Education Week - July 19, 2017 - 25

is the only way to align schooling with what we
know about learning and youths' neurobiological
and cognitive development.
Camille A. Farrington
Managing Director
Consortium on School Research
University of Chicago
Chicago, Ill.

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Associate Professor
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, Calif.

Both authors serve on the Aspen Institute's National
Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic
Development's Council of Distinguished Scientists.

SEL Needs a Concrete Definition
To the Editor:
In his recent Commentary, Chester E. Finn
Jr. perpetuates a misconception that is all
too common: the belief that social-emotional
learning is devoid of substance. Unlike
self-esteem, SEL comprises specific skills
needed to set goals, manage behavior, build
relationships, and process and remember
information. Our studies and others show
these skills are essential for educators to
teach and students to learn academic content.
But Finn has raised an issue that
researchers like us need to tackle head on:
No one can quite agree on what SEL is. The
current lack of precision can cause confusion,
lead to inefficient use of instructional
time and resources, and breed the kind of
skepticism evident in Finn's Commentary. We
need to set the record straight that SEL is
measurable, relevant, and beneficial, but we
also must be concrete and transparent about
what it is.
Our research, including randomized
controlled trials of interventions across ages
and contexts, concludes that there are about

a dozen specific SEL skills that are clearly
linked to school and life success. Adults and
students both need these skills. They include:
(1) executive functions, such as attention
and impulse control, cognitive flexibility,
and planning; (2) the ability to cope with
frustration, understand other perspectives,
and manage emotions; and (3) the social
competence to collaborate and resolve
interpersonal conflicts.
From our work in schools, we know that
SEL interventions can have multiple goals,
from facilitating classroom management,
to building students' ability to cope in the
face of both normative and toxic stress, to
helping teachers avoid burnout. Different
SEL skills may be more relevant or necessary
in some contexts than others and at different
developmental periods. Research is becoming
ever more precise about which strategies
work best and when.
At the front lines of teaching and learning,
educators know that students need
fundamental cognitive, emotional, and social
skills so that they can succeed-and they see
how much everyone struggles when those
skills are missing. They need researchers
like us to be clear about where they should
be focusing their efforts in order to support
academic learning rather than distracting
from it. The science of SEL-and there is
one-can and should guide us.
Suzanne Bouffard
Developmental Psychologist
Cambridge, Mass.

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edweek.org/go/commentary

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COMMENTARY
Talking about religion in the
classroom might feel wrong, but
educators shouldn't shy away from
discussing a subject that's been
at the heart of molding "America's
identity, purpose, and politics,"
writes Roger L. Beckett of the
Ashbrook Center.

www.edweek.org/go/Beckett

Educators' silence in the
classroom about gender identity
can be damaging, warns
psychiatrist and author Laura
Erickson-Schroth. She says there
are five myths about transgender
students that teachers and school
administrators need to unlearn.

www.edweek.org/go/Erickson

OPINION BLOGS
Few opinion bloggers on edweek.
org have struck a chord with
readers the way Peter DeWitt has
on the topic of school leadership
and climate. After six years,
DeWitt is hanging up his blogging
shingle. This fall, he will start
writing the Finding Common
Ground monthly column on
edweek.org.

www.edweek.org/go/DeWitt

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Education Week - July 19, 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - July 19, 2017
