EELS Should Be the Class Mascot

SEL, short for Social-Emotional Learning, has been defined and used in schools for over thirty years. Prior to 2018, however, I had heard the letters, but never really saw anything about SEL in the first twenty years of my teaching career. This was also true of nearly all of my colleagues I had asked about it. My introduction to what SEL is began on Valentine’s Day, 2018, after the horrific Parkland, Florida, school shooting that killed 17 and wounded 18 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. 

The day after Parkland happened, I was on the phone with Joe Fatheree, a dear friend and fellow teacher from central Illinois, talking about teachers not having much say about school safety, or seeing any real progress to reduce the number of school shootings and other violent acts, for decades. We were wondering what could be done to try and produce real results in helping our youth maintain control of their emotions, and generally creating safer schools and environments where kids could learn and grow more while not worrying about so much actual and potential violence too many of our students see with high frequency. As we talked with more colleagues, safety personnel, administrators, school counselors, psychologists, and social workers, and other experts who had interests in this topic, we began to hear and learn about this SEL topic in detail. I was intrigued.

Two years later, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the world began to shut down for nearly one year. The school I worked at did remote learning and some hybrid learning during that time. Once the world began to come out of the shutdown, something became very apparent about the health of many of our students, as well as adults - the state of our mental health was largely in peril. Rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies, violent actions, and other mental health issues rose dramatically in the U.S. and around the world. Now, there was a substantial rise in mental health issues prior to COVID for nearly a decade, but post-COVID it accelerated to the point where districts all around the country began to take an interest in SEL. In my own school district, SEL became one of our four district goals. 

But something both interesting and worrisome began to happen over the last several years regarding SEL - it became politicised. Some politicians began to use language like SEL is part of the Left’s drive towards ‘wokeness’, and that SEL was a way to indoctrinate America’s youth towards a Leftist-Communist political agenda that was destroying the country (Harvard, Kansas, National Review). By 2024, at least eight state legislatures have introduced bills that would limit or ban SEL from the state’s public schools (APA, EdWeek). SEL has now become associated with wokeness, critical race theory (CRT), progressive and Leftist indoctrination programs, and so on. I wonder, though, how many of those who are making claims on either side of the issue actually understand what the core SEL ideas are when it was developed back in 1994, by those who formed the leading organization that drives SEL, CASEL - the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.

Traditional SEL is built around five competencies, which are Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision-Making. In order to attain any level of competency within one of these competencies, certain skills must be learned, practiced, and applied. One list showing skills associated with each competency is: 

 Self-awareness
The ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior. The ability to accurately assess one’s strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism, and a growth mindset.

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  Identifying emotions

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  Accurate self-perception

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  Recognizing strengths

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  Self-confidence

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  Self-efficacy

Self-management
The ability to successfully regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations — effectively managing stress, controlling impulses, and motivating oneself. The ability to set and work toward personal and academic goals.

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  Impulse control

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  Stress management

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  Self-discipline

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  Self-motivation

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  Goal-setting

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  Organizational skills

Social awareness
The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures. The ability to understand social and ethical norms for behavior and to recognize family, school, and community resources and support systems.

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  Perspective-taking

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  Empathy

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  Appreciating diversity

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  Respect for others

Relationship skills
The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. The ability to communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate social pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed.

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  Communication

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  Social engagement

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  Relationship-building

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  Teamwork

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  Collaboration

Responsible decision-making
The ability to make constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms. The realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and a consideration of the well-being of oneself and others. How is the content being taught applied in a student’s life and in society?

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  Identifying problems

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  Analyzing situations

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  Solving problems

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  Evaluating & Reflecting

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  Ethical responsibility

I also include two newly proposed competencies: Positive Purpose, and Curiosity & Healthy Skepticism. These include vital skills we need in an age of Artificial Intelligence, and an age of mis- and dis-information. By the way, this list of skills can be added to lesson plan templates, to help keep track of what skills naturally arise and are needed/used in any lesson at any grade level! Teachers already work and use these skills everyday, but likely don't realize they're including EELS within their work with students!

On the surface, when people see these skills for the first time, it is often eye-opening to learn these skills are fundamentally what SEL is meant to expose and teach to students. Not many parents have a problem with such a skills list when they see it, and tend to insist they, of course, want their children to be strong with each skill, because these are skills necessary to navigate and thrive in life. 

