The Future of Civic Engagement Is Social-Emotional Learning

Summary

Highlights

• Dr. Tia Kim led a vibrant discussion on SEL’s role in civic engagement, featuring diverse educators 🌟.
• Educators emphasize the importance of integrating community support with school efforts for broader reach 🌍.
• Panelists shared personal experiences highlighting the power of SEL in addressing social injustices and childhood trauma 🙌.
• The conversation underscored the necessity for educators to model SEL competencies themselves for better student outcomes 👩‍🏫.
• Participants discussed the challenge of translating SEL skills learned in school to home and community settings 🏠.
• The dialogue stressed the need for students to engage in social and political consciousness alongside their academic education 🧠.

Key Takeaways

• Community support is crucial: Schools can't do it alone; involving the community in civic engagement is essential 🤝.
• Youth today are vocal and passionate: They're more engaged in civic matters but need guidance in reflective thinking 🔊.
• Educator role in SEL: Teachers should be intentional in creating safe spaces for students to express themselves 🤗.
• Civic engagement is about taking action: It's not just about talk but transforming passion into action 🏃‍♀️.
• SEL can guide civic engagement: Helping students connect their emotional understanding to civic responsibilities enhances community involvement 💡.
• Challenges in SEL and civic ties: There's a need for better strategies to make SEL relevant outside school walls 🌍.

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 02:30: Introduction and Webinar Setup The chapter serves as an introduction to the webinar hosted by Emily Sumner on behalf of the SEL Exchange by Castle. Emily greets participants and provides tips for ensuring a smooth webinar experience, encouraging the use of the chat feature for greetings, thoughts, and technical assistance.
• 02:30 - 08:00: Panel Introductions The chapter provides initial guidance to ensure the webinar runs smoothly. The host advises closing unnecessary applications and browser tabs on attendees' computers to allocate maximum resources to Zoom, thus enhancing performance. Attendees experiencing audio or video lags are encouraged to briefly exit and rejoin the Zoom session to reset their connection. The host anticipates many questions during the presentation.
• 08:00 - 17:00: Impact of COVID-19 on Education The chapter titled 'Impact of COVID-19 on Education' begins with an announcement for a live Q&A session at the end of the discussion. Participants are encouraged to send in questions via the Zoom toolbar throughout the conversation. A recording of the webinar will be made available along with a certificate of attendance. The session begins by noting that each year, Castle hosts a significant event focused on social topics. The meeting this year evidently includes topics related to the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on education, though specific details and discussions on the impact are not present in the transcript provided. The chapter likely continues to discuss examples, statistics, and different perspectives on how the education sector has been affected by the pandemic.
• 17:00 - 21:30: Social Connection Activities The chapter titled 'Social Connection Activities' discusses a virtual summit organized by CASEL, focused on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). Last year, the summit attracted nearly 2,500 participants globally, including researchers, practitioners, young individuals, and community leaders. The upcoming summit, scheduled for October 14th, aims to provide four hours of learning sessions. These sessions will center on activating SEL to help young people discover their sense of purpose and use their strengths effectively.
• 21:30 - 27:00: Addressing Inequities in Education The chapter 'Addressing Inequities in Education' discusses current initiatives and events, such as an upcoming event on October 14th, encouraging registration. The event emphasizes the importance of SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) and highlights contributions made by over 20 sponsors. These sponsors are recognized for their commitment to advancing SEL through innovative products and programs, with special thanks given to the sponsor of the specific webinar mentioned.
• 27:00 - 38:30: Civic Engagement and Youth The given chapter focuses on the efforts of the Committee for Children, a global non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the safety and well-being of children through social-emotional learning. This organization is particularly known for developing the Second Step social emotional learning program. The text invites readers to explore more about the Committee for Children and its programs, offering further resources both in an online chat and a follow-up email expected to be received within a day or two.
