Social & Emotional Learning(SEL)

3R in Education Relevance-Redefine-Replace
By Shaveta Nayyar Dham

India with all its ancient knowledge of ‘Vedas’ and ‘Shastras’, has always focused on the awareness of the “self’ or ‘inside’. Are we ready as human beings first, and then as parents and as teachers to understand this basic lesson of life? How then we should educate our children?

Today, we are sailing in the ocean of knowledge.  We have travelled on the road that leads to education which encompasses all – content, knowledge, technology, morals and probably the abundance of everything. We now also have the urge to travel to ‘Back to Basics’ philosophy of education that sits more on ‘value’ system, where ‘artificial’ or ‘unnatural’ means are not preferred.

Thus, it’s rather unfortunate that education system in our country is divided between the old and the new school of thought. It’s also lost in the world where ‘change’ has become the phenomenon of our lifestyles that make us move aimless.

3R in the Indian education system needs to be looked at more closely. The relevance of the content, the requirement to relook and restructure the curricula in the present context and finally, replacing it with new initiatives and thoughtfulness.

When we talk of content, it will be a good idea to integrate it with more real programs that help children understand the concepts that relate to real life experiences and Social & Emotional Learning. Any idea or subject or concept can be taught and approached in many ways.

Recently, in the movie “Hitchki”, the teacher takes the attendance in a unique way, explains the concepts of ‘Gravitational Force’, ‘Parabola’ etc by not only dealing with the emotions of the children, but also using some real life examples that have meaning in their life.

Children need to be encouraged to ‘think’, ‘to feel’ and ‘to act’ accordingly. Therefore, policy makers along with content makers, educators have a huge responsibility on their shoulder.

Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) & its Relevance

The evidence supporting the relationship between Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) & academia is growing.  SEL is being practiced in many countries in the world. SEL innovations at schools have shown decline in aggressive behaviours of children while improving their performance in different subjects too.

Schools are trying to introduce many Social and Emotional learning programs that can help children grow. In my discussion with the school principals, they all said, schools need to take it in a bigger and better way and introduce a centralized SEL curriculum that can measure the learning outcome. However, our present education system only allow schools to operate and experiment in certain limitations.

In our growing economy, significant changes are happening in the education industry. Diversity, social-economic factors, services, resources etc – all play a big role when it comes to redefining the education of our children. The strongest schools will be those who will work in complete synergy building comprehensive curricula for all round development of the children.

The Policy makers must introduce SEL into the curricula (from primary level till class 12^th) that can be implemented nationwide. Each stage curriculum with learning outcomes need to be thought well and created.  A complete strategy at the grass root level has to be designed keeping in mind the socio-economic factors.

Therefore, the questions are-

• How we can integrate SEL into our present educational system?
• How we can integrate SEL with course or subject learning?
• How we can make SEL measurable and create a centralized curricula for all the schools?
• How we can embed SEL into a child’s life without any pressure?

 Some Points that are prerequisite and would help to develop SEL keeping in mind the 3R in Education–

Implementation and Scaling Up

Huge efforts are required on successful implementation of the curricula. Delivery systems, methodologies, training, learning – all need to be worked upon stage by stage. A pilot execution of the project needs to be followed by scaling up of the delivery embedding into the current system along with measuring child’s performance in each class. An educational reform where public and private partnerships need to be evaluated that helps in faster scaling up of the programs.

New technology innovations and centralized offline learning will play a major role to push SEL curricula .

Beyond the Structural Settings

Structural issues, management hurdles will always remain considering the diversity in our economy along with many other factors. The schools need to go beyond their structural and framed network, and be ready for new learning environment. This needs to be discussed internally by the management. Perhaps each school will have it’s own way but the centralized structure of implementation should be the same.

Teachers Training

Teachers need to be prepared well. The management and the knowledge givers have to collaborate positively. A nationwide training needs to be executed –offline, online –whatever it takes to bring about this positive change.

SEL Resources and Management

In India, growing awareness in the education sector has led to higher literacy rate.  The workforce working behind this- Govt, NGOs, Schools etc have managed to achieve interest in education. So far so good. But there is much more. The present resources and management are struggling to make the system work in totality for our children.  It will be challenging to create new ‘mindfulness’ from the existing resources.

Many programs on behavioural skills, cognitive, experiential and much more is already existing. Somewhere, they are connected in terms of learning outcomes. However, new research and practise is needed to design performance based programs.  In UK and US, many organizations are working together to develop SEL programs. (CASEL)*, SIXseconds, (SECD)* are some of the international organizations who are developing new programs.

India needs more organizations to come forth and create a pool of resources that are centralized. To optimize the use of these resources, management needs to look at spreading more awareness along with Literacy and other educational campaigns.

Delhi Government’s “Happiness Curriculum” is the first step taken to educate our children in a healthier environment.

We are moving in that direction but “there are miles to go before I sleep”. Let’s create a 3R and revolutionize the way we learn.

(By- Shaveta Nayyar Dham, Author- “Emotions In My Basket”, Educator, Founder-www.edudham.com)

Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)
Happiness Curriculum introduced in Delhi Govt Schools

Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister &Education Minister Manish Sisodia has taken a step forward towards introducing Social & Emotional Learning in Delhi Government schools and bringing a positive change in the current education system. On 2 July,  the programme was first unveiled in the state capital by the Dalai Lama who lauded the programme and said that India is the only country that can bring together modern education and ancient Indian knowledge, and such an inclusive module at schools will help deal with the destructive emotions in the world.”

Manish Sisodia said, “It is going to be the most important development in the education system with a focus on good mental health, character, and resilience. It will address the ever-growing concern levels of happiness and well-being. The effect of this involving 10 lakh students and around 50,000 teachers can be imagined. It is our belief that the modern day problems like terrorism, corruption, and pollution can be solved through schools and a human-centric education.”

“A child’s mental well-being is important. Happier children learn more, cope better and are much more likely to make the most of their potential,” he added. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called it a “landmark day” which will “completely transform the modern education system”.

The curriculum, with a focus on meditation and mental exercise, is designed with the aim to make students not only good humans who will spread happiness but also relaxed professionals who will not indulge in corruption. The daily Happiness Class includes mindfulness practice, gratitude, morals and value-based stories and activities.

MISSION BUNIYAAD LAUNCHED IN DELHI GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

“Mission Buinyaad” in Delhi Government schools was a great effort to make the children of the Classes III to IX to read, write and do basic maths. The government schools has reached out to parents to convince them to stay back in Delhi for the entire duration of the school holidays in May-June 2018 and send their child to school.

During the campaign, two-three hours of focused activities were conducted by the school teachers every day with all those students of classes III to IX who cannot read their textbooks or solve basic numerical problems to strengthen their reading, writing and math skills.The children did many activities during the campaign- story telling sessions, reading sessions and activity sessions.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who holds the education portfolio,said, “The inability of children to read and write fluently is a reflection on the failure of the school system. The focus has been on finishing the syllabus instead of concentrating on whether the student is being able to understand what is being taught.”

Therefore, all the teachers were trained, volunteers were called who made a lot of effort to run the program especially during school holidays. All teachers used to take special session with the parents of the children once a week. They made them understand the importance of education and also progress of their child.

MISSION BUNIYAAD SUCCESSFUL IN ALL MALVIYA NAGAR ASSEMBLY CONSTITUENCY GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS