Practice Agenda for the Next Generation: Supporting a Shared Vision for Students’ Social, Emotional, and Academic Development

The National Commission with contributing authors Sheldon Berman, Ron Berger, John Deasy, and Josh Garcia

June 25, 2018

IntroductionOn the front lines of education, students, parents, and educators are demanding a more balanced approach to learning: One that recognizes learning is fundamentally social, emotional, and academic. One that acknowledges children are learning all the time, both during and out of school: in families, neighborhoods, and communities. One that goes beyond test scores in reading and mathematics to a broader definition of what it means to be a successful high school graduate and how we can deliver those results.

The case for change is clear and compelling. More than two decades of research across a wide range of disciplines—psychology, social science, brain science—demonstrates that learning has social, emotional, cognitive, and academic dimensions.1 To succeed in the future, young people need critical thinking and problem-solving skills; interpersonal skills that allow them to work with others and engage effectively in cross-cultural contexts; the ability to manage and direct their time to tackle complex projects; the capacity to communicate clearly; the perceptivity to recognize and manage emotions in themselves and others, and to cope with frustration and stress; and the strength of character to exercise ethical and responsible leadership. These abilities, in turn, require a range of social, emotional, and cognitive skills and dispositions, including self-regulation, executive functioning, and metacognitive skills that enable children and youth to focus their attention, manipulate ideas, reflect on and guide their own learning, and persevere in the face of difficulty or uncertainty. When learning environments recognize these skills as mutually reinforcing and central to learning, children make greater progress. We also know that these skills, habits, and attitudes grow over time and can be explicitly taught.2

Today, a range of researched and evidence-based programs and approaches that intentionally develop the whole child are achieving results: increasing students’ grades and test scores, their ability to get along well with others, to persist at hard tasks, and to believe in themselves as effective learners and individuals. Young people with stronger social, emotional, and cognitive competencies are more likely to enter and graduate from college, succeed in their careers, have positive work and family relationships, better mental and physical health, reduced criminal behavior, and to become engaged citizens.3 Similarly, employers recognize that it doesn’t matter how much workers know if they can’t work well in teams, communicate

1 Pamela Cantor, David Osher, Juliette Berg, Lily Steyer, & Todd Rose, “Malleability, Plasticity, and Individuality: How Children Learn and Develop in Context,” January 24, 2018, Applied Developmental Science, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10888691.2017.13986492 Ibid.3 Stephanie M. Jones & Jennifer Kahn, The Evidence Base for How We Learn: Supporting Students’ Social, Emotional, and Academic Development: Consensus Statements of Evidence from the Council of Distinguished Scientists, Sept. 13, 2017, National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, The Aspen Institute.

clearly, and persevere when confronted with complex problems.4 When children and youth have a full array of social, emotional, cognitive, and academic skills, they are best equipped to prosper in the classroom, perform in the workplace, and succeed in life, as contributing and productive members of society.

In the past two years, the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development has visited schools and programs across the country that are putting this research and practice into action. These sites have developed a broader vision of student success, and they have supported it by focusing on three essential elements:

First, they explicitly teach children social, emotional, and cognitive skills—such as how to set goals, cope with frustration and stress, work well with others, recognize and manage emotions, make decisions responsibly, treat others with respect, and resolve conflicts.

Second, they ask children and youth to exercise these skills while engaged in learning academic content and in their interactions with peers and adults throughout the day.

Third, the learning environment supports and is reinforced by young people’s development of these skills. The setting is physically and emotionally safe and fosters meaningful relationships among and between adults and students.

As illustrated below, these three elements are the hallmarks of a learning experience where children and youth are engaged, have a sense of ownership, and find purpose and agency in their learning. They also learn to see themselves as contributing members of their school and broader community. Most important, they are likely to grasp difficult academic content and concepts, because the instructional practices and learning environments reflect what we know about how people actually learn.

For these practices to become common, however, will require a paradigm shift in how we approach education. First, we must build on the strengths of students and families. In the past, an inordinate focus on deficits has led schools to try to “fix” students, particularly students of color, students with special needs and students living in poverty. This mindset fails to recognize and capitalize on students’ strengths and assets, including their tremendous resilience. Educators need to see students, families, and communities as

4 Susan Adams, “The Ten Skills Employers Most Want in 2015 Graduates,” Nov. 12, 2014, Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/11/12/the-10-skills-employers-most-want-in-2015-graduates/#39f0490f2511

