Commentary: Social-Emotional Learning Is Hurting Students

Sad Student

Social-emotional learning (SEL) has been in vogue in education circles for decades. Following its precepts, teachers, counselors, and administrators encourage students to look inward and focus on their feelings. The result?

A generation of young people who can’t stop thinking about their emotions, leaving them incredibly fragile. But that’s not what many of the experts will tell you.

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Georgia School District Spent Millions to Train Teachers and Implement Social Emotional Learning

A Georgia school district spent nearly $5 million to train teachers and provide a social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum, a new education model that has been criticized for laying the groundwork for Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the classroom, according to a public record request by No Left Turn In Education (NLTE), an organization focused on “radical indoctrination” in schools.

Gwinnett County Public Schools paid EL Education, the creator of a Language Arts curriculum grounded in SEL, to provide a K-5 curriculum and give teachers professional development training through the 2022-2023 school year, according to a NLTE public records request obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. SEL focuses on teaching students social skills for their emotional well-being and has been deemed by critics a tenant and euphemism for CRT.

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‘Psychologically Abusive’: Some Back-to-School Programs Dividing Students by ‘Gender, Culture, and Identity’

A back-to-school curriculum focused on social-emotional learning (SEL) lays the foundation for Critical Race Theory (CRT) by dividing children through the creation of identity charts, “getting to know you” questionnaires and classroom contracts, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A curriculum created by Facing History and Ourselves, a group that partners with more than 100,000 teachers to provide education resources to combat “racism, antisemitism and prejudice at pivotal moments in history,” has a five day back-to-school lesson plan that teaches kids about gender, culture and identity. The curriculum is based in SEL, which focuses on teaching students social skills for their emotional well-being but has been criticized for laying the groundwork for CRT in the classroom, as similar lesson plans based in SEL are growing in popularity across the country, experts told the DCNF.

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Parents Raise Alarm over Gender Ideology and Race Essentialism Pushed in Classrooms Through ‘Social Emotional Learning’

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not the only three-word phrase that has parents concerned; Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is the latest curriculum headache that education experts warn is permeating the American public school system.

SEL purports to teach students social skills that aid their mental health and emotional wellbeing, yet has been criticized as both a tenet of and a euphemism for CRT, which has become a hot button issue among parents, teachers and politicians concerned about the state of the country’s public schools. Educators are teaching gender ideology and race essentialism under the guise of SEL, education experts told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

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GOP Lawmaker Claims School Officials in His State Found a Loophole in the Ban on CRT

A Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma is sounding the alarm on what he says is just the “wicked woke stepsister of” Critical Race Theory.

Oklahoma state Senator Shane Jett has proposed legislation to prohibit the teaching of so-called Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in K-12 public schools. The Oklahoma State Department of Education (DOE) is using the seemingly nice sounding name “Social and Emotional Learning” to implement the curriculum as a loophole in a state law that restricts teaching concepts like CRT, according to Jett.

Jett believes his bill, if passed, would shut that loophole and keep SEL out of public schools.

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