For Administrators & Board Members

Until learning and practicing SEL skills is mandated in teacher education programs, many teachers are on their own to seek out this information. Let the teachers help choose training programs for themselves and have a voice in the selection of the program(s) that will go into the curriculum.

As for students, they are more enthusiastic when they are included in the educational process in as many levels as possible, including planning. This teaches cooperative skills and other qualities of SEL that lead to positive interdependence, personal accountability, and self- evaluation.

Apart from keeping parents informed, at the point at which SEL is launched in your schools, it is helpful to share with parents links to and information about home-based parenting SEL programs available to the public, free and otherwise, so they can maintain the SEL climate and culture at home. Parents should also be encouraged to participate in in-school programs as applicable.

Thirty years of research into the value of MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) in reducing stress, chronic illness and pain management, as well as in developing skills in self-regulation and self-awareness, have led a number of schools across the country to include meditation/mindfulness practice in their offerings to students.

This has been backed by solid research from institutions such as the MBSR at the University of Massachusetts Medical school, by pioneers in the field such as Jon Kabbatt Zinn (MBSR Clinic) and Linda Lantieri (Inner Resilience), and by reporting by CASEL and other groups.

The results have led to an exploration of MBSR across disciplines, including behavioral and cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

Educators and administrators interested in introducing SEL into their schools should understand that SEL and Mindfulness programs are both offered to schools. Similar outcomes include increased academic achievement and well-being, less risky behavior, and better relationships with peers and teachers. Both SEL and mindfulness ideally would replace punitive discipline in your schools.

However, the approaches and intentions differ. SEL is an instructional program, a policy and a school-wide everyday practice focusing on attitude and behavioral changes and the skills training in dealing with self and others needed to accomplish both.

Mindfulness is a practice drawing from one’s inner resources and the “premise that each person has the innate capacity for relationship-building qualities such as empathy and kindness,” as founder of the Inner Resilience Program (and one of the original co-founders of CASEL) Linda Lantieri explains.

“Fortunately,” she adds, “it’s not necessary to choose one over the other, since SEL works from the outside in, and mindfulness works form the inside out.”

Practicing mindfulness, she notes, helps students (and staff) “become aware of and then embody the connection between their emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations. Students are better able to regulate their emotions, which then impacts things such as their behavior, stress levels, relationships, and ability to focus.”

In short, mindfulness practices connect students’ inner and outer experiences and help them see the congruence between the two. Mindfulness gives students the opportunity to slow down and become more self-aware and less reactive; also to become more responsive, particularly when stress levels are high.

Accordingly, they both support SEL skills training, which is why many of the packaged SEL programs include mindfulness practices.

For their parts, educators who practice mindfulness meditation can expect to become better equipped to deal with disruptive behavior and more connected to students’ feelings and needs as well as their own.

At the risk of preaching to the converted, the heart of highly effective strategic leadership is relationships: Relationship with oneself, relationship with associates, cohorts and partners on all levels of an organization, including with internal and external stakeholders; relationship with the community, as well as relationship with the world and the greater good.

At the heart of relationship is effective communication in empathetic, non-violent ways. In addition, effective leaders are effective followers and effective followers are effective leaders.

In instituting SEL practices, it’s useful to remember that a primary responsibility of institutional leadership is to create a safe work environment where people are respected, honored and valued, not viewed as commodities or pawns on a chessboard to be moved at will.

Social and emotional authenticity moves us beyond the old power-over paradigm to where heart and mind function as a unified whole.

Effective communication and listening, with an emphasis on listening, combined with a practice of mindfulness, self-reflection and SEL skills, requires a commitment to personal growth for the benefit of the leader and the organization in which they are serving.

Servant Leaders recognize that their unique role is to be in service to the organization and its members.

This also requires a level of humility, and foresight, which comes with SEL training. Servant Leaders see “followers” as individuals equal in worth or value who play a different, not lesser, role than theirs.

Leaders who make it a practice to express gratitude towards individuals with whom they partner, will find that there is less fear of unknown outcomes and resistance to change.

Leaders and followers who practice humility offer the organization the opportunity to grow as they take full responsibility for their projects, assignments, creative endeavors as well the respective roles they play within the organization.

Relative to SEL, your school’s teachers will have their own motivation to implement the program. Individual differences in creativity or drive will impact the degree to which the program is successfully installed.

Each individual involved will be going through her/his own ecology of change as SEL rolls out and as he or she gains skills and higher awareness. Accordingly, it is important for school leaders to seek buy-in to an overall rollout plan that states the needs, intention and goals, and to evaluate progress regularly.

The Greater Good Science Center at UC-Berkeley suggests a three-pronged approach to integrating SEL:

1) Pre-service teachers need SEL content: what it is, the science behind it, and how to use it to structure lessons, effectively implement SEL programs and create positive learning environments. Therefore, encourage colleges that maintain education programs to teach SEL to their education-major students, and hire new teachers who have experienced SEL training.

2) If you have student teachers at your school, mentor them in SEL while there.

3) Continue mentoring new teachers for at least the first two years of in-service teaching.