• 38:30 - 53:00: Intersection of SEL and Civic Engagement This chapter introduces Dr. Tia Kim, Vice President of Education Research and Impact at the Committee for Children. Dr. Kim moderates a recorded conversation, highlighting the intersection of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and civic engagement. The chapter sets the stage for a deeper dive into these concepts, promising a live Q&A session with Dr. Kim to further explore the discussed topics.
• 53:00 - 67:00: Final Thoughts and Reflections The chapter discusses the importance of social emotional learning (SEL) and its integration with civic engagement. The conversation features panelists from an organization focused on developing SEL programs for educators and schools nationwide. The panelists introduce themselves and talk about their respective roles and contributions to supporting the emotional and civic development of children and youth.
• 67:00 - 86:00: Q&A Session The chapter begins with an introduction by Sharon Bradley, who describes her role as Director of Family and Social Services and Social Emotional Learning in Plano ISD, located north of Dallas, Texas. Sharon shares her journey, noting that she was introduced to social emotional learning around eight years ago. Her enthusiasm and inspiration from this field are evident as she shares her experiences with the attendees. The chapter sets a foundational tone for a discussion on the impact and significance of social emotional learning in educational settings.
• 86:00 - 93:00: Closing Remarks and Next Steps The speaker reflects on a 21-year career in education, highlighting the importance and potential of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) as a transformative force. Adam Alvarez, an assistant professor in urban education at Rowan University in New Jersey, introduces himself and shares his professional background.

The Future of Civic Engagement Is Social-Emotional Learning Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello everyone and thank you for joining us i'm emily sumner and i'll be your host today i'm pleased to be with you on behalf of the sel exchange hosted by castle before i share a little bit more about the sel exchange i'm going to go through a few quick tips to help the webinar run smoothly for you we have the chat open and many of you have already shared greetings with the group so keep that up and you're also welcome to share any thoughts or ideas that come up for you throughout the presentation and chat you can use that chat feature to reach out to me with any technical problems and i'll do my best to resolve them for
• 00:30 - 01:00 you one thing you can do right now to make the webinar run smoothly is to close all the other applications on your computer and all of your other internet browser tabs so close out word powerpoint any adobe applications you have open this just make sure all of your internet and computer bandwidth goes to power zoom if you do have audio or video lags that last more than a second or two you can pop out of zoom and come right back in and that usually resets the connection for you i'm sure you can have a lot of questions throughout today's presentation and
• 01:00 - 01:30 we're excited to have them um so we are going to be holding a live q a at the end so feel free to send in those questions as they come up for you throughout the conversation to ask a question look for the q a icon at the bottom of your zoom toolbar and type your question in there we'll get it and we'll put it into the queue to be answered during the q a period we are recording today's webinar and we will email you a link to that recording along with your certificate of attendance all right so as many of you know each year castle hosts the social and
• 01:30 - 02:00 emotional learning or sel exchange which is a unique and timely forum for those who are committed to social and emotional learning last year castle had close to 2500 people from around the globe joined the virtual summit and these included researchers practitioners young people and community leaders this year's virtual summit is going to be held on october 14th and will offer four hours of learning centered around how you can act about activate sel to create conditions where young people can find their sense of purpose and channel their strengths towards achieving
• 02:00 - 02:30 personal and collective goals registration is open and we've got lots of people already set to join us on october 14th so we encourage you to register today at the url we're going to put in chat which is sellexchange.casl.org i would like to acknowledge the very generous support provided by many organizations that are making a difference with sel our more than 20 sponsors are dedicated to advancing sel through innovative products and programs and today i want to give an extra thank you to our sponsor of today's webinar
• 02:30 - 03:00 and the sal exchange committee for children committee for children is a global non-profit whose work champions the safety and well-being of kids through social emotional learning committee for children is the creator of the second step social emotional learning program and we encourage you to learn more about committee for children and second step and we'll share some of that information in chat now as well as in the follow up email that you get you'll receive um in the next day or two all right so today's panel discussion
