The Importance of Social-Emotional Learning

by Tricia Dallas

When asked about the social-emotional curriculum in my preschool classroom, I am eager to share that my entire day is focused on the development of critical skills, which I consider the foundation for learning. What’s more, I recognize that each child in my room is in a different place in his or her social-emotional development. One child may be working on staying calm and attentive to activities and adults/peers in the room; another may be working on recognizing and expressing emotions. I might be helping a third child learn to stand up for herself when another tries to take a toy.

The problems and challenges that naturally take place when groups of children are asked to share materials and the environment are not seen as obstacles in my class—they are viewed as opportunities for learning.

It is my job to ensure those experiences are facilitated in such a way that each child is able to take something away from the experience and is able to use similar strategies in the future with increasing independence. Learning is a social process. Is it any wonder then that strong social-emotional skills are related to later success in life?

In the recent article, “Early Social-Emotional Functioning and Public Health: The Relationship Between Kindergarten Social Competence and Future Wellness,” authors Jones, Greenberg, and Crowley describe the relationships found between strong social skills in kindergarten and later success in early adulthood. The authors found that children rated as socially competent by their kindergarten teachers were more likely to graduate in four years from high school, complete college, and maintain full-time employment as young adults. In addition, socially competent kindergarteners were less likely to be retained in a grade, need special education services, require public housing or social assistance, or be involvement with police and the prison system. These results are a reminder of the need to take what many refer to as “soft” or “non-cognitive skills” much more seriously, as the findings suggest strong social skills are can effect not only the lives of individual children, but also have broad economic implications.

The authors suggest kindergarten teachers survey the children in their classroom at the beginning of the year to determine who may need assistance in strengthening their social-emotional capacities. Delaware kindergarten teachers already conduct such a survey: The Delaware Early Learning Survey (DE-ELS) is used by kindergarten teachers to assess capacities in social-emotional development, language and learning, cognition and general knowledge, approaches to learning, and physical well-being and motor development. Specifically, the DE-ELS asks teachers to rate children’s development for the following “social-emotional” indicators:

• Regulates own emotions and behaviors
  • Follows limits and expectations
  • Takes care of own needs appropriately
• Establishes and sustains positive relationships
  • Interacts with peers
• Participates cooperatively and constructively in group situations
  • Balances needs and rights of self and others
  • Solves social problems

Note here the inclusion of self-regulation as a part of these social-emotional skills. While the two are separate capacities, it can often be difficult to address one without acknowledging the other.

It should be clear that the capacities for self-regulation and strong social-emotional skills are not just important in kindergarten, they are important in life and in the building of strong societies. We need to nurture these capacities, not just assume they will develop on their own. Parents, families, caregivers, daycare teachers, and other members of society help young children address these skills during the back and forth interactions that occur throughout everyday experiences. When children play together, they work on these essential capacities as well.
Preschool programs actively continue the work begun at home through intentional planning and by facilitating children’s self-directed, play-based experiences. State wide, early childhood educators are encouraged to use the Delaware Early Learning Foundations to guide their practice. Participation in Delaware STARS, the state’s quality rating and improvement system, can also serve to support educators in maintaining a focus on these skills as the foundations for learning.

In recent years, a child’s entrance to kindergarten has often represented a shift from the child-centered, play-based learning environment to a top-down, skills-focused curricula that does not give as much attention to the cultivation of self-regulation and social-emotional skills. The article suggests the use of teacher surveys to determine which children may need extra assistance in developing social-emotional skills and the potential use of formal curricula to help guide teachers in their support of each child’s development. While that may prove useful, we also need to actively work on these skills via real life experiences. For young children, including kindergartners, that means through daily opportunities for play.

If we consider just one area of a play-based classroom—the dramatic play area—we can see how children can work on each of the social-emotional DE-ELS indicators through play. Children can negotiate roles (problem solving, balance needs of self and others), engage with each other in play via the roles they chose (establish and sustain positive relationships, interacts with peers, participate cooperatively and constructively in group situations) and exhibit self-regulation by not taking on more than one role and by following agreed upon rules for play (following limits and expectations, regulating own emotions and behaviors).

Intentional teachers facilitate the play as needed, sometimes observing, other times becoming a character in the drama. When the dramatic play takes on different themes, other learning can occur simultaneously (for example, children taking orders at a restaurant can work on literacy concepts, children pretending to be paleontologists at a ‘dinosuar dig’ can work on mathematics and science standards). Most importantly for children, their time is spent in creative, engaging, and active experiences of their choosing.

With many of our state’s kindergarten program offering full-day programming, there is little reason why a balance between teacher and child-directed learning opportunities cannot be met. Striking such a balance would indicate a broader understanding of how children truly learn and would represent a need to address the development of the whole child. It is time we revisit our perception of teaching and learning. No longer should we give a passing nod to the importance of regulation, attention, and social-emotional skills in education. These vital capacities need to be actively nurtured through daily meaningful experiences, both in and out of school.

Interesting websites on self-regulation:
http://www.ttacnews.vcu.edu/2012/02/understanding-the-importance-of-self-regulation-for-preschoolers
http://www.cea-ace.ca/education-canada/article/self-regulation-calm-alert-and-learning
http://www.self-regulation.ca
http://www.toolsofthemind.org/philosophy/self-regulation

Tricia Dallas is an itinerant teacher in the Red Clay Consolidated School District, and a member of the Rodel Teacher Council.