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more than the challenges they present. Instead, we must build on their already existing cognitive, social, and emotional competencies and work to create environments where they can thrive, targeting additional supports where needed.5 Second, we must recognize that learning is fundamentally developmental, occurs over time, is influenced by one’s lived experiences, and is best facilitated through relationships.6 Overly technocratic, compliance-oriented solutions undermine the trust required at all levels of the system for improvement and capacity building.7 Third, we must reach beyond the schoolhouse to embrace the broader community and to recognize both the formal and informal opportunities for learning and enrichment that fully support young people in their development. Community organizations also are vital partners in creating multi-tiered systems of support that can help address real challenges in children’s lives—including physical and mental health problems, learning disabilities, discrimination, violence, homelessness, and hunger. Finally, we are not making a choice between relationships and rigor but recognizing that our students need academics-plus in order to thrive. A strong academic foundation remains central but children and youth need additional mindsets, habits, and skills to be successful in the long run.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A PRACTICE CHANGE AGENDA The integrated nature of learning provides an opportunity to think anew about the definitions of student success and leadership and how we recognize these qualities. It invites educators to enrich instruction and to expand the role of the learning environment.8 And, while social and emotional competencies cannot in and of themselves prevent school or community violence and bullying, they do constitute a significant and viable strategy for helping staff and youth develop the character, decision-making skills, and interpersonal relationships that lead to success in school and in life.9

Creating learning environments that deeply integrate the social, emotional, cognitive, and academic aspects of learning can no longer be viewed as the responsibility of schools alone. We must shift to a vision of shared responsibility in which all voices and capacities within the community—including social workers, counselors, mental health providers, youth serving organizations, and civic and faith-based organizations— join forces to support our children’s learning and development.

Families, after-school and youth-serving organizations, and the community—through their voices, their priorities, their allocation of time and resources, and their expertise—provide a major source of expanded capacity to support the work of educators in schools and classrooms. In this way, capacity building becomes a joint venture across all the individuals, organizations, and institutions that serve young people. In short, the integrated nature of learning requires an integrated, community-wide approach to education.

Our practice recommendations seek to provide a framework through which key voices within schools and communities—students, teachers, families, after-school and youth-development organizations—can work together to create learning environments in and out of school that foster the comprehensive development of all young people.

5 The Aspen Institute Education & Society Program, “Pursuing Social and Emotional Development Through a Racial Equity Lens: A Call to Action,” May 2018, the Aspen Institute.6 David Osher, Pamela Cantor, Juliette Berg, Lily Steyer, and Todd Rose, “Drivers of Human Development: How Relationships and Context Shape Human Development and Learning,” January 24, 2018, Applied Developmental Science, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10888691.2017.1398650.7 Anthony S. Bryk and Barbara L. Schneider, 2002. Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.8 Sheldon Berman with Sydney Chaffee & Julia Sarmiento, The Practice Base for How We Learn: Supporting Students’ Social, Emotional, and Academic Development. March 12, 2018, Consensus Statements of Practice from the Council of Distinguished Educators, National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, The Aspen Institute.9 David Osher et al., “Advancing the Science and Practice of Social and Emotional Learning: Looking Back and Moving Forward,” Review of Research in Education, 40(1), 644-681.

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Our theory of action is a simple one. When adults in schools and youth-serving organizations…

I. Set A Clear VisionArticulate and prioritize a clear vision that develops the whole child and reflects the interconnected social, emotional, and academic dimensions of learning as the way learning happens.

II. Teach Students Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Skills and Use Them to Support Academic DevelopmentUse evidence-based practices that intentionally develop social, emotional, and cognitive competencies in all young people. Provide regular opportunities throughout the day to integrate these competencies with academic content in all areas of the curriculum.

III. Create Supportive Learning Environments in School and Community SettingsCreate child- and youth-centered learning environments that are physically and emotionally safe, that respect all cultures and serve people equitably, and that are based on meaningful relationships among and between adults and young people.

IV. Allocate Resources to Build Adult Capacity Provide opportunities for school faculty and staff, parents, after-school and youth development professionals, and future professionals still in university pre-service programs to learn to model and teach social, emotional, and cognitive skills to young people across all learning settings, both during and out of school.

V. Work Together as Advocates and Partners for Student Learning Continue to embrace families and align community organizations, higher education institutions and professional associations as partners to create a cohesive PreK-12 education ecosystem that supports students holistically.

…then, young people will learn to think critically, solve complex problems, communicate clearly, work well with others, appreciate the perspective of others,, manage emotions, develop character and a sense of responsibility, and demonstrate ethical and responsible leadership.

With these skills and capacities, young people will be better prepared for college and career and for contributing to the civic life of their community.

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These efforts may not—indeed, should not—look the same everywhere because they need to be developed in partnership with young people, their families, and their communities. Not only does practice need to build on what already exists locally, but we also need to grow and deepen our understanding of how these foundational skills and competencies develop over time and how best to support their growth. Yet we know enough to act. Our young people are demanding it. As our Youth Commissioners voiced in their Call to Action, across the country young people are exercising their leadership to demand schools and communities that are physically and emotionally safe, caring, and supportive of their potential.10

Our young people have spoken. It’s our chance to prove that we’re listening.

