School principals: Now is the time to lead your school to finish 2020 strong and to start 2021 positive.
It seems cliché to say, this is a year of unprecedented experiences and none of us could have seen it coming. It must seem like a lifetime ago that you stood in front of your school and delivered your opening school address. Full of noble goals, inspiration and aspirations for the year ahead. And without much warning everything as we knew it changed. At times you must have felt like a fire fighter watching the dreams, goals, and aspirations of the class of 2020 burn down. I feel that after health care workers the most stressed workers were school principals. Managing school closures, online learning, social distancing, safety protocols, schools opening, and for some, reclosing, anxiety, stress and the health concerns for all your staff, pupils and the parent body is not what anyone had ever dealt with before. All the while trying to perform the important task at hand of educating and protecting the youngest and most vulnerable of our society. It has for the majority been a daily emotional roller coaster ride.
As the end of the school year is fast approaching there are many feelings, thoughts, and questions that are keeping principals awake at night. Has there been enough academic time? How are the pupils going to cope in the exams? Are the teachers holding up? How are the pupils that could not come back to school because of financial constraints coping? What can you do to support those kids that are struggling? Are you communicating enough with the parents? How do you prepare your school for 2021? But, like flight attendants advise passengers on take-off “in the event of an emergency please put your oxygen mask on first, before helping others”. Likewise, principals please put on your oxygen masks and take a moment to pause and reflect on what you and your staff have achieved during these times.
While, the annual prize-giving awards ceremony will be dampened by so many awards not being received due to non-participation during the covid19 pandemic, this could be an opportunity to acknowledge pupils, teachers, and administration staff who displayed skills and competencies that supported the school community during these challenging times. With the immense challenges that schools have faced this year comes an equally enormous opportunity to learn from what has happened and to pave a clearer path forward both as individuals and as a school community. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary recognition.
We know that change is an inevitable part of life; with change comes fear, frustration, uncertainty, and judgement. The question is what skills are needed to cope with the change especially given that it is being widely defined as the ‘new normal’. It is also important to examine how our education system supports this change to engage excitement, activate courage and reflect with curiosity on the decisions made to move forward. In order to progress in the new environment, children need new skills to navigate the complexity of their lives now and for the future. The debate for Social, Emotional learning (SEL) has been elevated over the last couple of months. The traditionalists who prefer a skills based educational approach will now have to consider the overwhelming evidence in support of SEL by recent pedagogy and scientific research.
“This is a defining moment in history. The path forward will rely on SEL competencies as we take stock of what we have lost, shed tears for the departed, honour the heroes, and build our infrastructures, our societies, our economies, our sense of place in a new world. It will test our compassion and empathy. It will challenge our ability to collaborate and share resources. And it will afford us the opportunity to rethink our educational systems, our governmental policies, and our workplaces in a way that may have been unimaginable just a few months ago.”
– Karen Niemi President & CEO - Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional learning (CASEL)
What is Social Emotional Learning (SEL?)
Social Emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy of others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. In other words: It’s how students learn the skills of Emotional Intelligence.
Why Social Emotional Learning?
The learnable, measurable skills of emotional intelligence are correlated with increased academic achievement, better health, stronger relationships, greater efficacy and improved quality of life. For adults these skills are invaluable, which is one of the reasons the World Economic Forum has identified EQ as one of the critical skills; along with creativity, originality, initiative and innovation which all came from an EQ base.
The urgency for SEL Today
SEL has always been part of education, even in ancient Greece, philosophers taught about social emotional skills as part of academic learning. As Plato wrote. “All learning has an emotional base.” Research prior to the pandemic showed overwhelming evidence that our children are facing major social, emotional, and mental health obstacles to succeeding at school. Adding to these problems is the issue of childhood stress, whether from conflict at home, peer pressure, social media, and grade pressure or over-scheduling. Children go through complex emotions just like adults. While they don’t often have the vocabulary to communicate these emotions, they tend to act them out in other ways.
The aim of most SEL programmes is to promote self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationships and responsible decision-making skills to improve student’s relationships to their school community and broader world.
SEL creates an atmosphere where academic performance can thrive, where more positive adult-to-student and peer-to-peer relationships flourish, where fewer conduct problems arise, and where lowered stress leads to improved grades, test scores, and overall academic performance. An effective and well-implemented SEL programme can transform a school into a place where children and adults who support them are engaged, curious, safe and thriving both personally and academically. Schools need to adopt a comprehensive SEL approach that includes the development of social emotional skills for everyone in the school community. Six Seconds the largest non-profit Emotional intelligence global network, foundational requirement is for educators to start with an Emotional intelligence programme actively learning and practicing these skills for themselves and then supporting children and parents. (6seconds.org/education)
We are all in this storm together, just in different vessels. Lessons from this year so far reminds me of a story I read to my granddaughter – “The Little Optimist”- written by a South African author, Greg Bertish, and Illustrated by Chip Snaddon. A beautifully illustrated children’s story about a tiny little boat with a Huge Heart. The tiny boat, little optimist, despite its size and the opinion of others, greatly believed and achieved the impossible. This story is filled with life lessons about being different, optimism, self belief and never giving up. It reminds us of the importance of grit and resilience during challenging times and that these skills are learnable for all of us at any age and stage of our lives. Research by Six Seconds EQ organization shows that the most successful people in terms of effectiveness, relationships, well-being and quality of life have strong competencies of Optimism, Intrinsic motivation, Empathy and Noble goals.
Principals, you are commended for steering the class of 2020 through these storms. Take care of yourselves, your pupils and colleagues, strengthen partnerships, pool resources, develop common goals and identify opportunities to work together to support all members of our school communities. We are stronger together. May your school year end strong and start positive in 2021.