"Why aren’t schools putting more of a priority on social-emotional learning (SEL)?” We frequently ask ourselves this question during our behavior planning meetings because we hear educators in our region express a deep-seated belief that what and how kids learn socially and behaviorally is important. We have come up with a multitude of reasons why SEL takes a backseat and one reason tends to stand out. In education today, academic standards and benchmarks are readily available, prioritized, and privileged, while there is very little available to help schools anchor, measure, and monitor social wellness and social learning.