• 03:00 - 03:30 was actually pre-recorded so i'm going to start that recording now but we will be holding that live q a at the end with dr tia kim who is the one moderating the recorded conversation so just give us a second and we'll get that recording launched for you [Music] hi there i'm tia kim the vice president of education research and impact at committee for children committee for
• 03:30 - 04:00 children is an organization that develops social emotional learning programs and works with educators and schools across the country to help support the social emotional confidence of children and youth today we have a great conversation with some excellent panelists around the intersection of sel and civic engagement so let's go ahead and introduce our panelists today if each of you could just go around and tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do that would be great so why don't we start
• 04:00 - 04:30 with sharon just tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do and then we'll just kind of go around hello everyone my name is sharon bradley i am a director of family and social services and social emotional learning and plano um isd that is about 20 miles north of dallas here in texas and i gotta say about eight years ago i was introduced to social emotional learning and it just totally totally invigorated me and in my
• 04:30 - 05:00 career i'm now starting my 21st year in education and i'm just spreading the the good news and the good work of sel that i believe can be the driving force for change you know throughout great adam do you want to go next sure yeah nice to see y'all um my name's adam alvarez i'm an assistant professor in urban education at rowan university that's in southern new jersey um prior to that i was
• 05:00 - 05:30 an elementary teacher for six years i worked at a residential treatment facility which is kind of like a juvenile justice setting but more therapeutic supposedly and really that's where i kind of learned about the various needs that kids have in terms of learning but then also sort of non-academic skills and learning as well and i would say probably my third year i realized that nothing really gets done in class until
• 05:30 - 06:00 teachers learn to be a little bit more caring about their students to be a little bit more transparent so i come to the space with you know six years of elementary teaching i did my master's in educational leadership and policy and then my doctorate was in education with an emphasis on urban education so so now my research really looks at the intersection of race exposure to violence and trauma in a k-12 teaching
• 06:00 - 06:30 and learning context great we have that in common adam actually i worked in a residential treatment facility for adjudicated boys for youth too so more on the counseling side not the education side but that's a nice connection great shaniqua if you can go next and just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do that would be great sure my name is shaniqua mustafer i am the assistant principal for carolina park elementary school in mount pleasant south carolina i've been in this role for about two
• 06:30 - 07:00 years it's amazing here little kids are awesome um prior to being an elementary school principal i was a sixth grade english teacher um at jerry zuckerberg middle school against the amazing experience of my life it was there that i realized and i learned um by a conversation with a colleague um sharing some personal experiences that i had been a victim of abuse and trauma i didn't know that um and she very plainly said that these are things that you experience and they're
• 07:00 - 07:30 not okay um throughout my career we had the school adopted a behavioral based curriculum called capturing kids hearts and so the whole premise of the program is that if you can grab a child's heart you can pretty much teach them anything a large part of our population at sucker those kids have behavioral challenges and so we figured if you could connect with them at a social emotional level then you could teach them anything it was during my time there that i realized that my own personal
• 07:30 - 08:00 experiences mirrored like their present experiences and so it was through those experiences that i was able to like establish organic relationships with kids and it made it easy to teach them content you just can't teach a kid english if their basic needs are not being met so you have to acknowledge that you have to teach the whole kid in order to get the content thank you and thank you all of you for sharing a little bit about yourselves but just to start us off i'd really like us to just think a little bit about
• 08:00 - 08:30 social emotional learning particularly given these times all of you are in education or are educators and so most of the schools in our country have gone back to fully in-person education you know either this week or the following um past month and so you know they've been dealing with a lot i know for myself you know the past year and a half has been a roller coaster of emotions there's you know from fear to kind of loneliness and sadness and kind
• 08:30 - 09:00 of fear of the uncertainty and unknown i know my kids have felt the same way and i know a lot of students are coming to our classrooms like that so just in your own work and your own thinking what do you think is the best supports and mechanisms that schools and classrooms can set up to really support kids as they move back into in-person school and to really meet and support their social emotional needs so you know anyone just jump in with your thoughts wow you're right the last
