Social-emotional learning is now 'character ed' or 'life skills' or ...

School districts are rebranding "social-emotional learning" as "character education" or "life skills" or "communications skills," writes Arianna Prothero in Education Week. They're still teaching "soft skills" such as "emotional regulation, empathy, collaboration, and goal setting," but avoiding controversy by using other names.

In an EdWeek survey, less than half of teachers, principals, and district leaders said they exclusively refer to social-emotional learning by its original name.

"As concepts such as critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion became flashpoints in the political arena, some conservative activists in 2021 started challenging social-emotional learning as well, claiming it was an attempt by educators to indoctrinate students with liberal values or practice psychology on students without a license," Prothero writes.

"As with so many well-meaning education reforms, SEL has a Jekyll-and-Hyde aspect," wrote Rick Hess in 2022. “It can be reasonably described both as a sensible, innocuous attempt to tackle a real challenge and, too often, an excuse for a blue, bubbled industry of education funders, advocates, professors, and trainers to promote faddish nonsense and ideological agendas.”

SEL's "more ideological advocates use SEL to justify controversial ideas — such as doing away with traditional grading, eliminating advanced math, subjecting students and staff to “privilege walks,” or teaching 1st graders about gender identity," he writes.

Passport Skills for Life, a well-known SEL program, had no benefits for students, concludes a new University of Manchester study.

"Passport is designed to help children aged 9 to 11 manage their emotions, cope with stress and build good relationships," writes Joe Stafford of the University of Manchester in Medical XPress. Eighteen weekly lessons cover feelings, friendships and handling change in hopes of "helping children to build strong emotional and social skills," and preventing anxiety and depression. However, researchers found "no significant improvement in mental health symptoms . . . or in other areas like emotional regulation, well-being or bullying."