This month, we focus on ways to challenge the status quo when it comes to leading SEL. Thank you, as always, for reading.
3 SEL Leadership Thoughts
When people hear the term “continuous improvement,” they usually think about structured processes to improve outcomes. But innovation should be a huge part of continuous improvement. Can you use shorter continuous improvement cycles and formative data to test and refine new approaches, practices, and pilots? Rapid learning cycles allow us to connect and reflect rapidly; to make small pivots; to meet students’ needs in real-time. [Tweet This]
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Celebrate incremental progress. Leverage the power of progress by setting incremental goals and helping school-based leaders and staff achieve small successes. It is OK to celebrate the small wins while still acknowledging that we have a long way to go. While it may sound insignificant, if we focus on 1 percent improvements each day, it accumulates and adds up in a big way. [Tweet This]
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If you want to see what districts prioritize, look at what they're measuring. If it's only standardized tests, then the students know that all of the rhetoric about: "this is a family" and "we care about you" is false. Because, at the end of the day, they know that as long as they score well on those standardized tests, the adults are good with them no matter what's happening in their lives. Instead, in your school or district, strive to think about assessment in a more innovative and student-centered way. We cannot know how our young people feel without asking them. We cannot understand or support well-being without systems based on whole-child data. [Tweet This]
2 Quotes from SEL Leaders
"If we want to truly understand and address students’ well-being in schools… observing their behavior isn't enough. Assumptions and inferences about their well-being aren't enough. We need to ask students to share their inner experiences. We need to center our approach to well-being in student experience and student voice." – Samuel T. Moulton, Ph.D. [Tweet This]
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"One of the biggest budget lines in any successful company is research and development (R&D). And the reason for that is because they know that the greatest innovations are born from the ability to keep testing new things. What these companies do that schools don’t do is that they have a structure for learning from failure. Yet, schools are punished for failing. They hide their failures; they try to cover them up. There’s zero learning from the failures. We have pushed the failure out." – Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Ph.D. [Tweet This]
1 Question for You
What assumptions do we make about teachers who are less eager to implement new SEL practices?
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If you enjoyed that, please consider sharing SEL in 5 with others.
Until next month,
Nick Woolf
Author of SEL in 5
Founder of Inside SEL and The SEL in Higher Education Playbook
p.s. here’s what else I’m reading and listening to:
How We Can Support Students and School Communities Through Crisis
RAND Survey: District Leaders See Mental Health of Students, Staff As Top Concern
The 180 Podcast: Pamela Cantor, M.D.: The State of Emergency in Adolescent Mental Health
Toxic Resilience Helped My Students Through Tragedy, But Teachers Deserve More
Why More Schools Are Adding Mental Health Breaks to the Calendar