• 09:00 - 09:30 18 months has been hard on everyone and in my opinion i believe that intentionally focusing on that social reconnection i think is key and that is infusing relationship building activities into the existence structures and the reason why over the last 18 months everyone adults
• 09:30 - 10:00 students they've had to live and work and in these odd extensive circumstances and everyone's story is different so now that we're all coming back together just being intentional about that social reconnection so that we can reestablish not just the physical safety but the psychological and emotional safety because when our kids feel safe they can learn
• 10:00 - 10:30 can i add to that um sharon i think also being like intentional to create like opportunity and space i know sometimes when you work with teachers um we like to be in control of things and we like to know what's happening next and we like agendas and bullet points and we have scope and sequence and timelines and things that we have to check off but i believe like just creating opportunities to have space within our classrooms content is always going to be there you will always
• 10:30 - 11:00 have to teach science and social studies and math and all of those things but just being really intentional about creating space and like making times and moments to build reconnect by culture and climate within our classroom you you made a very great point that the past 18 months has looked totally different for everybody even the people that are on a part of this conference call at the moment so maybe giving a time to acknowledge that giving an opportunity for kids to feel their big feelings or
• 11:00 - 11:30 their big emotions and then giving name to those things just creating a space where it feels like safe to be able to do that sometimes we get in a rush to do the things that seem important but they're not always the most important thing to do at that time so i have a question i really do resonate with the creating better connections the social connections in particular because a lot of kids have not been in person for a really long time do you does anyone have like a really good
• 11:30 - 12:00 activity or an idea that they've used in the classroom before that they feel really works and helps build these connections or relationships i'd love to hear well well for me uh tonight will be my first class back so um i don't have a set of strategies but for me it always comes back to um you know the idea of humanization and so i think that
• 12:00 - 12:30 even you know when i think back to my elementary teaching uh years a lot of what was really successful for me was just being transparent and recognizing um the different power dynamics that i'm involved in you know so recognizing the different power dynamics in in the class such as my being a a man being a large you know physically large man um also being a professor in a in a room
• 12:30 - 13:00 of students i think too many times those uh power relationships go unaddressed and we do more harm than good so you know just being upfront about the different types of privileges we have sometimes can can be really helpful for bringing down barriers between students and teachers and i suspect the same is true for for little ones as well you know so that would be probably my number one thing would be to think about different ways to humanize
• 13:00 - 13:30 and be transparent and vulnerable set the example right yeah i totally agree with you i was about to say something similar um having community building activities or relationship building questions that you can possibly ask you know once every day or whatever is the the timeline that fits within your space research shows that when we know more about each other we treat each other better
• 13:30 - 14:00 and so if we are asking kids questions so they can share a little bit about themselves with us i think we just like what you're doing we should share a little bit of ourselves with them and over time that relationship would build and grow and the whole goal would be that the kids would connect with one another so that the kids can connect with us as educators so at that point they can
• 14:00 - 14:30 connect to the content it's a process that we should all respect it makes me think about um an icebreaker activity i did at the middle school level um it just involved like a ball of yarn that you purchased from walmart and so i would start holding the yarn i would stand in the in the middle of a circle my students would um circulate themselves around the classroom and then i would tell them who i was where i was from and where i worked and someone within that circle if they were able to
• 14:30 - 15:00 identify with something that i said i would toss the yarn to them continuing to hold my string i had to wrap it around my finger and then when the next person got the yarn they would say something about themselves and where they grew up or something that they like to eat and then when someone else in the circle identified they would raise their hand and they tossed the yarn and so what happened over the course of the activity is that you had interconnectedness so you had yarn going from different angles and it started with me but it didn't end with me and so
