A note to my son, when I fowarded this article to him:
I get this organization's materials, and usually they're careful. They also try to stay on the relatively liberal side of things, staying just a step or two back from the more extreme steps the left is taking. I think this makes it sometimes superficial in the sense that it doesn't go to the root of the problem, but also keeps it careful, and keeps it in touch with the merits on the side of the left; maybe too much in touch with the left's posture and too prone to treat it as having only good intentions -- as if it has more good intentions than everyone else, and the left is to be given the special privilege of always being called well-intentioned when it does the most malicious things, ignoring the fact that the left like everyone else also has malicious intentions -- but at least it can't be accused of ignorance or unconcern for those merits, or of "going too far", etc etc.
I have no way to know to what extent SEL is in practice becoming dominated by the "Transformative SEL" doctrine described here. My guess is that it's a problem that's in course of becoming worse, and that the problem began long before the doctrine itself was given this name, and probably the earlier SEL was always affected in some degree by the same underlying doctrine or attitude. Maybe that would explain why it didn't stick to the traditional termnology of "character formation", and took up the new name SEL, it created more space for putting ideology into it. But that's just my guess.
Meanwhile, maybe this is helpful for you in figuring out what is happening when you run into SEL, directly or indirectly, in school.
Rights for All? Transformative SEL’s Divisive Worldview
A note to my son, when I fowarded this article to him:
I get this organization's materials, and usually they're careful. They also try to stay on the relatively liberal side of things, staying just a step or two back from the more extreme steps the left is taking. I think this makes it sometimes superficial in the sense that it doesn't go to the root of the problem, but also keeps it careful, and keeps it in touch with the merits on the side of the left; maybe too much in touch with the left's posture and too prone to treat it as having only good intentions -- as if it has more good intentions than everyone else, and the left is to be given the special privilege of always being called well-intentioned when it does the most malicious things, ignoring the fact that the left like everyone else also has malicious intentions -- but at least it can't be accused of ignorance or unconcern for those merits, or of "going too far", etc etc.
I have no way to know to what extent SEL is in practice becoming dominated by the "Transformative SEL" doctrine described here. My guess is that it's a problem that's in course of becoming worse, and that the problem began long before the doctrine itself was given this name, and probably the earlier SEL was always affected in some degree by the same underlying doctrine or attitude. Maybe that would explain why it didn't stick to the traditional termnology of "character formation", and took up the new name SEL, it created more space for putting ideology into it. But that's just my guess.
Meanwhile, maybe this is helpful for you in figuring out what is happening when you run into SEL, directly or indirectly, in school.