COVID-19 traumatized SC children. Proponents think that socio-emotional learning will help. | News

The pandemic has resulted in unprecedented trauma and stress for students, parents and teachers this year.

Some children were forced to deal with the illness of a family member or loved one. Others have struggled to adjust to the demands of online learning and social isolation.

As these challenging conditions threaten to continue into the spring, calls for better mental health support in schools have gained renewed momentum from South Carolina education advocacy groups and nonprofits, who say these resources are more crucial now than Never.

Often at the center of these conversations is a practice known as socioemotional learning.

Commonly known as SEL, the socio-emotional learning curriculum equips children and adults with the tools they need to successfully manage emotions, develop healthy relationships, understand and demonstrate empathy and make responsible decisions.

Research has shown that children who receive this type of support from an early age perform better academically, socially and behaviorally, said Bridget Durkan Laird, executive director of WINGS for Kids, a Charleston nonprofit that organizes focused after-school programs at SEL for students in low-income areas.

“Children have been through a lot emotionally, and you have to deal with it before they can learn again,” said Laird.

Since its founding in 1996, WINGS has expanded to partner with school districts in the United States.

Today, all 50 states have instituted socioemotional learning standards for preschoolers, according to the National Conference on State Legislatures. At least six states have expanded their SEL standards to cover grades K-12.

But WINGS was founded before many people had heard of the term “socio-emotional learning”.

“You had math and science, you had reading and there was no other part of education,” said Laird.

During his first month of work for the organization, Laird remembers writing a grant proposal in order to secure more SEL financing. The app was returned with a message written in bright red ink at the top of the page: “Who cares how a child feels about himself if he can’t read or write?”

The WINGS curriculum has helped hundreds of students improve their academic and social skills over the years, Laird said, and the organization has research to prove it.

The University of Virginia received a $ 2.8 million grant from the Institute for Education Science in 2011 to implement a complete randomized control trial on the effects of WINGS. The study found that participation in WINGS reduced students’ negative behaviors in the classroom, while improving their social interactions and problem-solving skills.

And students enrolled in two or more years at WINGS also had significantly higher grades in math and reading, better grades and school attendance compared to non-WINGS students, according to a study by Yale University.

“I think that if we ignore post-pandemic socio-emotional learning, that’s a big mistake,” said Laird. “We are just going to create even more stress and trauma for the kids. They need these skills to get back, they need these skills to thrive.”

COVID-19 forced WINGS to temporarily interrupt in-person programs after classes it hosts at Chicora Elementary and North Charleston Elementary.

Instead of meeting in person every day, students participate in the programs virtually. In order to facilitate activities, members of the WINGS team are occasionally dispatched to deliver art and other materials to students’ doors so that they can complete projects at home.

In 2019, the non-profit organization partnered with Discovery Education to create a virtual SEL curriculum for students across the country.

Laird said he initially expected the curriculum to reach 500,000 children each year. Instead, classes finally reached 2.2 million children across the country. Of these, 800,000 accessed the materials between March and June, when schools closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“The pandemic has driven us, as an organization, to find innovative and creative ways to help children that, honestly, we never would have thought of,” said Laird.

Overcoming obstacles

Despite its growth in popularity over the past decade, SEL practices remain absent in many schools in South Carolina.

Most of the state’s 89 school districts have no formal socio-emotional learning curriculum, said Al Estee, founder and president of the Emotional Social Learning Alliance for South Carolina, also known as SEL4SC.

Estee founded the alliance in 2018 to raise awareness and advocate for effective socio-emotional learning across schools, families, organizations and communities.

If he had learned socioemotional learning skills early, Estee said his life would have improved dramatically.

After being abandoned by his birth mother as a child, Estee was adopted by his neighbor. He carried the weight of this emotional trauma for years, without the tools he needed to process his emotions.

“I made a lot of bad decisions while growing up,” said Estee.

Today, the retired developer has dedicated his life to defending SEL with the hope that this will prevent other young people from making the same mistakes as he.

The biggest challenge that stands in the way of widespread implementation of SEL in schools across the state of Palmetto is the lack of awareness, Estee said.

He hopes a new donation will help.

Dr. Mickey Barber, executive director and medical director of the Better Life Age Management Wellness Center, pledged $ 100,000 to SEL4SC.

Barber said he saw firsthand with his patients how socioemotional connections can improve physical and mental well-being.

“We kind of assume that kids don’t carry their emotions. But they do, ”said Barber. “It affects how they sleep, what they choose to eat, whether they’re out and about being physically active, all those kinds of things.”

The donation will help pay the salaries of new members of the SEL4SC team who will conduct community task force meetings throughout the spring with local leaders to advocate and raise awareness of socio-emotional learning.

Another major obstacle to the SEL curriculum across the state is the lack of adherence by educators, Estee said.

Jody Stallings, director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance, said the feedback he received from parents and educators about socio-emotional learning programs was mixed.

“My feeling about teachers, especially in this county, is that they want to teach math, science and social studies,” said Stallings.

Still, he added, most teachers started their profession because they wanted to help students. As a result, educators are providing much more guidance and counseling than usual during the pandemic, due to all the stressors students face.

But requiring all teachers in the Charleston County school district to undergo training and implement SEL practices in their classroom in the middle of the pandemic is not the best idea, said Stallings.

Teachers are short on time, and widespread implementation of new material without adequate training time can do more harm than good, he said.

“We just have to always remember that the most powerful thing you can give a child is quality education, and that means reading, writing, arithmetic, the basics,” said Stallings. “And when we lose focus on the basics, we deprive children of a quality education.”

Estee acknowledges this hesitation, but states that the SEL curriculum can also benefit educators.

“They have to understand that this is not something else on their plate, this is not an obligation, this is not another responsibility,” said Estee. “This is something significant, something that can help their lives and help the lives of the children they are teaching.”

Meeting emotional needs

Some of the state’s top education officials, including state superintendent Molly Spearman, have worked to make SEL content more accessible to students and educators in recent months.

In August, the SC Department of Education announced the creation of a new web portal dedicated to providing information, resources and professional development on socio-emotional learning for students.

“We understand how critical the social and emotional components of a child’s learning are,” Spearman said in a statement. “With schools having to adjust their teaching plans during COVID-19, it is critical that they have access to resources that will benefit students’ well-being.”

But SEL is not a new concept for many of Charleston’s public schools.

More than 80 percent of primary schools and 100 percent of high schools in the Charleston County school district have access to a school-wide SEL program, said Heather Anderson, one of the district’s climate coaches.

Some SEL programs have been adapted to meet the needs of individual schools and communities.

A pilot program introduced last month at North Charleston High School is designed to inform students about good decision-making skills and the harmful impact of drug use.

SEL can be crucial to the academic progress of some students, said Anderson, especially those who were already lagging behind in their studies before the pandemic.

Early district surveys suggest that those who were already performing at a lower academic level were more severely affected by the pandemic than those who were already on the right track.

“We know that when children are not ready to learn, it doesn’t matter what type of lesson plan we have,” said Anderson.