Recommendation I: Set A Clear Vision. District, school and youth development leaders—in partnership with students, teachers, families, after-school and youth development professionals and the local community—articulate a clear vision that develops the whole student and reflects the interconnected social, emotional, and academic dimensions of learning as the way learning happens. Leaders provide the support and resources necessary to integrate the vision throughout PreK-12 education. Strong leadership is central to successfully integrate social, emotional, and academic development throughout PreK-12 education.11 School, district and youth development leadership begins with a clear vision, mission, and strategic plan. Leaders need to develop this vision in partnership with their community and then communicate this work broadly and consistently, demonstrating their support through their actions and their allocation of resources. To effectively embed social, emotional, and academic

10 Youth Commission, “In Support of How We Learn: A Youth Call to Action,” April 6, 2018. National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, Aspen Institute.11 Sheldon Berman with Sydney Chaffee & Julia Sarmiento, The Practice Base for How We Learn: Supporting Students’ Social, Emotional, and Academic Development. March 12, 2018, Consensus Statements of Practice from the Council of Distinguished Educators, National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, The Aspen Institute.

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development into policy, curriculum, student support systems, professional development, accountability, and equity plans, leaders must help everyone understand that this work is not a program, a department, or an initiative. Rather, it is foundational to all actions, policies, and programs.

Leadership is not correlated with formal titles or limited to superintendents, principals, and other administrators. Leaders include anyone who exercises the skills and responsibilities to strongly affect the development of young people. Teachers, principals, superintendents, counselors, mental health professionals, support staff, parents, and after-school and community partners all lead. Most important, student voice in the leadership process is essential. Indeed, a more integrated vision of student success requires broadly embedded leadership at all levels—in classrooms and district offices, across the school community, and community spaces—in order to create the conditions where both young people and adults can thrive.

Strategy 1: Align Around a Shared Vision of Student Success. Schools, districts, universities, and youth development organizations align their vision, mission, values, strategic action plans, and budget priorities with a profile of student success that explicitly incorporates social, emotional, and academic development. The education sector is replete with disparate and fragmented initiatives. Alignment creates clarity and coherence in the system, which enables principals and teachers to focus. As systems work to develop greater alignment, it’s important that they take the voices of teachers, youth development professionals, and students—those doing the most important work—into account because they have first-hand knowledge of how school, district and organizational policies actually affect them and what they need to succeed.

Strategy 2: Identify Learning Objectives. Identify developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive social, emotional, and cognitive learning objectives and align them with youth-serving organizations to provide a learning progression from PreK-12. Social, emotional, and cognitive skills develop and change over time, beginning in the earliest years and continuing through childhood and adolescence. Research suggests there is a developmental progression, in which some skills contribute to the development of more complex skills later on. Different stages of education also may place different social, emotional, and cognitive demands on students. This suggests that certain skills should be taught before others, within specific grades or age ranges, and that instruction should be developmentally sequenced and age-appropriate.12 Thus, young children need support to identify and manage their emotions and focus their attention, while adolescents’ efficacy, agency, and sense of purpose thrive when they can deeply explore and expand their personal interests and make positive contributions to their school and wider community. Multi-tiered systems of support and the principles of universal design for learning can help address the needs of all students, including those with disabilities and students who need additional academic interventions or individualized help to meet learning targets.

Strategy 3: Facilitate Continuous Improvement. Use measures to track the progress of the integration of social, emotional, and academic development and to facilitate capacity building and continuous improvement. Districts, schools and youth-serving organizations are responsible for creating supportive learning environments and can use such measures as climate and culture surveys, and indicators of whether young people are on track to graduation, to monitor progress

12 Jones & Kahn, Ibid.

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and inform their actions. Schools and districts can work with youth development organizations and other out-of-school settings sharing each other’s history and experience in measuring program quality for improvement in order to foster better alignment across sectors. Measures of individual students’ social and emotional development are inappropriate for individual or school accountability.

Strategy 4: Facilitate the Continuity of Strategies. Communicate the shared, holistic vision of successful youth development broadly to facilitate the continuity of strategies across the school day, after school, on evenings and weekends, and during the summer.

EXEMPLAR PRACTICES for setting a clear vision Develop statements of vision, mission, core values, and beliefs that include and highlight

the integration of social, emotional, and cognitive development into academic work, and include specific targets in the strategic plan to ensure that the integration of these elements is effectively addressed.

Communicate—internally and externally—the value and importance of social, emotional, and academic development.

Develop a leadership structure among administrators and teachers that clearly identifies responsibility and support for this work at the district and school-levels.

Draft equity policies that acknowledge the value that differences in culture, race, ethnicity and background play in promoting learning and development within classrooms, and then provide relevant instructional materials and professional development that incorporate strategies for integrating cultural responsiveness and social skill development.

Identify specific criteria for success, as well as multiple measures that gauge the integration of social, emotional, and cognitive development in learning environments inside and beyond the classroom.

Review social, emotional and academic progress monitoring and learning environment data—explicitly focusing on the disparities due to family income, race, ethnicity, and native language—in order to better target areas for action, intervention and investment.

