Jane Robbins
The U.S. Department of Education (USED) longs to plumb the psyches of our children (as its own reports reveal – see here and here), and it enjoys the eager complicity of state education establishments. As reported by Education Week, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) recently announced that eight states will “work collaboratively to create and implement plans to encourage social-emotional learning in their schools.” These states are jumping on a bandwagon that threatens to roll over innocent children and their privacy.
CASEL is the big gorilla in the zoo of social-emotional learning, or SEL. Having proved so adept at (or perhaps having given up on) teaching students English, math, science, and history, state progressive-education establishments are joining CASEL to explore more esoteric pursuits. Better to diminish academic content knowledge and push SEL: “self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.”.....To Read More....
While you are right about not testing, you're wrong on the broader front of whether or not SEL should be taught in schools.
ReplyDeleteWe know (from research) what habits of thought lead to healthy outcomes (defined as good physical, mental and behavioral health) and which habits of thought lead to poor outcomes in those areas.
There is a very strong link between mental health and physical and behavioral health outcomes.
Stress increases the risk of a host of physical illnesses including a 50% risk of heart disease, including obesity and diabetes, including cancer and even the common cold and flu. This is because stress reduces the functioning capacity of our immune system. Chronic stress can and does lead to epigenetic changes that negatively impact multiple generations, to increased risk of children having sleep and behavior problems and asthma and to an increased risk of pre-term delivery.
Everyone knows that not everyone is impacted by the same amount of stress in the same situation. How a person processes the information, if they have healthy habits of thought (metacognition, re-framing, etc) the amount of stress they experience (even during traumatic events) is lower than it is for someone with less healthy thought processes.
In the children who are considered at-risk, there are longitudinal studies that demonstrate that their outcomes are better when they're taught how to think in more resilient ways including: higher graduation rates from both high school and college, less crime and violence and less teen pregnancy, and less suicide. Any child can be "at-risk" because although it occurs more often in poverty areas, any home can be abusive.
These mental skills make the difference between whether someone who experiences a traumatic experience, and well over half of us do so at least once in our lifetimes, experiences PTSD or posttraumatic growth. These skills reduce suffering.
Today we lose 2/3 of the at-risk children to addictions, violence and prison.
In my opinion, it is criminal child neglect to know how to help them and not do so.
When you buy a car, if you're intelligent, you check the safety ratings. Teaching children how to develop healthy habits of thought is no different than ensuring they have a safe operating system. Nearly 25% of our population suffers from some form of mental illness each year. Healthy habits of thought prevent these problems and other problems that stem from them.
Healthy habits of thought prevent addiction, crime, and all types of illnesses. They also improve relationships of all types and increase success throughout the lifespan.
Healthy habits of thought aren't about what to think. They are about skilled thinking and processing of information in ways that reduce stress and improve outcomes.
If you want citations for the above, every statement is supported by research that is cited in either Rescue Our Children From the War Zone, Prevent Suicide: The Smart Way, or True Prevention: Optimum Health: Remember Galileo.
Do teachers need training to teach healthy habits of thought. Yes, of course. They also will become better teachers as a result and will know how to stop negatively impacting children with the Pygmalion Effect (which they understand intellectually, but not how to not do it).
I always recommend that both students and parents be trained, not just teachers. This will make parents better parents and will take away the fear of the unknown.
The purpose and use of emotions was defined using an unvalidated hypothesis about 90 years ago and most people alive today operate using that definition of emotions, which is why they don't make sense and seem unreliable. In 2007, a new definition was introduced that regulated the old one to a "highly questionable hypothesis." When the new definition is understood emotions are reliable.
Why are you attempting to prevent it instead of guide it in a way that makes sense?
Have you read the research?
Dear Joyful Lady,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughts. While I’m not the author of this article I will respond to your comments.
The author makes a point and then asks: “Assessment and development of students’ social and emotional skills is risky business. What kind of training will teachers or other school personnel have for this responsibility?" Let’s explore this in light of some of your comments.
You note children considered at risk get better outcomes when taught “how to think in more resilient ways including: higher graduation rates from both high school and college, less crime and violence and less teen pregnancy, and less suicide. Any child can be "at-risk" because although it occurs more often in poverty areas, any home can be abusive."
While I agree in general we have to ask: Are the Department of Education and it’s minions in the various teacher’s unions the ones to “teach” children how to think properly in order to live properly? In short to create the societal paradigms that will be the moral structure governing what people do?
They’ve failed thus far, in spite of massive increases in money allocated to public education, to teach kids to read, write, spell, and do basic math. Why would we expect them to be capable of plumbing the depths of children’s psyches any better? A far more difficult task than teaching them to read.
The author goes on to say: “When non-psychologists dabble in these murky waters, the result is tremendously subjective analyses of what a child is thinking or feeling as opposed to what the government thinks he should be thinking or feeling.”
Which of course bring us to the point. Although the comments you make about the need to give children a proper mental, emotional and intellectual foundation for their actions, your comments are logical fallacies because the need to do that is not the subject of this article. No one disagrees children need moral guidance (except for modern progressives when it comes to gender identity or abortion), the issue is who is to do it.
The problem with public education goes back to the late 19th century in America. The ultimate goal of public education from that point on was not reading, writing and arithmatic - it was to make sure the “apple fell as far away from the tree as possible”. In American society the moral teachers were the parents and the churches. The “progressives” of that era wanted to make the government the ultimate moral authority, not the parents! That’s what public education has promoted for over 100 years and continues to do so . The article dosen'st question children need all the things you note. Again - the issue is who is to do it.
All those poor children who are lost to durgs and end up in prison in so many cases are the result of a society that’s lost it’s moral foundation, and no amount of interference by teachers or the government is going to change that.
Changes in societal paradigms must start in the home and the family. When that foundational institution is destroyed society can’t be saved. A destruction brought about be the very “progressives” and government who are now promoting this psychological tampering by people who score at the bottom 10% of the SAT’s - teachers.
Let teachers start turning out students who can read, write, spell, use proper gramer and work basic math. Let parents do their jobs. The author goes on to say: "Suppose the government decides a child will be a more acceptable student, citizen, and worker bee if he learns to acquiesce to the “consensus” of the group, regardless of his own moral standards, or if she learns to accept that all commands of the government must be obeyed. The student may fulfill the standard by developing the correct attitudes, but under whose authority does the government presume to instill attitudes that may conflict with parents’ desires?"
That really is the issue.
As with all left leaning thinkers - you missed the point entirely!