Social-Emotional Learning: Why should we incorporate SEL in the high school classroom?

Why Should We Incorporate Social-Emotional Learning in the High School Classroom?

Social-emotional learning: buzzword, catch-phrase, gifted objective, holistic education skills. Education can see social-emotional learning as so many different things. However, when used appropriately, social-emotional learning can increase universal design and help a variety of students manage their world and their academics easier. In this article, you will discover: what is social emotional learning, why we should incorporate social emotional learning in the first place, and what does social emotional learning look like for high school students.

What is Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)?

Social-emotional learning includes combined skills and behavioral aspects that help students become more well-rounded and healthy adults. These skills focus more on, you guessed it, social and emotional behaviors. As such, students learn skills that may not be explicitly taught into a curriculum, but which can be easy to incorporate with a little effort. These skills may include: interpersonal skills, how to communicate more effectively, how to build confidence or make quality decisions. True social-emotional learning has 5 pillars: self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and decision-making. 

• Self-awareness allows students to understand and label their own emotions, as well as understand where they are (strengths/weaknesses) to determine how they can grow and change their own behaviors.
• Social awareness helps students use empathy to better understand the world around them, especially about those that have a different perspective or background.
• Self-management asks students to own their behaviors, emotions, and thoughts. They are also able to make goals and create an action plan to follow-through with reaching said goal.
• Relationship skills include interpersonal communication and allow students to maintain healthy relationships through conflict resolution and asking for help.
• Decision-making asks students to make decisions based not only on what they might want in that moment, but also to choose the most ethical choice that will benefit their own and others well-being.

Why Do We Need Social-Emotional Learning in High School?

As I am sure you can tell at this point, much of what we do as teachers naturally includes these types of behaviors. However, explicit instruction can go a long way to help students understand and feel confident using these skills as teenagers. 

I know that as a high school teacher, I sometimes assumed that my students already had these skills from elementary and middle school, only to realize that my assumption was far off. Students need more help as their lives become more stressful. Plus, even if students have learned some of these skills in previous grades, the needs of their academic journey have changed once transitioning to high school and they may not know how to adapt these skills to a new and often more stressful environment. As such, even one lesson a month or even quarter can help students understand the SEL curriculum more fully and hopefully continue to adapt these skills in the future. 

What Does Social-Emotional Learning Look Like for High School Students?

At this point I know you're asking: But how do I find time and add even more to my plate?

Trust me, I understand you there. I struggled with this in my first year teaching gifted 9th-grade English (189 students + teaching 25 college students at night, new gifted curriculum, never had taught 9th grade before, still finishing my M.A., and working on a gifted certificate). I knew that gifted students needed more specific social-emotional education than their non-gifted counterparts (who of course also benefit from this inclusion) due to the gifted outcomes; however, we had so much to cover to get ready for the 9th-grade end-of-year exam and every day was already booked with differentiation, feedback loops, practice testing, and everything else under the sun. So I started small; I included the same information for all of my students (honors and standard students included), because I knew that all of my students were struggling with the transition to high school and the extra work they were trying to balance. 

Welcome to Well-Being Wednesdays!

Due to time-constraints, Well-Being Wednesdays were limited to once a month on a Wednesday schedule (we have shortened Wednesday classes). Wednesday’s were already a day where it was difficult to do too much due to its shortened time frame and often would become a catch-up day for what we hadn’t finished on Monday and Tuesday. So, one Wednesday a month (you could also do this once a quarter or on testing days or yearbook picture days, etc), students would come in and they would see a Well-Being Wednesday prompt. By the end of the day, students would be happily coming into the room, because they had heard through the grape-vine that today they had a light day in my classroom. 

Agenda:

• Bellwork Journal Prompt on a specific well-being topic

• Introduction to topic through a video from YouTube 

• Activity to practice topic

• Reflection

• Guided Meditation or Quiet Time

I started off our very first WWW with an understanding of how stress affects the brain in order to get some buy-in from the more science-minded students. We read a short article (incorporating some ELA standards) and watched a 4-minute TED Talk video. Students were able to reflect on how stress affected their own lives and listen a little more attentively when they realized that this was something that could help them. Then, we would do an activity where we shared and discussed how stress affected us right now, what we do about that currently (usually nothing), and what are some things we might want to incorporate in order to be “less stressed.” The hardest activity to incorporate on this first day was the guided meditation. I told students that I wanted them to try something new, but I would not force them to participate (counter-productive). However, I would also not tolerate anyone interrupting the other students that were willing to try. As such, students were forced to be quiet for the entire meditation and were not allowed to sleep or do other work during this time. In essence, I was requiring them to take a moment just to sit and be present (even if they were not actively doing a meditation with the rest of us). The students appreciated this time to just relax a little and get ready for the next class, even if they were not actively meditating with the rest of us. 

After this first introductory session, we used this same structure for every proceeding Well-Being Wednesday lesson, just with different topics. I used the videos from The Science of Happiness to guide us. There are lots to choose from; we covered gratitude, cute aggression, art therapy, random acts of kindness, glass half-full or half-empty, and a few videos from The Science of Empathy Playlist (their favorite activity was The Ultimatum Game, where we did the game before watching the video and I used “Extra Credit” index cards)  All videos are under 10-minutes as well. Usually these had some sort of activity embedded into the video that we would watch, and I would recreate this for my students to try out as well. Essentially, I didn’t have a ton of prep work and I didn’t have to think of new activities all by myself. Students could see what was happening, why we were watching it, complete the activity themselves, and then reflect on how it made them feel and if they would like to use it in their life. Essentially, I was just trying to widen their scope and help them build a tool-box of SEL. I also took time to discuss explicit stress-management activities for self-care, such as yoga, journaling, meditation, coloring, active movement, etc. On our last day of WWW for the year, we even took a walk around campus after doing some stretching yoga in class. 

Overview

SEL curriculum is essential for students as they grow and learn. High school students can be left behind because they are seen as “old enough”, but they need this type of curriculum just as much as younger students. Incorporating small activities into the classroom can do wonders for their stress-management and academic success planning. Even if you are not able to do an entire day dedicated to SEL, even a short video at the end of class or a Bell Work, can be helpful to introduce students to different SEL concepts and get them thinking about their own self-awareness and growth.

Plus, if you need any help with this, I have the experience and resources to support you: 

1. Sign up for my newsletter to receive my Well-Being Wednesday PowerPoint (aka all of the videos I have used and the order I used them in and the activities that I have used with each video).
2. Once you are signed up for my newsletter, you can reach out to get some individual support or for me to answer any of your questions. 
3. I also have video courses that you can press and play (with full take-home notes, activities, and resources) on Stress-Management, Time-Management, and Academic Success Planning if you want a ready-made 10 lesson video course. 
4. You can check out my Teachers Pay Teachers Store for even more ready-to-use resources.

This can be overwhelming, but I am so proud of you for looking into incorporating SEL and working so hard to support your students' social-emotional growth!