Recommendation II: Teach Students Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Skills and Use Them to Support Academic Development. Use evidence-based practices that intentionally develop social, emotional, and cognitive competencies in all young people. Provide regular opportunities throughout the day to integrate these competencies with academic content in all areas of the curriculum.Integrating social, emotional, and academic development requires aligned instructional efforts. First, directly teaching social, emotional, and cognitive skills to children and youth develops their repertoire of competencies over time. Second, educators must embed these same competencies in academic, recreational, and enrichment content so that young people can try, use, and experience how these competencies enhance their ability to learn and work with others.

We know that when these dispositions and skills improve, the learning environment improves for all young people. In turn, improved social and emotional competencies boost academic performance in all

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disciplines. For example, if “mathematical courage” is explicitly taught and valued, students are emboldened to take positive risks in their learning—e.g., raising their hands, asking questions, making mistakes, presenting their thinking, considering others’ perspectives, and receiving suggestions from peers—that help them become better at math.

The integration of social, emotional, and cognitive competencies is not limited to what we typically consider the core academic subject areas. Visual and performing arts, physical education and team sports, and extracurricular activities and clubs—from student government and Model United Nations to marching band and drama, from diversity clubs and gay-straight alliances to robotics and chess, from agricultural associations to service clubs—provide critical opportunities for learning and development, with special significance for strengthening social and emotional competencies that in turn support academic learning in the classroom and other learning environments. These experiences are not mere extras; they are essential elements of a well-rounded education and can provide significant support in advancing the comprehensive development of children and youth.

Strategy 5: Explicitly Teach. Districts, schools and youth-serving organizations create or select evidence-based instructional materials, practices, and resources that directly teach social, emotional, and cognitive skills. This includes providing strong organizational routines and intentional teaching to support executive functioning, such as children’s ability to focus and to filter distractions. It also includes direct teaching of such skills as emotional awareness, collaboration, empathy, perspective taking, and the ability to set and achieve goals.

Strategy 6: Embed into Academic Instruction. Instructional practices incorporate key strategies that provide regular opportunities to integrate social, emotional, and cognitive skills (such as self-control, executive function, growth mindset, emotional awareness, relationship skills, self-awareness, perspective-taking, empathy, cooperation, and conflict resolution) into academic curricula and throughout the day. This includes addressing stereotype threats, which occur when young people receive societal or school-delivered messages that they are less capable as a function of race, ethnicity, language background, gender, economic status, or disability Stereotype threats often translate into negative self-perceptions that suppress academic achievement. Educators can mitigate stereotype threat by communicating that all children and youth are seen as competent and valued and by focusing on tasks that encourage ongoing improvement and a growth mindset, rather than judgment of ability.

Strategy 7: Establish Collaborative, Asset-Based Supports. Create collaborative, multi-tiered systems of supports and universal design for learning strategies that unite educators, families, and support providers around a shared developmental framework to ensure that there are appropriate asset-based supports for all students both in and out of the classroom. Social, emotional, and academic development is for all children and young people, including those receiving special education services. In addition, some children experience adversity or trauma—or have specific needs—that require additional services through a multi-tiered system of support to foster their learning and development.

Strategy 8: Embrace Holistic Assessments. A holistic assessment system allows students to demonstrate their progress in multiple ways. Creating opportunities for young people to engage in relevant and realistic tasks—such as performance assessments and portfolios—can motivate

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and engage them and provide ways to demonstrate and reflect on progress across a range of competencies.

EXEMPLAR PRACTICES for teaching students social, emotional, and cognitive skills and use them to support academic development Provide strong organizational routines and explicitly teach to support executive

function, the ability to focus, control impulses, filter distractions, and flexibly switch from one idea to another.

Support cognition with mental models that help students see patterns and connections among ideas; multiple representations and multiple modes for learning; tools that reduce cognitive load and anxiety; and explicit instruction combined with opportunities for inquiry and discovery.

Design tasks that are motivating because they are relevant and realistic, engaging, and well-supported.

Build on students’ strengths, interests, and experiences in culturally responsive ways. Structure tasks to provide evidence of progress along the way, so that students have an

incentive to continue working; and focus on mastery and learning goals, not competition.

Give students opportunities to reflect on their strengths and areas for growth, to revise their work, and to self-correct errors in order to support a growth mindset: the belief that skills.

In English language arts, use literature to discuss how characters handled social or emotional situations and what might have happened if they had dealt with these situations differently.

In social studies, use examples of individuals in history to discuss how their choices in decision-making situations influenced the solution to a problem or the eventual outcome.

In science, demonstrate how investigations, observations, the formulation and testing of hypotheses, coping with ambiguity, and making judgments based on evidence can productively support critical thinking and problem-solving,

In mathematics, engage students in collaboratively solving problems and have students reflect on the social and emotional behaviors that support or hamper effective collaboration.

In the arts, discuss the concept of perspective taking and then invite students to reflect on various artists’ intention and frame of reference.

In physical education and health classes, teach students to be a contributing member of a team, how to handle emotions, and display positive sportsmanship.

