It's about how you treat kids

Do you want to raise your math and reading scores in your school? Start to pay attention to your social skills and even your emotion as the following article reports that there exists a link between the two worlds.

Source Link:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/12/19/16social.h27.html?print=1

Social-Skills Programs Found to Yield Gains in Academic Subjects
By Debra Viadero

A forthcoming research review offers some counterintuitive advice for educators: Take time out of the curriculum to teach students to manage their emotions and to practice empathy, caring, and cooperation—and their academic achievement could improve in the bargain.

The new findings, discussed last week at a national forum here on social and emotional learning, are based on a not-yet-published analysis of 207 studies of school-based programs designed to foster children's social and emotional skills.

"In the past, when people would say, 'You're taking away from academic time for these programs,' we would say, 'Well, it's not going to hurt learning,' " said Roger P. Weissberg, the president of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, or CASEL, the Chicago-based group that sponsored the four-year study. "What we find now is that when you have these programs, academics improve."

The results come at what some see as a critical juncture in the movement to promote social and emotional learning. Research findings in education and other fields, such as brain science, seem to be converging on the benefits of such instruction, and programs based on the concept have a small but growing presence in schools.

One state, Illinois, has set down standards for teaching the subject. Another, New York, is developing voluntary guidelines for teaching students social and emotional skills. Lessons in social and emotional learning are also taught in some districts, from New Haven, Conn., to Anchorage, Alaska.

Some advocates of social and emotional learning contend that one roadblock to more widespread implementation of their programs is the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which has put new pressure on schools to raise test scores in core subjects and narrowed the curricular focus in some schools.

But the nearly 6-year-old law also calls on educators to employ "scientifically based" educational practices, and leaders of the movement for social and emotional learning hope the new findings will give their programs a more solid footing in schools nationwide.

"This research confirms what a lot of us have been saying for years," said Dr. James P. Comer, the Yale University psychologist best known for developing the Comer School Development Project, a model for improving the social, emotional, and academic outcomes of urban schoolchildren. "It's almost counterintuitive for some people to believe that it's about how you treat kids."