• 15:00 - 15:30 the whole point of that icebreaker was to get the students to see that we're connected even though we don't all we didn't all know each other prior to this moment there are so many things outside of this classroom that connects us and so we take those same connections we bring them into the room and then we build our family and then we create our climate and then we build our classroom culture and so always going back to we're connected that way even when we can't see it we all are oh my gosh i love that activity because
• 15:30 - 16:00 the society makes us focus on how we're so different but that activity just lifts up how we're so much more alike oh my gosh you know what sharon you made me think about something my grandmama used to tell me and i'm famous for grandmama colloquialism because i'm from the south and she would all say that she would all say at the end of the day we all cry to seeing blood right and so what she means by that is whenever pain hits our lives the way that that pain impacts us is all the same that's one commonality that we have
• 16:00 - 16:30 as people and so when we take those similarities and we build upon those and we share those things it keeps us together you know what i mean yeah yeah i think i want to add there too that you know to the to the point of healing and really collective feeling i think a lot of times our conversations uh focus more on individual type stuff but in reality uh to your point or your grandmother's point um is if i if i'm hurting then it really is your problem
• 16:30 - 17:00 too because you know uh if we're working in a teaching in teaching and learning context right and i'm your student and i'm hurt and i'm i'm having some some struggles here then that impacts you and that impacts the environment of the class right so it's best interest to uh what i say learn to shoulder each other's burdens uh and that's really what this work has has been for me is trying to understand what that looks like in different areas uh and really moving us more toward a collective healing mindset i think
• 17:00 - 17:30 i like that i don't know if i've ever heard it turn that way a collective healing like mindset i like it i think i like that great this is i love all i love concrete ideas and so shanique i really love the yarn activity i have a fifth grade son and you know the first week of school they did a lot of social connection activities and he did some he told me something similar to what you did they they had a water bottle they each put
• 17:30 - 18:00 their water bottle in front of them and then someone would go in the middle of the circle and say something about themselves and then if you agreed you would go in the circle with them and you can kind of see how how much similarity you had with each other so i love very concrete activities like that i think educators are super creative in coming up with these things so um you know i think the past year and a half particularly with the pandemic and remote learning in a lot of ways has had disproportionate kind of impacts on
• 18:00 - 18:30 different groups of people um maybe communities of color marginalized communities um low-income or single-parent families and those kinds of things so as we go back to school this fall how can districts and schools in your ideas meet every student's social emotional and academic needs in ways that are equitable and inclusive so just love to hear your thoughts on that i mean honestly the schools can't do it alone
• 18:30 - 19:00 you hear the the phrase it takes a village it's going to take a community the throughout the pandemic and i know in in our district and and in texas you hear of all the mobile food pantries you know um companies providing free wi-fi service for families the the problem is these issues
• 19:00 - 19:30 this um for this population it's always been the same it's just been kind of lifted and highlighted you know because of the pandemic before the pandemic the schools it was their responsibility but when we noticed when the community agencies you know for food pantries of food banks the counseling agencies
• 19:30 - 20:00 all these different groups getting together to work together to serve the needs of these marginalized groups that is when we really begin to make headway and increase access and opportunities for families who've always needed it yeah that's i mean i think for for me at least in this part of the country uh it's it's becoming increasingly uh more important to
• 20:00 - 20:30 to focus on where those inequities are so you know a lot of school districts just operate status quo like um and maybe this will be an event that causes folks to slow down for a second and focus on what the inequities are all right um and who who is being excluded um those are things that i think we have to identify first in order to really put something in place um so that's something that i think uh schools will certainly need to do a
• 20:30 - 21:00 better job at one of the things that i've seen work here is maybe appointing a few key folks to kind of marshal the transformative work you know so for one to take up the the uh the job of identifying where the biggest gaps are um and then coming together to use that data to try to drive some sort of policy or or initiatives around uh closing those gaps at rowan