Provide service-learning opportunities in all curricular areas, enabling students to demonstrate the social and emotional skills of empathy, compassion, and responsibility.

Recommendation III: Create Supportive Learning Environments in School and Community Settings. Create child-centered learning environments that are physically and emotionally safe and based on meaningful relationships among and between adults and young people.

In order to focus on learning, both young people and adults must feel safe in school and in other learning settings. Within this safe climate, problems are identified and addressed before they fester into deeper and more troubling behavior that can impede children’s ability to learn. In light of the incidence of bullying and

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school shootings in recent years and the growing awareness of the need to address students’ mental and behavioral health, the building of safe learning environments that generate a strong sense of community serves as a critical and primary prevention strategy. This environment enables young people to feel known, valued, and supported by both adults and peers and, as a result, able to take the risks required to learn and grow.

Because school and organizational environments have a powerful influence on learning, the sense of community and inclusiveness created in classrooms and youth organizations can motivate and empower every child to be fully present and engaged and can enable schools and organizations to build on the assets that each young person possesses. These learning environments are places where children develop a sense of their own identity and agency and learn to navigate challenges. The integration of social, emotional, and academic development helps build an asset-based approach that affirms children’s strengths and cultural identities and appreciates the experiences they bring to the classroom. It creates environments where all youth are valued and where youth who have experienced trauma or the stress of growing up in poverty or who learn differently are fully included and supported. An inclusive community models appreciation for the diversity of cultural identity, experience, ability, gender, race, or other distinguishing characteristics.

In designing supportive learning environments, schools and youth development organizations can share best practices of the classrooms, recreational environments and summer spaces that have been able to integrate the tenets of social, emotional, and academic development into their program structure. Together they can explore how these practices can be adapted, while recognizing the essential differences that exist between the school year, out-of-school time and summer spaces.

Strategy 9: Focus on Relationships. School, classroom and organizational structures and practices foster positive, long-term relationships among students and between students and educators or other adults. This provides young people with the social and emotional support to overcome obstacles and become confident, self-motivated learners. Schoolwide structures and practices such as class meetings, advisory groups, and mentoring enable all children to be known well and prevent any student from falling through the cracks. Young people should be a part of the decision making in their own learning and help build the culture and climate they want to see in the school and in their out-of-school time programs.

Strategy 10: Respect All Cultures. Schools and youth development programs foster culturally responsive learning communities in which all young people and adults feel a sense of physical and psychological safety and belonging. While all people, regardless of background, need to learn common norms in order to navigate and thrive in American society, efforts to teach social, emotional, and academic competencies should accomplish this while affirming and sustaining young people’s diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and traditions. To achieve this school districts and organizations draft equity policies that acknowledge the value that differences in culture, race, ethnicity and background play in promoting learning and development, and then provide relevant instructional materials and professional development that incorporate strategies for integrating cultural responsiveness and social skill development.

Strategy 11: Go Beyond Discipline. Behavior supports and management strategies foster belonging, strive to heal relationships, and help children and youth reflect on their actions when a conflict or discipline issue emerges. Such approaches enable students to reenter the classroom

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or learning environment and regain the respect of peers and adults. In some schools and youth development programs, discipline practices are being modified as a discrete initiative rather than as part of a whole-school learning environment. While changing exclusionary discipline practices is important, effective discipline should be part of a holistic effort that teaches young people skills and guides them in taking responsibility for their actions, which leads to safer, better organized, and more purposeful learning environments for all young people.

EXEMPLAR PRACTICES for cultivating supportive learning environments & trusting relationships Support strong relationships though advisory systems that enable each educator to

serve as an advocate for a small group of students over multiple years; looping, in which teachers stay with the same students for more than one year; teaching teams that share students; longer grade spans (K-8 or 6-12) that allow closer, longer-term relationships and minimize transitions; smaller schools or small learning communities.

Use instructional strategies such as morning meetings, class meetings, conferences, journaling, and surveys to build a strong sense of community in the classroom where students feel known and valued.

Enlist students in fashioning the classroom norms and rules around the question of what conditions in the classroom best support their learning together.

Use class meetings to discuss how best to solve such issues as conflict on the playground or hurtful statements about a classmate that emerge in the classroom.

Facilitate open conversations about the diverse cultures and backgrounds of students present in the classroom.

Provide cross-age mentoring of students, such as a 5th grade class paired with 1st graders as reading buddies.

Use such specific strategies for addressing conflicts and disciplinary issues as restorative practices, developmental discipline, and logical consequences that reflect the principles of social, emotional, and cognitive development.

Ensure access to rigorous instruction is in place for all students through multi-tiered systems of support and universal design for learning strategies.

