Social-emotional learning (SEL), an umbrella term for a variety of curricula that target the development of emotional awareness and self-regulation skills, has gone mainstream in U.S. K-12 education. For most of its existence, the rationale for SEL has been that encouraging emotional and character development is just as important as teaching facts and skills, and may be essential to helping students perform well academically. SEL, it is argued, provides the psychological foundation necessary for students to master academic challenges and live fulfilled lives.
Jul 3, 2023·edited Jul 3, 2023Liked by Judith Sears
Another damaging aspect of Transformative SEL is what it does to the individual. It saddles the individual with concepts that he or she is oppressed or is an oppressor. Remember that we don't see things as they are. We see things as we are. Those now saddled with seeing themselves as oppressed will "see" oppression everywhere. How can this perspective develop hope.
I appreciate and agree by far most all in Ms. Sears' article shown here. Yet, I must object to her unconscious acceptance of the language of the side of radical progressives and cultural Marxists who, all in turn, become racists in their own rights. Sears says, " In a pluralistic society, a public school district that teaches students that there is only one way to be anti-racist is not only wrong, but it also makes it more difficult to reach every student and convince them of the virtues of being anti-racist. " Why should public schools teach one how to be an "anti-racist" in the first place?
NO! I do not support racism, yet that does not make me an "anti-racist." A "racist" is a person, likely very sick in his/her soul and low on humanity and appreciation of such, who BELIEVES IN AND ESPOUSES RACISM. I don't want racism, but to be "against" a "racist" is to somehow wish to impede his well being, livelihood and standing of rights due us all. A white journalist once asked an elderly Black man if he hated people of the KKK. The old Black man's reply was a high example of humanness and decency. I paraphrase the elderly Black man's answer: 'I don't hate them. Hatred is a disease. You wouldn't hate someone for being sick, would you?". Sears' statement plays into the hands of neo-racists by using their verbiage. I appreciate the article. It is illuminating. Yet, please, we should teach children tolerance of racial differences, not intolerance of the ignorant people who don't understand this.
Commercial providers of SEL programs, such as Second Step, promote them as “backed by research.” This is not true and I encourage every school board member, school administrator, teacher and parent to go to their website and read the reports of research THEY say supports the outcomes they claim for their programs.
The research reports admit the program has little impact, has not been replicated, data is collected by interested parties and is therefore affected by confirmation bias, and the bottom line recommendation by the researchers is “more research is needed!” Yet school systems all over the US are investing vast resources in these programs - resources needed to improve basic skills in reading, math, science and history.
Please, no anti-this, or anti-that. Rather, efforts to educate children about bigotry will include a history of the divisiveness of ideologies, the methods used by ideologues, and how to avoid the insanity by holding one's identity lightly.
Hmmm..."self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making." Sounds like we just need a good, traditional LITERATURE course!
Reading about transformative SEL fills me with outrage and helplessness. It's outrageous that the educational elite have hijacked the K-12 curriculum and turned it into a vehicle for indoctrinating America's youth in applied critical race theory. It's a secular religion and religion has no place in public education.
Where did this begin? Was the pretext that every child deserves a "safe" learning environment? Is the Golden Rule so inadequate a means of attaining that end that teachers must see to it that their pupils are adept at “taking actions to advance policies or changes that are consistent with human rights, social justice, and equality"? When it comes to shaping kids' attitudes and behavior, transformative SEL makes the Pledge of Allegiance look like a Chinese fortune cookie insert.
What makes me feel helpless is the knowledge that there is nothing I can do to eliminate transformative SEL from the Oregon state educational system I help fund with my tax dollars. Oregon's governor is so relentlessly progressive that she makes Hillary look like Jeane Kirkpatrick. The chances that my objections would receive a sympathetic hearing from even a junior staffer are nil. The new superintendent of schools inherits an organization that is fully captured by applied critical race theory. Nothing in the reporting surrounding the announcement of the superintendent's appointment or her photo indicates that she'd be open to abandoning sociopolitical programming in favor of refocusing on the three Rs. What about the public school in my neighborhood? It's tempting to chain myself to the building, but I have better things to do with my time than appearing at my arraignment.
Is there a creative, aggressive lawyer out there who'd be willing to go after SEL and its weaponized big brother, transformative SEL, on the grounds that it constitutes constitutionally prohibited compelled speech?
Good article, but I am sorry to need to say that the woke have captured the term "anit-racist." It now seems to mean adherence to the group think, critical race theory, oppressor philosophy. I now call myself a non-racist to be distinguished from them. (I came to this after much research and reading many articles in the FAIR substack.)
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.
Second Step, a widely adopted SEL program, claims on its website that it is supported by research. Not true. A quick look at the research THEY cite on their website shows that SEL has little impact, has data collection problems showing confirmation bias, is not replicable, and “more research is needed” to prove results. It’s a good idea to point this out to school systems tempted to implement these programs, which consume resources better used to teach standard disciplines.
