Advancing Social and Emotional Learning

If you care about outcomes, you need to care about SEL. It is the pathway to get the outcomes that we all desire.

Learning is a relational process. We are not simply cognitive. We are not simply emotional. We are not simply social. We are all those things simultaneously.

Our young people already have greatness inside of them. SEL creates the conditions for that greatness to shine.

SEL and academics cannot be separated, so when we ignore part, we build more gaps.

For me leading and teaching through the lens of SEL means supporting students to learn with and from each other and to take charge of their own learning.

The vast majority of teachers agree that they can’t teach their students effectively unless they also consider their SEL needs.

Students are more engaged and learning outcomes are much more equitable when every student has affirming developmental experiences, like psychological safety, caring relationships, personally relevant content, and a sense of personal agency.

Learning should be inherently joyous. It should be a joyous pursuit, enabling all students to have fun and find their passions. It's the purpose of learning.

There's an 11 to 1 return on investment, so for every dollar invested in programming around social and emotional learning, we see that they're saving 11 dollars. There are lots of reasons people are coming to the conclusion that this is something that we need to be prioritizing.

The truth is emotion drives attention and attention drives learning. Our country needs social and emotional learning tools now more than ever.