Recommendation IV: Allocate Resources to Build Adult Capacity. Provide opportunities for school faculty and staff, parents, and after-school and youth development professionals to learn social, emotional, and cognitive skills so they can model and teach them to students and provide opportunities for young people to use these skills across all learning settings, both during and after school.To be effective, social, emotional, and academic learning must begin with adults. If our goal is for children and youth to learn to be reflective and self-aware, to show empathy and appreciate the perspective of others, to develop character and a sense of responsibility, and to demonstrate integrity and ethical behavior, educators—both in- and out-of-school—need to exemplify what those behaviors look like within the learning community.13

13 Sheldon Berman with Sydney Chaffee & Julia Sarmiento, The Practice Base for How We Learn: Supporting Students’ Social, Emotional, and Academic Development. March 12, 2018, Consensus Statements of Practice from the Council of Distinguished Educators, National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, The Aspen Institute.

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As the Council of Distinguished Scientists noted, a growing body of research suggests that addressing teachers’ specific social and emotional competencies results in improvements in teachers’ well-being, including reductions in stress and burnout, which in turn can reduce rates of teacher and administrator turnover. Teachers also report greater job satisfaction when their students are more engaged and successful.14

Because adults model social and emotional skills in their interactions with young people and other adults, learning flourishes best when everyone in the learning environment is involved. However, not all staff members are equipped to intentionally model social, emotional, and cognitive competencies for children, explicitly teach them, or cultivate them. Therefore, professional learning, whether in the school or in community organizations, must be organized to support and empower all staff to be leaders in this work.

Districts, schools and youth-serving organizations can prioritize social and emotional competencies for all staff members in their hiring practices, orientation processes, and ongoing professional learning. All adults in schools and after-school and youth development organizations require professional training and collegial support both in understanding and modeling the competencies themselves and in teaching them to children and giving them opportunities to apply them. This professional training begins in pre-service programs, whether they are in institutions of higher learning or professional associations. It is particularly important that pre-service education for teachers, counselors, social workers and other youth-serving professionals embed instruction in human development and the integration of social, emotional, and academic development into their curricula. It’s also critical to ensure that families and community and higher education partners are aligned in language and support for young people’s social, emotional, and cognitive development across school and out-of-school settings.

Strategy 12: Include All Adults. All staff members—from teachers to counselors, from cafeteria managers to school social workers, school psychologists, and nurses, and from principals to bus drivers—contribute to a respectful, inclusive school culture that models positive behaviors for young people through commitment to a shared vision and approach to social, emotional, and academic development. This includes creating norms for considerate, collaborative, and productive staff and youth interactions. Leaders and all staff members hold each other accountable for exemplifying these norms. Districts, schools and youth-serving organizations ensure that all staff members in all positions, from all backgrounds and orientations, feel welcome, included, and respected as contributing colleagues, and they provide opportunities for authentic relationship building among adults as part of building a positive youth-development community.

Strategy 13: Select Leaders Who Are Models . Leaders are explicitly hired and developed who know about and can implement a holistic approach to student learning. A recent study by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found that principals influence school achievement primarily by improving school culture.15 They empower and coordinate the work of teachers and school staff around shared goals, organize and support shared leadership, and develop systems for supporting teachers as they support students. Leaders must embody and model social, emotional, and cognitive competencies. Consider individuals’ skills and experience

14 Jones and Kahn, Ibid.15 Elaine M. Allensworth & H. Hart. How Do Principals Influence Student Achievement? 2018. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. http://consortium.uchicago.edu/publication-tags/principals-leadership.

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in planning, implementing, and being held accountable for social, emotional, and academic development in deciding whether to hire or retain people for leadership positions.

Strategy 14: Hire and Develop Staff to Embody the Skills . It all begins with hiring. Social, emotional, and academic competencies are a core priority in recruiting, hiring, and orienting all staff members and in their ongoing professional learning. This includes helping all staff members develop their own social and emotional competencies as adults, in order to better teach and model those skills for young people. It also includes more specialized training for those responsible for implementing multi-tiered systems of support and universal design for learning strategies for students who need additional interventions. Pre-service training in universities and professional associations provides foundational knowledge and skills in the social, emotional, and cognitive dimensions of learning and their effective integration into the daily life of young people. Teacher-leadership positions are structured to extend the impact of teachers who are effective at integrating social, emotional, and academic development. Professional learning also includes a focus on equity, diversity, and cultural responsiveness.

PRACTICE EXEMPLARS for building adult capacity Prioritize skills in social, emotional, and academic development in job descriptions,

recruitment, hiring, orientation, training, ongoing professional learning and career progress for both faculty and non-teaching staff members.

Embed and reinforce integrated instruction in social, emotional, and cognitive development through a variety of professional learning opportunities such as professional development workshops, team and department meetings, coaching cycles, and professional evaluations.

Create teacher-leadership positions to draw on and extend the impact of teachers who are effective at integrating social, emotional, and academic development into academic instruction.

Provide targeted professional learning that is focused on equity, diversity, and cultural responsiveness.

Collaborate with colleges of education to ensure that instruction in human development relative to the integration of social, emotional, and cognitive development is explicitly covered in pre-service programs.