• 21:00 - 21:30 we have the the the partnership for educational uh equity and research that's uh headed up by uh dr zion who she works with me and leads that uh that group but we work with 26 school districts around our area and basically our job is to develop these long-term partnerships uh to spend the first year sort of building some foundational content knowledge second year building some research skills so that they can analyze what's going on in their own context
• 21:30 - 22:00 and then as a part of our gradual release and responsibility uh the third year is really us you know just kind of supervising that process because we're really trying to build autonomy too so that the next time the next big event comes they'll have some skills and a group of people that can take the charge up so i think we need to see more of that um what i call like micro movements developing within school districts so that they can be much more responsive to
• 22:00 - 22:30 this work so hopefully we will see that uh more across the country great i'd love to move to the topic of civic engagement which is really i think the bulk of our conversation and where i'd like to focus our conversation so it's something i've been thinking a lot about recently particularly the intersection between social emotional learning and civic engagement but you know as i was preparing for our discussion today i was thinking like what does civic engagement really mean
• 22:30 - 23:00 like does it mean different things to different folks and i was reflecting on what it really meant to me and how i defined it and i was just thinking about young people these days in a lot of ways i think they're much more civically engaged than i was when i was their age like i think back to my own youth i don't think i got really civically minded or civically engaged probably until i was in college and i remember distinctly i took i'm a psychologist a psychology major i took a class on psychology of women and i remember coming home to like do
• 23:00 - 23:30 laundry or something and having dinner with my family and just having a really heated conversation with my dad about gender inequities because i was learning it all in class and just getting really motivated to do stuff around that and having this heated conversation with my dad and my sister who was younger than me at the time was in high school and she was like okay that was a scary conversation because we were you know kind of arguing about it and discussing it but now i have a 13 year old and he has those conversations with me all the time and he's been having those conversations with me for
• 23:30 - 24:00 years on different topics and i just think back i never thought that way when i was his age and i see a lot of his peer groups doing the same and so you know that in a lot of ways is very promising to me that young people are thinking about these issues that affect their community and so i would just love to hear like what does civic engagement mean to you um and how do you kind of define it or what do you see how do you see it defined in action i guess is another way to think about it
• 24:00 - 24:30 well tia i have a 14 year old okay and i have similar conversations are they heated as mine though because mine can get a little heated with him i think it's just this this generation i mean we've all heard of cancel culture they are first to call out what is not right and they they're very um and it's more than talk they decide to not engage with that particular person or product
• 24:30 - 25:00 but in if i was to describe or define civil engagement i think is putting your passion that fire into action to work towards a better world i i do and and this is a very passionate generation yes i totally agree and i in a lot of ways it's very impressive to me because i don't think i was that passionate when i was dying oh yes maybe as we get older too we're like frustrated like don't just you don't
• 25:00 - 25:30 need to you don't need to slow down you know what i mean like be a kid for a minute um yeah i i i you know to the point about civic engagement i think it for me it's it's really about um holding some sort of position you know like uh i think um at least in in the work that i've done with teachers uh and college students we really try to move away from this position of neutrality where you don't necessarily have to take a stance
• 25:30 - 26:00 and what we've learned about that is a neutral stance is really a pro-status quo stance you know so whether that's a conflict avoidant behavior or you know it's it's contextually driven meaning you know around these folks i can really be myself but around these folks i can't really say too much because i don't want to you know be excluded from the social relationships um but i think when we think about civic engagement there
• 26:00 - 26:30 it's about holding a position on matters uh and it's about engaging in action toward advancing your position uh and then thirdly i would say it's also about being reflective about that so my opinion uh because i got a 22 year old a 19 year old my five-year-old does he argues but he doesn't really have a position um but uh like with my oldest ones they can do the first two that is hold a position try to advance an agenda but i don't
• 26:30 - 27:00 think they're being very reflective about what it is that they're saying you know what are the long-term implications where did they get that information from uh you know when i think about civic engagement i really think about like it's it's much richer than i think our kids understand it to be and so you know to that point are we just not teaching the different layers of civic engagement i don't really know but i do see more of it i i think there's less reflection on
