Masum Billah
As individuals and members of society the students who make just better results in terms of academic performance may not be well prepared to face the practical challenges of life. They must be well-equipped with social and emotional learning which makes them to acquire and apply effectively the knowledge, attitude and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others. It is based on the understanding that the best learning emerges in the context of supportive relationships that make learning challenging, engaging and meaningful. Social and emotional learning is necessary not only for students, it is also necessary for citizens and any kind of professionals. This learning can be imparted through effective classroom instruction; student engagement in positive activities in and out of the classroom; and broad parent and community involvement in program planning, implementation and evaluation. It promotes students’ self-awareness, social awareness, relationship and responsible-decision-making skills. It also improves students’ attitudes and beliefs about self, others and the school.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) exercises a positive impact on school climate and promotes a host of academic, social, and emotional benefits for students. Durlak, Weissberg et al.’s recent meta-analysis of 213 rigorous studies of SEL in schools indicates that students who receive SEL instruction show better academic performance and reduced emotional distress. The doctrine of Socrates was ‘Know Thyself’ which actually sowed the seeds of social and emotional learning. Studies show that emotional intelligence is the best predictor of a child’s future achievement; better than any other single factor. Emotional intelligence is a better predictor of success than intelligent questions and technical skills combined. In the 1980s, Howard Gardner, in his important work on multiple intelligences, outlined the presence of seven domains of intelligence; two of them were interpersonal and intrapersonal – these combined were the forerunner of what we now know as emotional intelligence. Goleman’s work teaches us that children’s emotional and social skills can be cultivated, so that the child will accrue both short-term and long-term advantages in regard to well-being, performance and success in life.
Five crucial emotional competencies are basic to social and emotional learning – (a) Self and other awareness: understanding and identifying feelings; knowing when one’s feelings shift; understanding the difference between thinking, feeling and acting; and understanding that one’s actions have consequences in terms of others’ feelings, (b) Mood management: handling and managing difficult feelings; controlling impulses; and handling anger constructively, (c) Self-motivation: being able to set goals and persevere towards them with optimism and hope, even in the face of setbacks, (d) Empathy: being able to put yourself “in someone else’s shoes” both cognitively and affectively; being able to take someone’s perspective; being able to show that you care, (e) Management of relationships: making friends, handling friendships; resolving conflicts; cooperating; collaborative learning and other social skills.
Dr. Maurice Elias, a leading child psychologist, researcher and expert on SEL from Rutgers University, explains the dangers of omitting social-emotional programs from our children’s classrooms. He maintains that “many of the problems in our schools are the result of social and emotional malfunction and debilitation from which too many children have suffered and continue to bear the consequences. Children in a class who are beset by an array of confused or hurtful feelings cannot and will not learn effectively. In the process of civilising and humanising our children social and emotional learning must be included. In a recent evaluation of the Atlanta-based Resolving Conflict Creatively, a multi-school project which has social-emotional learning techniques at the core of its pedagogy has been highlighted. It goes thus ‘there was generally less school violence, and there was increased self-esteem, improved abilities to help others, and greater personal responsibility for resolving conflicts among participating youngsters. After only two years of implementation, there were substantial improvements in participating schools’ course failure, dropout, student attendance and suspension rates.’ So, the present day problems of our educational institutions can greatly be addressed by introducing social and emotional learning in the curriculum. Of course, teachers must have not only training on it, they must have keen interest in the matter.
It has been revealed through different researches and it is also the opinion of psychologists that social and emotional competencies “allow us to modulate emotions, solve social problems creatively, to be effective leaders and collaborators, and to be assertive and responsible. The research also tells that infants, children and adults alike can develop their social and emotional understanding; however the earlier a person begins this learning process, the greater the advantages. Many schools in many countries of the world are implementing and infusing social and emotional learning competency building into their daily curriculum. Many educators are honing their social and emotional skills through workshops and self. Dr. James Comer, a national leader in social and emotional learning told a conference at Columbia Teachers College in 1999 about the impact a child’s school and home settings can have on his/her development. A 2003 research from Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning found that 71 percent of students in 6th through 12th grade thought their school did not provide them with a caring, encouraging environment. Another statistics from the same study revealed that “at least 1 child in 10 suffers from a mental illness that severely disrupts daily functioning at home, in school, or in the community” and that 70-80 percent of struggling children don’t receive appropriate mental health services. Teaching social and emotional learning in schools aims to enhance children’s understanding of themselves and those experiencing mental hardship and to encourage comfort in a school setting that values the development of knowledge, interpersonal skills and wellbeing in students. Moreover, SEL can help to improve several skills including nonverbal communication skills, socially competent behaviour, and social meaning and reasoning. Nonverbal communication is important because the majority of emotional meaning is conveyed without spoken words, and instead utilises paralanguage, facial expressions, gestures and postures, interpersonal distance, and touch, rhythm and time.
In the context of present day reality social and emotional skills is similar to learning other academic skills. Implementing a prevention program in schools can help increase competence and learning in students which may be applied to more complex situations in future. Teachers can accomplish this in the classroom through effective and direct classroom instructions, student engagement in positive activities, and involving parents, students and the community in planning, evaluating and implementing the programme into the classroom. Teachers also play a very important role in helping students with the positive self-talk. Without positive self-talk students can get caught in what they think they can’t do. By reminding them to switch their negative self-talk to positive self-talk or by asking them what their self-talk is telling them, students are able to re-evaluate their internal thinking. Through using positive self-talk students are able to gain confidence in areas where they may not have been so confident. When a teacher is expected to play this role, he/she must be aware of the benefits of social and emotional learning. The teachers who only evaluates and gives importance to academic performance of the learners cannot bring real change in the learners’ life. -Reichl and Hymel argue that students do not learn alone but rather in collaboration with their teachers, in the company of their peers, and with the support of their families.” Through working on social emotional learning with students, teachers are “fostering students’ social emotional skills which not only helps them to develop the skills necessary for success in schools, such skills assist them to become more caring, responsible, and concerned citizens”. And these are the real objectives of educating the boys and girls who are going to shoulder the greater responsibility of the nation.
(Masum Billah is programme manager, BRAC Education Programme and vice-president: Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association (BELTA) Email: masumbillah65@gmail.com)
