The National Foundation for Educational Research revealed, “One in five teachers feels tense about their job all or most of the time, compared with one in eight workers in similar professions.” Jack Worth, a co-author of the report, states, “Nurturing, supporting, and valuing teachers is vital to making teaching an attractive and rewarding profession.” How do we nurture our educators? We give them the tools necessary to support their mental health and do their jobs more effectively. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skills are critical to this mission.
In this article, we discuss why SEL skills are vital to educators and what methods are being used to help implement these methods in today’s teachers. We then highlight an interview with thought leader and consultant in SEL education, Krista Leh, to discuss how she feels these skills help teachers with stress, burnout and enhance student-teacher relationships.
Why SEL for Teachers?
One study by Greenberg et al. states that stress affects teachers’ health and well-being, job satisfaction, job turnover, and student outcomes. Teachers need tools and support in strengthening their social and emotional skills to manage the burnout and stress that comes with the job. According to Edutopia, “Social and emotional competencies help teachers avoid burnout and increase well-being. By identifying their internal drivers, they can use emotional intelligence to improve their craft. Research suggests that school leaders who foster collaboration among teachers create healthy school climates that ultimately lead to students’ academic gains.
In a recent interview with Krista Leh, lead professional SEL facilitator and founder of Resonance Education, she states, “SEL is a necessary component to help teachers recognized when they are getting burnt out. I’m a huge believer that SEL is not a program that we implement in schools, instead, it’s a philosophy – it’s who you are and what you do every single day. And if we want students to follow the core competencies of SEL, we just can’t teach it to students, but we need to be living it ourselves.” The five core SEL competencies Leh is referring to are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. These skills are taught at different developmental stages from childhood to adulthood and across diverse cultural contexts.
When asked how to use these skills in the classroom, Leh suggests, “We [teachers] need to model it and do our own self-assessments. I need to do all five competencies, sometimes several times a day. I’m not always perfect in performing all of them, but I need to be aware of them. They help me take a step back when I’m feeling stressed, re-energize myself, and keep moving forward.”
In terms of how SEL can enhance the student-teacher relationship, Leh offers, “When teachers have a clear understanding of SEL competencies, and they understand how they function and work, it allows them to open up doors where they can not only help students’ processes along the SEL continuum, but it also allows teachers to better respond to students needs and see things from their perspective.” Leh shares a personal example of this practice, “When I started out in teaching if a student responded or reacted, I often took it personally. Now, through my work in SEL, I understand that their reaction is a ‘fight or flight’ response, they are having an emotion, and they are responding right away – and it’s not personal. So I feel when teachers understand how our brains work and other components of SEL, it will help them to manage a stressful situation more effectively.”
What SEL Looks Like for Educators
CASEL suggests that school districts are more effective at teaching SEL for students when these same competencies are instilled in educators. They offer three ways to achieve these goals:
LEARN – Support staff in reflecting on personal social and emotional competencies and developing capacity for supporting SEL in their colleagues and students. This often includes:
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Reflecting on Personal SEL Skills
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Personalized Professional Learning Plans for SEL
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Examining Biases for Cultural Competence
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Self-Care and Re-energizing
COLLABORATE – Set up structures such as professional learning communities to collaborate on developing their strategies for promoting schoolwide SEL. This may include:
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Staff Shared Agreements
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Peer Mentoring and Partnership
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Professional Learning Communities
MODEL – Support staff in modeling SEL competencies, mindsets, and skills throughout the school community with students, students’ families, community partners, and with each other.
Additional Administrator Actions Recommended by CASEL:
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Allow space for and prioritize opportunities for staff to plan, learn, and reflect on SEL.
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Intentionally allow adults to connect personally, interact in meaningful ways, and share appreciations and reflections during staff meetings.
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Ensure that all decision-making teams are representative of the school community and are included in decision-making processes.
Edutopia offers one step in a popular adult SEL or EQ (Emotional Quotient/ Intelligence) model. This step is to develop and cultivate self-awareness. Emotional awareness starts with identifying feelings, especially the ones that are deep and hidden. This step offers to choose a situation that was emotionally charged and reflect on the following questions:
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How did you feel during this situation? Naming a specific emotion out loud can help reduce its power and intensity. Dr. Dan Siegel, well-known author of The Whole-Brain Child, often says, “Name it to tame it.”
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What action do you take about these feelings? Emotions drive people to take action, spurring them to respond to certain situations in non-productive ways. Taking time to name feelings and explore their meaning will allow people to make better decisions.
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What were your emotions telling you? Exploring the meaning (obvious or not) of emotions is an essential step toward developing self-awareness.
When it comes to one of the standard components of SEL – ‘self-awareness’ – famous author and professor Brene Brown captures why it is essential, “Without self-awareness and the ability to manage our emotions, we unknowingly lead from hurt, not heart. Not only is this a huge energy suck for us and the people around us, but it also creates distrust, disengagement, and an eggshell culture.” SEL skills help students and teachers to learn, respond, and grow together to create genuine connections, more effective engagement, and a healthier learning environment.
