Social and Emotional Learning
As knowledgeable as we are, CASEL’s definition of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is the best (and most cited) one we can offer you:
“Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.
…SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities.”
There are considered to be five core social and emotional competencies: social awareness, self-awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision making and self-regulation.
The competencies are interrelated. They can be taught, and the learning process is a life-long one. They have been defined in a way that is sensitive to individual, social and cultural identity.
Whilst they focus on internal processes and interaction between people, context and environment is of great importance.
Executive Functioning
We’re big fans of Harvard’s analogy for Executive Functioning (EF) – EF is like the air traffic control system at the airport. The bit that’s the CEO of your head, controlling all the actions, re-actions and behaviours that come from it. Air traffic controllers ensure planes take off and land safely, using the skills they’ve developed through training. In the same way, EF is a set of skills that enables us to make good decisions, prioritise certain tasks, filter out distractions and control impulses.
We are not born with EF – we learn it over time. We’ve all had to brace ourselves for a crash landing at some point or another. There’s a great deal we can learn from EF, even during our adult lives.
SELF and imagine if
We like to combine SEL and EF. We call them SELF for short.
Asset for Success taps into everything we know about SELF. They’re the fuel for this SELF journey, the control board to aid super safe plane landings – despite that pesky turbulence. We believe – and feedback tells us – that integrating simple tools into our everyday lives can not only get us through the stormiest of times but help us reach new heights (cue upward spiral).