I am at the point where I think we need to re-brand SEL. In fact, I’d like to rename it. We have the letters in the wrong order - let us change SEL to ELS, and call SEL what it really is and should mean: Essential Life Skills. As part of the brand, it helps to have a mascot and visual, so I’m thinking of EELS: Everyday Essential Life Skills. 

When students have exposure to and practice with applying these types of skills in everyday situations both in and out of the classroom, the benefits are impressive - and long-lived into adulthood. Studies over the last few decades have shown the following: 

• Improve academic growth and achievement; on average, 11% improvement for students who went through these types of programs;

• Significantly improves a variety of student outcomes: societal skills, academics, social behavior, ability to handle emotional stresses, attitudes towards school and everyday life, fewer behavioral and conduct problems in school;

• Improvements in a variety of student outcomes last long-term (some measured to 18 years after the EELS exposure in school);

• EELS programming and exposure beginning in Kindergarten and lasting through the schooling years of development last a lifetime - those individuals are more likely to stay out of poverty, stay away from drug and alcohol addiction, have better mental and social health, stay out of prison, and get and hold higher paying jobs;

• EELS expenses in school are paid for, and then some, after students leave the school system: there is a 11:1 payoff to the economy for those who came through successful EELS programming and exposure in the school systems - for every $1 invested in EELS, society gains $11 in returns;

• EELS in schools is a key component to reducing poverty and improving economic mobility; 

• Perception among education system stakeholders overwhelmingly feel there is a need for EELS in schools: students, parents, teachers, administrators, scientists, and employers;

• EELS are not all intuitive, but need to be taught and learned; many of the skills are based on societal norms, and need to be taught to our youngest students and continued to be presented year after year for reinforcement as societal stresses increase with age. It would be wise to consider including EELS in all teacher training programs, along with the benefits of including them in the classroom; 

• Most employers (70%) see Emotional Intelligence (EI) as an immediate, essential skill set for their employees: in an age where jobs are significantly and routinely changing or being eliminated due to technology and artificial intelligence, workers are under more and new stresses that have never been experienced in human history, and many are not able to cope and adapt mentally, emotionally or socially. 

Students who are able to maintain control over emotions are more likely to stay out of trouble, be non-violent, and find calmer ways of resolving issues with other students. They can focus better in class. They can work better and more productively with classmates, because collaborative and teamwork skills are part of the EELS. Learning about these and getting real experience and practice with skills don’t suddenly abandon a person upon graduation - they tend to remain over one’s lifetime. This is why people strong in EELS tend to be happier, healthier, and more productive citizens for life - and they tend to earn more and stay out of trouble compared to those who grew up with little or no real exposure and practice with EELS. 

One feature I like about this addresses my original exposure to SEL, which was in the name of school safety. Schools and communities where students are strong and competent in EELS tend to be safer, and kids tend to learn more. 

EELS are a MUST IN SCHOOLS, AND FOR OUR YOUNG PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND AND MASTER! Especially in the AI world they are inheriting.

Let EELS be your Class Mascot!

And, please don't think about this being one more thing put on your educator plate:

Food Insecurity and suggestions of how we can do something about it in classrooms

I’m a big fan of the television drama The West Wing, which premiered in 1999. I remember in one episode early in the second season (2000), the character President Bartlet, while campaigning, said that 1 in 5 children in the U.S. was growing up in poverty. It is a good assumption that this also implied 1 in 5 American kids is food insecure, if not routinely hungry. 

Twenty six years later, we have nearly 1 in 5 children in the U.S. being food insecure. In an age of record stock markets (which have been setting all-time records since the Obama administration through the present, minus the COVID period) and humanity’s first trillionaire, we have made very little to no real progress with ensuring all of our children have ready access to nutritious food, where the 18.4% figure (from 2024 data) is over 14 million kids not knowing when the next meal is coming, at least not consistently.  

