Review of All Learning Is Social and Emotional

“Why does he look like that?” my 3-year-old grandson asks, pointing to a picture of the Lorax in the book we’re reading. 

I respond, “I wonder…maybe he’s sad…or maybe he’s frustrated. Which one do you think he is?” 

“I think he’s sad.” And we talk about why the Lorax might be sad and what he can do about it. And I hope that maybe, just maybe, my little grandson will be a little more sophisticated at processing his emotions the next time his mom asks tells him it’s time to clean up his toys… Well, that’s one way I’ve been applying my recent reading.

All Learning Is Social and Emotional: Helping Students Develop Essential Skills for the Classroom and Beyond is a great book—I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and would love to read it again, slowly, in a discussion group, to thoroughly process and embed in my classroom all the fantastic ideas it contains. It is engaging, clear, challenging, and full of concrete applications to all grade levels and content areas.

First, what’s your response to that phrase "social and emotional learning" (SEL)?

• What is it? It’s learning how to recognize and regulate one’s thoughts and feelings in order to attain goals, solve problems, build and repair relationships, and contribute positively to the larger community.
• Does it belong in schools? We are teaching it, whether it’s intentional or not. If we make it explicit, we can be sure we are teaching what we want, what kids need, and doing it as intentionally and effectively as possible.
• Doesn’t it take time away from content learning? Actually, these skills will not only make students better at mastering content material
• Isn’t this just for students who come to school deficient in skills that should be taught at home? This will level the playing field for students coming in with gaps, but it isn’t only remedial. It’s the same skills adults are buying books on—Brene Brown, anyone?  And it’s the skills we want the inhabitants of our future world—whether they’re our kids, our students, or ourselves—to have.

These issues and more are addressed in the first chapter (you can read it here).

So what are skills are we talking about? According to this book’s authors, the 5 skills, outlined in the 5 chapters 2-6, are as follows: 

• Identity and Agency: Identifying strengths and setting and attaining goals
• Emotional Regulation: Identifying, responding to, and managing one’s own emotions (essential for the impulse control that not only sustains stable relationships, but also enables the famed ability to delay gratification) 
• Cognitive Regulation: Paying attention, organizing, and solving problems are all school skills in this category, which starts with metacognition, or the ability to “(1) recognize one’s own and other people’s thinking, (2) consider the actions needed to complete a task, and (3) identify the strategies one might use to carry out those actions” (69-70).
• Social Skills: Sharing, teamwork, relationships (communication, empathy, repair)—many of the 21st Century skills employers are valuing now.
• Public Spirit: “Taking action to contribute positively to one’s family, classroom, and larger community” (121).

What did I especially love about this book?

• Integration: Rather than proposing a separate SEL curriculum (there are many on the market already), it advocates and empowers integrating those skills throughout the school. There are many examples from all grade levels and subject areas to show what this could look like.
• Teacher’s role: A clear emphasis on teachers intentionally modeling and identifying strategies, teaching students tools, and structuring classroom routines and assignments to give students practice using the tools and helping each other use them with growing independence.
• More books: The appendix may be my favorite 21 pages of the book—literary recommendations for picture books and chapter books related each of the 5 competencies, with fictional and nonfictional characters who exhibit the skills we want students to master.
• Restorative justice: This approach to school discipline in integrated into the chapter on social skills. For more information I highly recommend the book Hacking School Discipline: 9 Ways to Create a Culture of Empathy and Responsibility Using Restorative Justice.
• Outward focus: In all 5 components there is a focus on using learning to help others, from the first one on Identity and Agency (“individual persistence and grit aren’t enough; they should be leveraged to better the lives of others.” 3rd grade teacher, p. 34) to the last one on Public Spirit. Public Spirit includes respect for others (“seeing worth and value in every human life, regardless of differences….true empathy lies in carefully listening to others in order to hear their thoughts and feelings” [121]), courage (“Courageous acts include speaking up o behalf of others and making unpopular choices that are nonetheless ethical” [124]), ethical responsibility, civic responsibility, social justice, service learning, and leadership.

The final chapter provides strategies and tools for bringing this approach to SEL to your school. 

I want my grandkids, my students, and the inhabitants of my future to have identity and agency, emotional regulation, cognitive regulation, social skills, and public spirit. They will be effective students, healthier and happier people, and aware and active citizens. As the authors sign off, they liken teaching these skills to planting a tree: “It’s been said, ‘The best time to have planted a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is today.’ What tree will you plant? And when?” (156).