional time?" point to the tremendous strain on educators who understand the need to focus on the emotional health of children. This strain is all the more apparent when we consider the number of students actively struggling with significant emotional needs.

To better achieve the goal of developing interrelated competencies in children, schools must take steps to shift away from a siloed approach in which academics and emotional health are segregated. Instead, the focus should be on an integrated, systemic framework, in which parallel processes of interrelated competencies for both educators and students are identified, built, and sustained through safe, positive relationships. Social-emotional learning, an approach to instruction that takes into account the emotional components that either facilitate or impede learning, is an ideal basis for such a framework. Social-emotional learning can be the "integrative glue" that ties together initiatives such as culture and climate, classroom management, academic supports, and intervention practices (Durlak, Domitrovich, Weissberg, & Guillotta, 2016).