SEL and Equity for 2021: What You Can Do Right Now
by Margie Kirstein, Ed.D
Introduction
Is Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) a buzzword? If it is, it’s for good reason. SEL offers proven benefits including improved academic performance and increased positive behaviors. However, as students return to school this fall, many students will be showing the effects of stress and trauma beyond the effects of isolation due to the pandemic. Multilingual learners (MLLs) can be experiencing additional trauma due to poverty and discrimination. SEL alone can not provide the support these students need. The post explains how educators can build greater capacity for responding to these students’ needs using a mindfulness approach, including two specific strategies. Not only will this lead to improved outcomes for students, but educators will also benefit through a greater sense of connection and capacity to face adversity. With these powerful orientations, educators will be better able to apply SEL in a way that advances equity and achievement for all students, including those who have been marginalized in our education systems.
SEL as a Priority
If you’re an educator returning to school this Fall after the pandemic, you’ve probably heard discussions of how Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) should be a high priority. It’s true that SEL is proven to provide a range of benefits, including:
Increased self-awareness
Improved self-regulation
Academic achievement
Better attendance
Positive behaviors in and out of the classroom
At the same time, many of our Multilingual learners (MLLs) could be returning to school with extreme forms of stress, where the effects of anxiety and isolation during the pandemic are exacerbated by the effects of poverty and social injustice.
For these students, SEL alone will not be enough to address the experiences of these students. To be effective, educators of MLLs must deliver SEL in a way that is equity-focused and culturally responsive as well as emotionally intelligent. As Dena Simmons observes, “educators often teach SEL absent of the larger sociopolitical context, which is fraught with injustice and inequity and affects our students' lives.”
An Updated Definition of SEL
In December 2020, recognizing the need to address equity issues, the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning.(CASEL) updated the most widely recognized definition of SEL to include attention to students of all identities, strengths, and experiences.
“While SEL alone will not solve the deep-seated inequities in the education system, it can help adults and students build more meaningful relationships and develop knowledge, skills and mindsets to interrupt inequitable policies and practices, create more inclusive learning environments and nurture the interests and assets of all individuals.”
We are all hoping that SEL, while necessary and helpful, will not become just “one more thing” for teachers to manage. How can educators learn to provide SEL in a way that directly addresses the effects of social inequities on our students, without becoming overwhelmed?
How to Implement Mindful SEL in Your Practice
According to the Greater Good Science Center, SEL can be supported with Mindfulness for greater impact on both self and others. Mindfulness strategies have the potential to help educators develop needed skills in a way that benefits themselves as well as ultimately benefiting students. To begin integrating mindfulness with SEL, you can follow these steps:
Put on your own oxygen mask first. Building equity skills will require educators to do some difficult and often uncomfortable personal work. Learning to recognize and regulate our own responses to stress and trauma is essential to sharing these skills with students.
Raise your awareness of equity beliefs. In the words of Neena McConnico, PhD, before you can develop empathy, you must “first take the steps necessary to gain a self-awareness of your own emotions and beliefs regarding inequity.”
Add mindfulness strategies to build compassion and resilience. These are key skills for responding to students with trauma. Each document below provides links to two specific mindfulness strategies for you to practice.
Strategy 1: Loving Kindness Meditation for Educators
Strategy 2: Resilience Meditation for Educators
Reflect. As you review the core SEL competencies, make a note of which skills are most important for equity, Which are you strong in? Which will be most challenging for you to learn?
Strengthening the skills of compassion and resilience will support educators’ ability to provide a safe space where students can learn social and emotional skills and use them to engage constructively with the difficulties they face. To quote Laura VanDernoot Lipsky, the author of Trauma Stewardship, “Our capacity to help others and the environment is greatest when we are willing, able, and even determined to be helped ourselves.”
To Further Your Learning
Organizations
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Trauma-Informed Practice Cox Campus
Books
Laura VanDernoot Lipsky (2009). Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Rhonda Magee (2019). The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness. TarcherPerigee.
Sharon Salzberg (2020). Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World. Flatiron Books.