I suspect most who read this will be aware, if for any other reason than common sense, that children don’t do as well in school when they are hungry. And this is the case for those students who already are coming from lower income families, which have other issues against the school children coming from those families, which include going to schools that are likely underfunded relative to the schools kids from higher-income families attend; and lower income families and children are overrepresented by children of color. For example, Black and Latino families are about twice as likely to be food insecure than White families. Food insecurity is a factor in the academic achievement gaps we see in so many diverse school districts around the country (here are data from the Evanston, IL, school districts to show examples of academic achievement gaps), and low performance in many urban school districts.

The reasons food insecurity is a factor in academic performance and student learning are numerous. Even adults are hard-pressed to remain healthy and perform at work at optimal levels when hungry. Lower income families in general have less access to high-level nutritious food, often living in the ‘food desert’ areas of cities, where fresh produce is miles away. Hunger (and the resulting decrease in the nutrition needed for good overall health) affects concentration, physical and mental health, proper brain development of children, energy levels, behavior, mood, memory, and motor skills. 

I and countless other educators presently worry about the next few years when it comes to nutrition in public schools because of the politicization of federal aid to low income families, such as cuts to SNAP benefits and funding for free and reduced lunch programs around the US, which are already affecting millions of our children. 

One avenue to help with this situation in schools is to consider having school gardens, both outside and inside schools. Indoor farming has become more possible in classrooms over the past decade due to efforts such as the Green Bronx Machine, founded by my friend Stephen Ritz, who has taken time to write full K-12 curricula centered around growing food in classrooms. He uses primarily tower gardens, and has helped transform his school in a poverty stricken section of the Bronx, and turn around not only the school, but the entire community. He has taken this global, and helps set up school gardens and food programs all around the world. I have tower gardens in my classroom and adjacent research center, where my students and I grow fresh produce to donate to a local food pantry over the fall and winter months, when outdoor farming is not possible around Chicago. 

This past school year we grew and donated 809 bags (mostly gallon sized) of arugula, kale, chard, basil, parsley, and lettuces (166 pounds) from late September through early May, using just 5 towers, which went to dozens of families each week who rely on the food pantry. We will be expanding this with student-built grow systems both in the high school and some elementary classrooms in our feeder district. We hope to add more and more resources throughout more and more classrooms each new school year, since the need for food assistance continues to grow around the country, up to 14% of households from 10% since COVID.

The US was making some progress reducing food insecurity from highs during the Great Recession, but the percentage is rising back to those levels after the COVID pandemic. 

For educators, there are two other pieces of this I’d like to mention. One is the inclusion of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into classes and community service projects. The second is to realize the future importance of indoor farming to this generation of young children, due to climate change. 

The UN SDGs are something I have included in my classes for most of the past decade, after they were adopted by all nations in 2015. As a science teacher, most of the 17 issues defined as the SDGs will need STEM as a primary means of finding real solutions to those issues, and No Hunger, SDG #2, is one of those issues. Any type of classroom and school farming is something that can bring attention to our children, and make them aware of and able to help those classmates and community families who may not be as fortunate as others when it comes to food insecurity. 

Things like possible population growth, and most importantly, the effects climate change (SDG #13) will have on global agriculture, will make outdoor farming more and more challenging, and likely less productive as top soil loss and nutrient level degradation in our most fertile farmlands (especially outside the US) continue to decline. The growing fresh water crisis in many parts of the world plays into this complex system. Indoor farming is something my students and I talk about as a part of the solution to feeding their world several decades from now, and it already is having an impact here and in other parts of the world, where they are investigating industrial indoor farming (mostly hydroponics). I think this is something educators can use in multiple ways of applying STEM knowledge and applications, as well as developing community service projects that begin introducing this important concept to the children who will be seeing this type of farming in their lives, and as one of the pieces of solutions to climate change the world will need to consider and develop on bigger and bigger scales, such as this massive indoor farm in New Jersey, from AeroFarms. 

It is possible to link indoor farming in classrooms, regardless of STEM subject one teaches - I’m doing this as an AP Physics teacher, and the students love having the tower gardens in the room and helping feed community members, despite it being outside of our curriculum. 

It is important to make students aware that not everyone is able to have consistent and predictable meals. It is important that we get nutritious food to those kids who need it, in order to help them grow and develop as healthy as possible, which in turn will optimize their learning in school. It is important this generation understands that these newer farming techniques and technologies exist and are developing here and abroad because it will become more important in the future due to climate change. We owe it to them.