SEL is the new what?
Schools, corporations, and society often pick up on trends. They last a little longer than a viral video but you always need to look at them with an objective perspective. [Dare I say the word "lens?" Hard pass.] Back in the 1980s our president's wife went after the horrendously complex issue of drug use with a simple phase "Just say No" and there is little to no evidence that it was successful. The thought that people will change their behavior simply because you tell them to not do it is pretty weak.
The newest addiction in education is SEL. It is implemented for its own sake and often improperly. In the same sense tries to tell students how to feel and expects them to get better.
Of course the goals are desirable:
- Self awareness
- Self regulation
- Responsible decision making
- Relationship skills
- Social awareness
No way though are you going to form positive relationships by saying "Just Do It"
This is not something to be handled by 30 min, once a week super awkward group meetings. It is a highly complex long term bunch of stuff that we have to continually develop and adapt to.
So how do we do SEL chemistry?
As we delve into this long term relationship with SEL we can think about how do students talk about feelings. For one most emotions are tough to put into words so with students "tell me how you feel" is a dud. So let's talk about emojis :). They started in chat rooms and have expanded so much more than the original variety. It used to be amazing to be able to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
So for chemistry let's talk electronegativity. That is the desire for an atom to pick up another electron and it is a number on some periodic tables that really has no applicability to real life. Let's talk about the atom fluorine though. This is the most electron hungry element. It is absolutely ravenous for electrons. So ask your class to find a ravenous emoji and maybe something like this comes up. 
Then we have sodium that feels like it has too many electrons and really want's to get rid of one. It might look like this: 
Or this:
Considering the number of emojis that are out there (as of 2021 there are 3633 emojis just in the unicode standard and many more as custom icons and images. A class could put together a periodic table of emojis for the otherwise meh subject of electronegativity and this would help them:
- Remember the science
- Talk about and consider emotions of others
- Get to know each other better (relationship skills)
- Build social awareness
Wait, OMG WTF that looks like SEL 😍 Hey, its not like I can conquer all of SEL in one lesson. Let's work on all of this throughout the year. 😤. So don't be trendy because this is my life now.💗
I love you guys--AJ ROTFLMAO
Jack, all of your post are so elaborate and I enjoy reading them. This one made me laugh because while I was reading it felt like a roller coaster of meme pictures. I also love how you incorperated content and SEL into your blog post with humor to make it more enjoyable to read.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post Jack. I too have had my fair share of experiences with "fads". Often NEW? leadership models will be incorporated into the military as a test bed to see if they will work. I remember being a young 23 y/o sailor who was told I was going to go through "LEADERSHIP TRAINING". This meant that a more senior member of my unit that had gone to a 8 hour course on how to "facilitate" Covey's & Habits of Highly Effective People was going to teach me how to be a better leader. You might be surprise to hear that it didn't take. I think that you are onto something with not just teaching/modeling it in the classroom, but incorporating into the subject matter as a way to make it relatable is important.
ReplyDelete