Encourage joint professional learning activities that bring together school and community providers.

Directly teach adults social, emotional, and cognitive competencies and given them opportunities to practice and model those skills in their interactions with children.

Create trust among adults by distributing leadership throughout the school and involving staff in decisions.

Use summer programs and the summer months as a time for professional development and to build adult capacity to integrate social, emotional, and academic learning.

Encourage joint professional learning activities that bring together school and community providers and bring the strengths of informal and non-formal learning opportunities into training with teachers to expand how educators think about developing social, emotional, and academic competencies.

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Recommendation V: Work Together as Advocates and Partners for Student Learning. Continue to embrace families and align community organizations, higher education institutions and professional associations as partners to create a cohesive PreK-12 ecosystem that supports students holistically.Advancing the work of social, emotional, and academic development requires a network of support beyond the school, in order to enhance and sustain young people’s learning and development across settings. Parents, families, and caregivers are partners in extending social, emotional, and academic development. Parents and caregivers know that the home and family play an indispensable role in educational outcomes, and they overwhelmingly believe it’s important for families, schools and youth-serving organizations to join forces to support children’s healthy development and learning.16 Families who understand the importance of fostering social, emotional, and academic development can go a long way toward ensuring long-term success. Effective home communication from schools and organizations can be a challenge. Families today are facing information overload, and schools and youth organizations have a lot of important, valid information to share each day. To best support all families not only do schools and organizations have to be aware of cultural and linguistic needs in the community, they also must choose to communicate in ways that overcome those differences.

Because they have historically been consigned fewer resources, less rigorous content, and less qualified teachers, some disenfranchised families may be skeptical of schools and organizations generally and of social and emotional development initiatives specifically, seeing them as distracting from academics, or outside the scope of what schools and recreational organizations should teach. When implementing social, emotional, and academic development initiatives, school and organizational leaders and teachers need to understand families’ hopes and dreams, honor their culture, and provide them with the respect and appreciation they deserve. Direct and open communication between families and educators is essential to successfully educating the whole child.

In addition to families, community partnerships provide support during the school day and beyond the schoolhouse doors. Many organizations touch the lives of students both during and after school, from in-school mentoring to classroom and schoolwide support to after-school and summer programs. When these organizations partner with schools, they enhance and extend the capacity of the schools and expand opportunities for young people. These partnerships provide enrichment and wraparound support for children and youth, including overall physical and mental health development, adding valuable capacity to schools. Schools and partner organizations can come together to design mutually supportive strategies focused on these competencies. Institutions of higher education and professional associations play a critical role in the preparation and continuing professional development of teachers, youth development professionals and organizational leaders who can facilitate positive youth development. These institutions also serve as partners with schools and organizations in the effective implementation and continuing improvement of these efforts through collaboration on research and program evaluation. Work across these partnerships requires collaborative planning, open communication, effective coordination, and a strong commitment to the multi-dimensional support that places young people at the center of this effort. This network of support fosters child and youth agency in both structured and non-structured settings during the school day, as well as in out-of-school-time partnerships. It brings consistency in language and approach, leverages a diversity of resources, and creates a strong safety net for young people and adults.

16 Learning Heroes, Developing Life Skills in Children: A Road Map for Communicating with Parents, March

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Strategy 15: Engage Families Early: Families are a child’s first and foremost care giver. As such, they create an essential bridge of support between home, school and out-of-school settings in fostering children’s social, emotional, and cognitive growth. Meaningful inclusion of families entails engaging them early, giving them voice, and involving them in opportunities to learn and lead. Expanding outreach to families to include the summer months yields a year-round strategy for engaging parents in the social, emotional, and academic development of their child and promotes equity among families of varied economic means. This can be achieved by extending or expanding upon partnerships with community and youth development agencies.

Strategy 16: Expand Capacity through Partnerships. Districts and schools collaborate during the school day and in out-of-school-time with community partners, youth development agencies, universities, and professional associations to provide critical additional capacity to support student learning and growth, including through enrichment and recreational activities, multi-tiered systems of support, and professional preparation and development. These partnerships help develop a shared language and approach that provides consistency and common expectations for children and adults. In addition, university partnerships can further continuous improvement not only through pre-service education and professional development but also through collaboration on research in the field and program evaluation. Educators and university researchers working alongside each other can further their understanding of youth development while providing insights that extend the knowledge base of the field.

Strategy 17: Extend Young People’s Learning into the Community. Children and youth are afforded opportunities to demonstrate and extend their social, emotional, and academic skills while contributing to the wider community, such as through service learning and community service projects. These experiences enable young people to exhibit and strengthen their competencies and have them validated by others outside the school. Today’s young people are tomorrow’s citizens and leaders. Recognizing and helping youth to exercise leadership and voice both in and beyond schools supports their growth while building stronger communities.

PRACTICE EXEMPLARS for strengthening family and community partnerships Designate staff to focus on coordinating, prioritizing and integrating partners into the

design, planning, implementation and ongoing improvement of students’ social, emotional and academic development.

