Probably, not so many people know what emotional and social learning (SEL) is. SEL helps students improve their skills and gain a better understanding, enhance their capacity to control emotions and keep an optimistic vision of life. SEL is based on the theory that the most effective learning emerges with a support of special relationships that make learning more efficient, challenging and engaging.
In fact, emotional and social skills are very important for learning, as well as for being a successful student and a responsible citizen in general. That’s what SEL is supposed to do – to rare responsible, intelligent and honest people.
Modern schools are multicultural and their students are from different social and cultural backgrounds. That’s the reason why educators give students understanding of how to behave, build relationships with other people and, as a result, succeed in their lives.
One research shows that SEL improves achievements up to 11 per cent. But besides that, SEL also formulates prosocial behaviors like kindness, sharing, and empathy. In general, SEL helps improve following skills:
– Self-Awareness. This is an understanding of one’s own emotions and an ability to find out how they affect the behavior. The people with high level of self-awareness can recognize how their thoughts, behavior and emotions are connected to each other;
– Social Awareness. This is the ability to understand, empathize, and feel compassion for people from different cultures or with another social status. This definition also involves recognizing social standards of behavior;
– Self-Management: Self-management requires a set of skills that support the ability to control one’s own emotions and actions. This concept also involves the ability to control emotions, manage stress and pass through challenges.
– Relationship Skills: Emotional learning improves human relations significantly. People with strong communicative skills are able to keep and establish rewarding relations with others, no matter what preferences they have in choosing friends or fellows. This is an ability to behave correctly and establish contacts in the society with brilliant success;
– Responsible Decision Making is based on taking all the factors to consideration. It also includes understanding and accepting of social norms and ethical standards.
How Do Schools Implement Emotional Learning
Schools nowadays have certain learning strategies to implement emotional learning in schoolhouses. It includes stimulating children to understand emotional and social wellbeing and improving pedagogical skills to promote and encourage SEL. Besides it, creating a precise timetable with SEL classes will increase the effectiveness of such classes and help in achieving the goals of SEL.
For the best effectiveness, SEL lessons should be no longer than 15-20 minutes and attained on a regular basis. Furthermore, SEL classes should repeat weekly and be interactive, as there is no need to arrange such classes without aiming to attract students’ attention and get positive feedback.
Basically, SEL is a way to make students ready for their future and help become socially and emotionally mature. Sometimes giving traditional lessons doesn’t lead to expectable results. That’s why SEL exists – for learning children how to behave correctly and keep good fellowship with their classmates. As we know, bullying is a serious problem facing schools of any country, but SEL can help decrease this issue and even prevent it!
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