Social Emotional Learning

Public school parents want kids to learn social-emotional learning (SEL) skills like kindness. They reject book bans and threats against school boards.

It’s time to get real about social and emotional learning for students.

Brightbeam CEO Chris Stewart spoke with developmental psychologist Dr. Tia Kim of the Committee for Children about Social Emotional Learning and how most parents really feel about it.

Brightbeam CEO Chris Stewart recently spoke with Dr. Akilah Reynolds, a licensed psychologist in Los Angeles and a team member at The Black Girl Doctor, about how social-emotional learning (SEL) can change this picture and offer a different pathway to understanding and regulating our emotions. Their conversation got to the heart of what we know today about how parents, teachers and other adults can set kids up for success by understanding how to work with their feelings and the feelings of others to communicate and collaborate effectively.

“How’s school?” friends and family asked me, all year long. I gave my typical response, “Always interesting!” But the truth? School, this year, was beautiful, heartbreaking, fulfilling, exhausting, predictable, unpredictable, disheartening, inspiring, messy, and marvelous.

As an educator, I know how important it is to look at growth through the lens of test scores and data-driven academic goals. But I also know, in the wake of yet another school tragedy, that my students need me to focus on their growth in a different way.

Do you want social-emotional learning, or SEL, in schools? You’re far from alone in that opinion. It makes you part of the 75% of American parents who say SEL creates a positive classroom environment, according to new polling data from the Benenson Strategy Group released by the Committee For Children.

Students across our nation started another week of school after yet another tragic mass shooting motivated by racism and hate.

When I was a kid, my mother would tell me, “One monkey don’t stop no show!” 

I was in kindergarten—snaggle-toothed, bright-eyed, and brown-skinned, with a head full of knocker-balls that clacked like high heels when I walked. Her words cut through the sound of my sobbing to stop the tears in my throat.