• 27:00 - 27:30 the positions that they're taking do you see so i guess another way to interpret that is it's a lot of loud voices but maybe not a reflection of what they're saying i guess or um supporting it would be would that be another way to think about what you're saying i think so yeah i think um there's a there's a deeper skill involved with that reflection piece so here's what i think i think here's how i know
• 27:30 - 28:00 you know where those ideas came from so for example a lot of my new thinking is coming from new information that i've received from professors and so forth you know and so then we add that into our lexicon and test it out and we get different responses and we go okay so this is okay i like this position you know um but how do we you know enhance their ability to be reflective on that and who's impacted by those beliefs and positions and so forth those are some of the deeper
• 28:00 - 28:30 questions that i think we could still answer with our with our kids particularly with the older ones can i add to your comment i agree with both of you but to the reflective piece i think a way to maybe best support those that are younger than us and i have a 19 year old son that's very vocal about a lot of different things um where he receives his information on all times i'm not always sure social media plays a big part um in his decision making and the way
• 28:30 - 29:00 that he forms his opinions but i think when we and when i say i'm including myself with this in being reflective thinking about the way or the ramification or the weight of our words and how they impact others around us that may help provide just a little bit more context for your son i'm thinking about so when you say something and you've already allowed it to come out of your mouth like who are your words impacting how long is that impact going to last one thing about your words is
• 29:00 - 29:30 you cannot retract them because people will always they might not they may forget what you said but they're going to remember how your words impacted them and they how they made you feel and i guess that's also another piece of social emotional learning thinking about what you're doing and what you're saying and how it's impacting the community and the world around you you're responsible for what you say and so maybe incorporating that or teaching that piece to our children will maybe help maybe quiet down some of our more vocal persons and their opinions that are very
• 29:30 - 30:00 strong that's what i'm thinking i you know that's a great segue ashley shanika to my next uh question or thought is really what do you see as the intersection between social emotional learning and civic engagement i think there's been a lot of discourse lately around how social emotional learning can play a bigger part in helping youth be more civically engaged and so just would love to hear your thoughts on that and how does supporting scl in in
• 30:00 - 30:30 particular help with civic engagement i was sharing with a colleague earlier today sharing with her about this experience in particular and letting her know how excited i was um about it and one of the things that i took away from the conversation and shared was that oftentimes when seo is presented at a school level it's almost like what happens at the school is what you learn but that isn't always transcribed into your home life or at work and so it's
• 30:30 - 31:00 almost like it's compartmentalized this is what i learned at school this is seo and then when i get home those same conversations are not had or the language is not had and so the awareness of self and the social emotional learning that i'm experiencing there it's not permeating my house and so i think that there is a breakdown between where the information is being shared and how it's um impacting our homes and our communities it's almost like a container or a vessel if i were to bring in a base and i constantly pour sel
• 31:00 - 31:30 content into in love and support and all those great things and i do that monday through friday but there's a pinhole like um pinhole on the side of it and i send it out on friday it doesn't come back until monday half or more of that content is going to be gone so i'm having to replenish it monday through friday again and that's how i look at our kids we do amazing jobs in our fields and in our professions by filling that vessel and then we send them to environments where
• 31:30 - 32:00 that is not perpetuated and so there needs to be a bridging or a gapping but first it's going to require a certain level of trust i'm not quite sure what it looks like where everybody else was but my mind goes back to when i was a teacher at zucker there were great things that i taught my kids but because of the relationship between the home and the school was frayed a lot of those lessons didn't carry over to the home and so they didn't carry over into the community and so it didn't carry over into the kid thinking about how they could impact their community through civic engagement and so it's just not
• 32:00 - 32:30 one place it needs to like need to spread you should keep moving does that make sense no it it definitely makes sense and i'm sitting here thinking that we're kind of like at this cross worlds whereas civic engagement is about working towards solving the issues in our community and society so you have people i think all of us want to to get it right we're at this intersection of civic
