Why Social-Emotional Learning Is Suddenly in the Spotlight

Growing up can be tough. As young people’s bodies and brains are changing rapidly, they’re also grappling with new ideas and influences that will shape who they become.

Students today are distracted; they’re under a lot of pressure, and they’re suffering from mental health issues more than ever before.

The education community is increasingly getting involved in these issues, looping in social workers, licensed therapists and other mental-health services to help students who are struggling. They often talk about these things in the context of “caring for the whole child” or “teaching to the whole learner.” The idea is that, in order for kids to be successful academically, their other needs must be met, too. That includes their social and emotional needs.

In the last few years, terms like “whole child” and “social-emotional learning” have become buzzwords. They’re all over education conference agendas and making headlines in the news. But behind the buzzwords are programs, often led and managed by schools, that take into account all the different things a child needs to be able to learn and grow, even if those things reach outside the traditional roles of a school.

EdSurge sat down with Christina Cipriano, the director of research at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a research scientist at the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine. Cipriano thinks about and researches social-emotional learning every day, so she broke down for us what SEL is, where it comes and how it works.

Listen to the discussion on this week’s EdSurge On Air podcast or read a portion of the interview at EdSurge online.

Excerpted from “Why Social-Emotional Learning Is Suddenly in the Spotlight” on EdSurge, an online source of  independent news and resources to help readers understand the role of technology in education.  Read the full article.

Source: EdSurge | Why Social-Emotional Learning Is Suddenly in the Spotlight, https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-05-07-why-social-emotional-learning-is-suddenly-in-the-spotlight | © 2011-2019 EdSurge Inc.

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