This sounds like a grand conspiracy specifically designed to create strife amongst the populace, so a few aristocrats can continue amassing great wealth.
Another damaging aspect of Transformative SEL is what it does to the individual. It saddles the individual with concepts that he or she is oppressed or is an oppressor. Remember that we don't see things as they are. We see things as we are. Those now saddled with seeing themselves as oppressed will "see" oppression everywhere. How can this perspective develop hope.
I appreciate and agree by far most all in Ms. Sears' article shown here. Yet, I must object to her unconscious acceptance of the language of the side of radical progressives and cultural Marxists who, all in turn, become racists in their own rights. Sears says, " In a pluralistic society, a public school district that teaches students that there is only one way to be anti-racist is not only wrong, but it also makes it more difficult to reach every student and convince them of the virtues of being anti-racist. " Why should public schools teach one how to be an "anti-racist" in the first place?
NO! I do not support racism, yet that does not make me an "anti-racist." A "racist" is a person, likely very sick in his/her soul and low on humanity and appreciation of such, who BELIEVES IN AND ESPOUSES RACISM. I don't want racism, but to be "against" a "racist" is to somehow wish to impede his well being, livelihood and standing of rights due us all. A white journalist once asked an elderly Black man if he hated people of the KKK. The old Black man's reply was a high example of humanness and decency. I paraphrase the elderly Black man's answer: 'I don't hate them. Hatred is a disease. You wouldn't hate someone for being sick, would you?". Sears' statement plays into the hands of neo-racists by using their verbiage. I appreciate the article. It is illuminating. Yet, please, we should teach children tolerance of racial differences, not intolerance of the ignorant people who don't understand this.
Commercial providers of SEL programs, such as Second Step, promote them as “backed by research.” This is not true and I encourage every school board member, school administrator, teacher and parent to go to their website and read the reports of research THEY say supports the outcomes they claim for their programs.
The research reports admit the program has little impact, has not been replicated, data is collected by interested parties and is therefore affected by confirmation bias, and the bottom line recommendation by the researchers is “more research is needed!” Yet school systems all over the US are investing vast resources in these programs - resources needed to improve basic skills in reading, math, science and history.
Very comprehensive read.
Please, no anti-this, or anti-that. Rather, efforts to educate children about bigotry will include a history of the divisiveness of ideologies, the methods used by ideologues, and how to avoid the insanity by holding one's identity lightly.
Hmmm..."self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making." Sounds like we just need a good, traditional LITERATURE course!
Reading about transformative SEL fills me with outrage and helplessness. It's outrageous that the educational elite have hijacked the K-12 curriculum and turned it into a vehicle for indoctrinating America's youth in applied critical race theory. It's a secular religion and religion has no place in public education.
Where did this begin? Was the pretext that every child deserves a "safe" learning environment? Is the Golden Rule so inadequate a means of attaining that end that teachers must see to it that their pupils are adept at “taking actions to advance policies or changes that are consistent with human rights, social justice, and equality"? When it comes to shaping kids' attitudes and behavior, transformative SEL makes the Pledge of Allegiance look like a Chinese fortune cookie insert.
What makes me feel helpless is the knowledge that there is nothing I can do to eliminate transformative SEL from the Oregon state educational system I help fund with my tax dollars. Oregon's governor is so relentlessly progressive that she makes Hillary look like Jeane Kirkpatrick. The chances that my objections would receive a sympathetic hearing from even a junior staffer are nil. The new superintendent of schools inherits an organization that is fully captured by applied critical race theory. Nothing in the reporting surrounding the announcement of the superintendent's appointment or her photo indicates that she'd be open to abandoning sociopolitical programming in favor of refocusing on the three Rs. What about the public school in my neighborhood? It's tempting to chain myself to the building, but I have better things to do with my time than appearing at my arraignment.
Is there a creative, aggressive lawyer out there who'd be willing to go after SEL and its weaponized big brother, transformative SEL, on the grounds that it constitutes constitutionally prohibited compelled speech?
Good article, but I am sorry to need to say that the woke have captured the term "anit-racist." It now seems to mean adherence to the group think, critical race theory, oppressor philosophy. I now call myself a non-racist to be distinguished from them. (I came to this after much research and reading many articles in the FAIR substack.)
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.
Second Step, a widely adopted SEL program, claims on its website that it is supported by research. Not true. A quick look at the research THEY cite on their website shows that SEL has little impact, has data collection problems showing confirmation bias, is not replicable, and “more research is needed” to prove results. It’s a good idea to point this out to school systems tempted to implement these programs, which consume resources better used to teach standard disciplines.
Great article. I found myself nodding in agreement as I was reading it.
This sounds like a grand conspiracy specifically designed to create strife amongst the populace, so a few aristocrats can continue amassing great wealth.
Another good piece on SEL, this one comparing the traditional vs. Transformative varieties:
https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/social-emotional-learning
Companion content from James Lindsay: https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-sel/
SO this is DEI-lite or DEI Part 2?