• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

Should Social-Emotional Learning Be Part of Academic Curriculum?

August 22, 2008 by Greater Good Science Center

The Secret to Success
New research says social-emo­tion­al learn­ing helps stu­dents in every way.
— by Daniel Goleman

Schools are begin­ning to offer an increas­ing num­ber of cours­es in social and emo­tion­al intel­li­gence, teach­ing stu­dents how to bet­ter under­stand their own emo­tions and the emo­tions of others.

It sounds warm and fuzzy, but it’s a trend backed up by hard data. Today, new stud­ies reveal that teach­ing kids to be emo­tion­al­ly and social­ly com­pe­tent boosts their aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment. More pre­cise­ly, when schools offer stu­dents pro­grams in social and emo­tion­al learn­ing, their achieve­ment scores gain around 11 per­cent­age points.

That’s what I heard at a forum held last Decem­ber by the Col­lab­o­ra­tive for Aca­d­e­m­ic, Social, and Emo­tion­al Learn­ing (CASEL). (Dis­clo­sure: I’m a co-founder of CASEL.) Roger Weiss­berg, the orga­ni­za­tion’s direc­tor, gave a pre­view of a mas­sive study run by researchers at Loy­ola Uni­ver­si­ty and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, which ana­lyzed eval­u­a­tions of more than 233,000 stu­dents across the country.

Social-emo­tion­al learn­ing, they dis­cov­ered, helps stu­dents in every way.

Their analy­sis reveals that stu­dents receiv­ing lessons in social and emo­tion­al skills improved on every mea­sure of pos­i­tive behavior;such as class­room dis­ci­pline, atten­dance, and lik­ing school—and were less like­ly to engage in anti-social behav­ior, from bul­ly­ing and fights to sub­stance abuse. Among these stu­dents, there was also a drop in the num­ber who were depressed, anx­ious, and alienated.

What’s more, the study showed that the pos­i­tive gains were biggest among “at-risk” kids, who are most like­ly to fail in their edu­ca­tion. In the era of No Child Left Behind, where schools are rat­ed on how well stu­dents score on stan­dard­ized tests, that’s a huge advan­tage for indi­vid­ual stu­dents and schools alike.

Teach­ing stu­dents skills like empa­thy, self-aware­ness, and how to man­age dis­tress­ing emo­tions makes them bet­ter learn­ers, says Richard David­son, a neu­ro­sci­en­tist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin and a pre­sen­ter at the CASEL forum. He point­ed to data show­ing that when the brain’s cen­ters for dis­tress are acti­vat­ed, they impair the func­tion­ing of the areas involved in mem­o­ry, atten­tion, and learn­ing. In oth­er words, because of the way our brains are wired, our emo­tions can either enhance or inhib­it our abil­i­ty to learn.

Cours­es in social and emo­tion­al learn­ing also make great sense, David­son argues, because of neuroplasticity—the fact that repeat­ed expe­ri­ences shape the brain. The more a child prac­tices self-dis­ci­pline, empa­thy, and coop­er­a­tion, the stronger the under­ly­ing cir­cuits become for these essen­tial life skills.

These results don’t sur­prise film direc­tor and pro­duc­er George Lucas (of Star Wars fame), whose main phil­an­thropic efforts focus on schools through the George Lucas Edu­ca­tion­al Foun­da­tion. (Edi­tor’s Note: Daniel Gole­man is now con­duct­ing a great series of audio inter­views, includ­ing one with George Lucas on Edu­cat­ing Hearts and Minds: Rethink­ing Edu­ca­tion.)
Lucas sees social-emo­tion­al learn­ing as vital to the future of edu­ca­tion. As com­put­ers take over teach­ing raw knowl­edge to kids, teach­ers will have more time to help stu­dents with moti­va­tion, coop­er­a­tion, and oth­er ele­ments of emo­tion­al intel­li­gence. “Any­body who’s an adult, work­ing in the adult world, real­izes that your abil­i­ty to encour­age oth­er peo­ple, form groups, and get the best out of every­body is the secret to suc­cess,” says Lucas, who I inter­viewed at the forum.

Lucas argues that learn­ing must con­sist of more than just assigned read­ing and lec­tures. Instead, we must embed social and emo­tion­al lessons into the edu­ca­tion­al process, for exam­ple, by assign­ing stu­dents to work with oth­ers and grad­ing the group on team­work and emo­tion­al rela­tion­ships with each oth­er, as well as their indi­vid­ual achieve­ment. “These are the things, ulti­mate­ly in the real world, that are the main fac­tors in get­ting hired and get­ting fired,” says Lucas.

Research sup­ports these obser­va­tions. For exam­ple, when Clau­dio Fer­nan­do-Araoz, head of research for the exec­u­tive recruit­ment firm Egon Zehn­der Inter­na­tion­al, looked at CEOs who had suc­ceed­ed and those who had failed, he found the same pat­tern in Amer­i­ca, Ger­many, and Japan: Those who failed were hired on the basis of their dri­ve, IQ, and busi­ness exper­tise, but were fired for their lack of emo­tion­al intel­li­gence. They sim­ply could not win over, or some­times even just get along with, their board of direc­tors, or their direct reports, or oth­ers on whom their own suc­cess depended.

And yet, these human skills—how to get along, how to coop­er­ate, how a group can exhib­it emo­tion­al intelligence—are absent from the stan­dard aca­d­e­m­ic cur­ricu­lum. As ini­tia­tives like CASEL—along with sim­i­lar orga­ni­za­tions, such as the Com­mit­tee for Chil­dren and the Open Cir­cle Program—spread social-emo­tion­al learn­ing cur­ric­u­la to schools, I think we’ll see more and more hard evi­dence that these pro­grams are help­ing stu­dents succeed.

