Social and emotional learning matters!

Hello All,

The ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) has just announced the release by CASEL of a preliminary report about the impact of social-emotional learning (SEL) on academics. This study supports the research principle related to brain-based teaching that says: The brain/mind is social--how important social interaction and good social skills are for developing optimum performance in learners. The study involved over 300,000 children and concludes that students who participate in SEL programs improve significantly in social emotional skills, attitude toward selves, classroom behaviors, stress levels, and achievement test scores (by 11 percentile points). Learning good socio-emotional skills actually enhances academic performance. Rather like the health study that talks about how sleep impacts on obesity--too things that don't have, at first glance, a logical relationship. In addition, this CASEL study supports the findings of an earlier study this group did demonstrating the positive impact of after-school programs that focus on social skill development.

This announcement is part of The Whole Child initiative of ASCD (www.wholechild@ascd.org)--the organization's latest 'take' on the best principles to use when crafting school programs. The five elements of whole child programs are: health, safety, engagement, support and challenge. Funny, mine for both school and after-school would be something like...: healthy, connected, empowered, purposeful and creative.

It is an interesting exercise to try to write out one's most important values related to school and after-school services. Not an easy task. The one that is the hardest to state for me is the centrality of looking at children through the lens of brain-based and neuro-science research regarding how a child's brain learns and relates best.

Has anyone out there attempted to create their own value statement about after-school programming? Or a word or phrase that sums up brain-based research? I would love to hear what you have come up with.

Meanwhile, it is wonderful to see the research being done now on the importance of non-academic learning on academic achievement.

Penny Cuninggim