Strengthen collaboration among schools, community partners, and families through an array of activities that intentionally model the same behaviors and language that are being emphasized at school, such as collaboration and respectful listening.

Engage university partners in field research and evaluation of the integration of social, emotional, and cognitive skills into academic programming.

Encourage authentic parent participation through home visits, student-led parent-teacher conferences, volunteering in the classroom, and engagement in school affairs.

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Principles to Guide the Integration of Social, Emotional, and Academic DevelopmentThe strategies outlined above can help provide all children and youth with learning that is richer, deeper, and more relevant because it is based in evidence about how learning happens. In addition, we offer the following guiding principles and exemplar practices that reflect these principles for practitioners to think about as they move change forward.

1. Academics Are Central Intentionally focusing on integrating the social, emotional, and cognitive dimensions of learning does not mean de-emphasizing academic content or lowering expectations for students. In a national survey, 95% of parents rate academics as their top/high priority when they think about their child and his or her school. 17 But we now know that integrating social, emotional, and cognitive development in support of academics is the way learning happens and serves as a path to higher achievement. We also know both parents and employers expect young people to possess a broader skill set for students to succeed in the 21 st century.18

2. The Voices of Young People and Youth Professionals Are VitalUltimately, learning happens in the interaction between young people and the teachers and youth development professionals who work with them. Yet the recent history of education change has been largely driven from the top, with young people and educators viewed as the objects of change. This has diminished trust up and down the system—trust that is essential for real change to take root and flourish. Particularly because the integration of social, emotional, and academic development is so relationship-driven, it necessitates elevating educator and youth voice in the change process.

3. Focus on RelationshipsIntegrating social, emotional, and academic development is relational work that does not respond well to compliance-driven reform efforts. The plan for change needs to reflect and model the very skills and attitudes that we want embodied in classrooms, schools, and youth-development organizations. People need to fully understand why the change is necessary, how it will benefit young people’s well-being and their academic learning, what is appropriate for children and youth developmentally, and how change will positively impact the culture and climate of the school, organization, and community. Educators, administrators, young people, parents, and partners need to be compelled by the vision, appreciate the coherence of the approach, and feel supported in making the changes to instruction and organization. Change efforts need to intentionally build trust and agency among those involved.

4. Prioritize EquityAll young people deserve learning environments that reinforce their sense of academic belonging and let them know they are valued for their assets and deserving of investment and rigor. This is particularly true for children of color and children from low-income families, who have been disproportionately tracked into less rigorous coursework and systematically provided with fewer resources. Improving learning environments by focusing on racial equity and by integrating social, emotional, and academic development can improve individual academic and life outcomes and lead toward a more equitable society overall. In an equitable education system, every young person has access to the resources and educational rigor they need at the right moment in their education, irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, disability, family background, family income, citizenship, or tribal status. Building healthy school and organizational cultures and climate is critical, as is designing and utilizing space in a way that welcomes

17 Learning Heroes, 2017 National Survey, “Developing Life Skills in Children.” Research conducted by Edge Research.18 Learning Heroes, Developing Life Skills in Children: A Road Map for Communicating with Parents, March 2018.

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youth, families, and community members and celebrates young people’s backgrounds, languages, and achievements. When implementing a whole-child approach to learning, leaders and educators need to understand families’ hopes and dreams, honor their culture, and provide them with the respect and appreciation they deserve.

5. Honor Local ConditionsEach community, organization, school district, and school possesses a different culture, works with a distinct local context and demographic student body, faces a different set of issues, and moves change forward in different ways. Change efforts need to respect and honor local conditions and recognize that no single policy, program, or initiative fits all communities. Change involves planning, but it also entails improvising and enabling local people to innovate and make the change their own. Change requires consistent follow-through but is not necessarily linear, as it must accommodate and work alongside other local needs and change efforts. It involves clear direction but also the flexibility to make adjustments and engage in continuous improvement. Starting points, pacing, and levels of engagement by various constituencies will all vary to meet local circumstances. This flexibility does not mean that change is chaotic, but rather that it has to be grounded in local circumstances and adjusted to leverage the assets the community has to offer.

While speaking to change in general, the five principles above are particularly important for the integration of social, emotional, and academic development—a change that is deeply personal and organizational as well as one that inspires and fulfills the people who pursue it. The following visual reflects these principles in a range of exemplar practices that provides points of entry for each of the recommendations.

ConclusionChange is necessarily incremental and each district, school and organization will begin at a different point along the path. We offer these recommendations as launching pads for some and, for others, as guidance toward the next steps in moving the integration of social, emotional, and academic development forward. The goal is to build upon the foundations that are already in place and to strengthen and improve with time.

The national call for the integration of social, emotional, and academic development provides hope and excitement that we can better create engaging and enriching learning environments that inspire and support young people in becoming their best personal selves as well as productive and responsive citizens within the global community.

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