– Daniel Gole­man, Ph.D., is the author of the best­sellers Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence and Social Intel­li­gence. His web­site is www.danielgoleman.info. Goleman’s full con­ver­sa­tion with Daniel Siegel can be heard as part of the audio series Wired to Con­nect: Dia­logues on Social Intel­li­gence, avail­able through More than Sound Pro­duc­tions.

We bring you this post thanks to our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Greater Good Mag­a­zine, a UC-Berke­ley-based quar­ter­ly mag­a­zine that high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tif­ic research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altruism.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: academic-achievement, at-risk-kids, bullying, CASEL, classroom-discipline, Committee-for-Children, Daniel-Goleman, Education & Lifelong Learning, Egon-Zehnder-research, emotional-intelligence, George-Lucas, improve-attention, improve-learning, improve-memory, Learning, No-Child-Left-Behind, Open-Circle-Program, Richard-Davidson, social-emotional-learning, Social-Intelligence, students, teaching, train-self-discipline

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kevin McGrew says

    August 27, 2008 at 7:08

    The focus on social-emo­tion­al learn­ing is very sim­i­lar to the Beyond IQ (A Mod­el of Aca­d­e­m­ic Com­pe­tence and Moti­va­tion) post­ed at IQ’s Cor­ner. URL to spe­cif­ic post is below.

    http://intelligencetesting.blogspot.com/2008/08/beyond-iq-social-emotional-learning-and.html

  2. Chris Elliott says

    August 27, 2008 at 10:31

    Daniel Gole­man rais­es some key points on emo­tion­al intel­li­gence and how it trans­lates to the real world. 

    I think at least in the US, social-emo­tion­al train­ing in schools will have to be posi­tioned as a good sur­vival skill (or bet­ter yet a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage) for it to be tak­en seri­ous­ly in most edu­ca­tion settings.

  3. Alvaro Fernandez says

    August 27, 2008 at 2:22

    Kevin, thank you for point­ing that out, and the link. I have enjoyed perus­ing your con­cept map. Per­haps you want to write a guest post to intro­duce the paper and con­cepts to our read­ers? will email you.

    Chris, that is a good point. Do col­lege admis­sions direct­ly or indi­rect­ly take into account socio-emo­tion­al skills If they did, I can see how high-school coun­selors would start coach­ing stu­dents, in infor­mal ways first, and then per­haps in more for­mal­ized ways, like those the post suggests.

  4. Hugo Vigoroso says

    August 29, 2008 at 5:53

    It seems to me that this is part of edu-cat­ing the “whole
    per­son” and not just
    “sub­ject mat­ter” in our schools?

  5. Billy Davis says

    August 31, 2008 at 1:55

    Socio-emo­tion­al skills are being taught already in all schools. The teach­ers are not grad­u­ates, they are cohorts. Stu­dents teach each oth­er the ‘ins and outs’ and learn through tri­al and error. They would not ben­e­fit as much from some­one who is much out of their age range. They trust their friends for this type of intelligence.

  6. Pat says

    September 2, 2008 at 6:09

    I found in my own class­room that if I could could improve social/emotional skills, improve­ment in the aca­d­e­m­ic areas def­i­nite­ly fol­lowed. I wish I could impress on oth­er teach­ers the need to do so also.

  7. Jeff Mc. says

    September 2, 2008 at 8:24

    This is a very good arti­cle talk­ing about the impor­tance of EQ along with IQ. One idea not men­tioned in this arti­cle is the rela­tion­ship of the decline in ES skills and the chang­ing of texts books to make his­to­ry less offen­sive. How do you learn an ES skill with­out first hav­ing a rea­son to gen­er­ate an emotion?

  8. Alvaro Fernandez says

    September 2, 2008 at 8:59

    Thank you for the great comments. 

    Hugo: yes and no. Yes, in that indeed edu­cat­ing kids is more than throw­ing con­tent on them. No, in that some­times “teach­ing the whole per­son” is some­times argued to sup­port ran­dom and poor­ly-thought out ini­tia­tives. we need to think what spe­cif­ic skills we need learn­ers to develop.

    Bil­ly: that’s a good point, a lot of socio-emo­tion­al learn­ing does hap­pen that way, but it is not the only one. There are more struc­tured and effec­tive ways to help young minds devel­op skills, as it seems Pat has done. For exam­ple, have you recent­ly seen anx­i­ety rates among stu­dents? pret­ty astounding.

    Jeff: well, there are many ways to gen­er­ate emotions…we often don’t even need much exter­nal help…I don’t real­ly see the con­nec­tion you propose.

  9. Nverati says

    September 19, 2008 at 8:40

    I see this ini­tia­tive while prob­a­bly not designed to dis­crim­i­nate against stu­dents with Asperg­er’s doing exact­ly that. Also it seems like a plot to make grades even more ran­dom than they are already.

  10. Nverati says

    September 19, 2008 at 8:42

    I of course for­got to tell that more group work means more peo­ple cheat­ing their way out of it leav­ing the bur­den on the few good, inter­est­ed stu­dents and thus rob­bing them of their illu­sions ear­ly already.

  11. marneta viegas says

    November 21, 2008 at 3:16

    i think this way of bring­ing up and edu­cat­ing chil­dren is so impor­tant. I think the prob­lem is try­ing to oth­er teach­ers that a holis­tic approach is vital is the most dif­fi­cult thing. I have seen such great results using these ideas, but no one believes it is nec­es­sary and it is so frustrating.

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 12,559 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2023 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy