Show, Don’t Tell the SEL
You don’t have to say anything to someone looking to be seen.
You just need to be present. You just need to listen.
Everyone is talking about social-emotional learning and the need for it in schools. Whether in the curriculum itself or in professional development, educators are realizing the importance of the well-being of students and staff as well.
If you are at a school having these discussions, the key is to go “below the waterline” of people. Like an iceberg, we only show 10% of ourselves: the 10% that we want the world to see, including fashion, music, sports tastes, friends at school, lingo we use, etc.
The other 90% rests “below our waterline,” and this includes our online and offline lives. Students have the ability to create a world, a life, and a person they want to be as opposed to who they really are. Scary but true.
SEL isn’t a bulletin board during Respect Week. It’s not an ice-breaker once a month at a Faculty Meeting. It’s not even a day of professional learning.
It’s a LIFESTYLE.
- Embracing Empathy
- Carrying Compassion
- Always Accepting
- Revolutionizing Respect
- Teaching Tolerance
- Inviting Inclusion
That’s the toolkit, the “secret sauce” of promoting the social and emotional well-being of your community. And yes, it’s always about the betterment of our students, but for SEL to be the vision, the “teaching tattoo” of your building or district, it starts with your staff.
You cannot expect teachers, faculty, and administrators to unpack the SEL toolkit on the daily if they have things “below their waterline” that need to be acknowledged, heard, and recognized, so they too feel supported, loved, and seen.
While social and emotional learning can be a classroom look you find on Pinterest, go below the waterline of that misconception and search your soul to understand its deeper meaning.
Show your students, staff, parents and community an entire “look” that you can feel, that you can embrace, that invites you onto the campus — not just a classroom.
Simply be human.
Simply be kind.
Simply be authentic.
When someone is looking to be seen, to be heard, to have someone show they care, they can tell whether or not it’s genuine.
You don’t have to have the answers, you don’t have to have the advice, and you usually don’t need to say anything to someone looking to be seen.
You just need to be present.
You just need to listen.
Social and emotional learning is the mental diet to your health — the mental well-being to live a life where YOU are comfortable with who YOU are, where YOU came from, and where YOU are going.
It’s not a diet fad that lasts while you’re on it and goes away the second you stop. If you want to be physically healthy, it calls for a lifestyle change.
The same goes for your mental health. If you want to create a school culture that is always inclusive and always positive, then focus collectively on …
- Cultivating Kindness
- Caring about Character
- Collaborating with the Community
Make these expectations — not exceptions — to your building. Do the little things to paint the big picture.
SHOW — don’t TELL — what to do.
Lead by example.
Create a place where people WANT to be … as opposed to HAVE to be.