• 32:30 - 33:00 engagement you know wanting to get it right and also social awareness which is a competency of seo which is you know taking the time instead of seeking to be right we have to seek to understand taking the different perspectives all of us come into our classrooms all of us come into our spaces with different stories with different strengths but if we take the time to understand where a person is coming from
• 33:00 - 33:30 and how they enter the space and also taking the time to understand the the people that are impacted by the the work of the civil civic engagement then at that time we will truly have solutions that are inclusive that are equitable that are sustainable and we do it together as a community but until we
• 33:30 - 34:00 focus on that that understanding piece i i'm i'm not sure uh you know you look at the literature school the prison pipeline uh that's uh you know reid uh rich milner tyrone howard monique morris you know these discipline these disciplinary actions push kids out of school and then funnel them into the uh carceral system where they literally do uh lose the ability to be civically engaged you know once once you're locked
• 34:00 - 34:30 up you don't get to participate in the same type of way so many groups can demonstrate little to no socio-emotional skills but from a racial standpoint they tend to get treated differently and that of course is compounded by gender as well you know you look at the literature on black girls for example you'll see that they're criminalized in very harsh ways so i think that there are some promising connections there but i'm still trying
• 34:30 - 35:00 to work through what that relationship looks like between you know more sel skills will equal more civic engagement or what you know what does that relationship look like yeah you know the way the way i've been thinking about it lately is really thinking about i kind of reflect on like my own children like what do i want them to take away from learning or having greater social emotional competencies and i always tell them and i think my husband and i always tell them you know at the end of the day we want you to like be good people and
• 35:00 - 35:30 and kind of use like your education and what you're doing and what you're learning in school to help better your community and society in some way right so to me that's how i kind of see the link because i totally get your point adam i see that too i think there's arguments around that but to me it's really about how do you take some of the social emotional skills and competencies that you're that you could gain and really think about outside of your own individual self and reflecting around the community around you and
• 35:30 - 36:00 doing a problem solving with other folks in your community to help kind of better and provide better solutions for that community and so that's the way i've been trying to frame it lately in my own head and i think reflects on what sharon and shanika were saying around community that really resonated with me as well it makes me think about um the discussion the question that really makes me think or reflect about a time
• 36:00 - 36:30 um in my life where i was transitioning from one place to another um and how i was a young mother i had my son when i was in my early 20s and so i understood that that having my son i was responsible for him providing for him um and i was so focused on providing for him financially that i um unintentionally neglected the social emotional well-being at times
• 36:30 - 37:00 um so i had to choose between being there for him and nurturing him or providing for him and so from a personal standpoint there was a hierarchy of needs i understood that i at a later time might have the ability to impact my communist community civically but i was in a place where i was trying to preserve myself and i was trying to preserve and support and live for my son and so i think we create systems where persons are able to sustain themselves
• 37:00 - 37:30 and they don't have to choose i would have loved to have been in both places figuratively so to speak at the same time but i had to make a choice and i had to make a decision and so i had to choose between being there for christian that's his name right being there for him and being actively involved in all of these things around me within my community and so i i took up a very selfish standpoint i had to preserve me in my house first you know now i'm able to be able to immerse myself in more
• 37:30 - 38:00 community involvement and i'm able to learn more and sometimes i stand behind the ball because i was so busy working here i couldn't focus in those other areas i don't know about anyone else but a large part of my community from where i'm from or i'm not in the same position you have to make a decision how can i help the whole if the part of me is not you know you know schneiderlin i don't think you're giving yourself enough credit um when you look at the sel competencies you
• 38:00 - 38:30 know the self-awareness the management relationship skills responsible decision making all these different things although you were financially you're you were hyper focused on financially you know creating this this life for your you and your son you were pouring all these things you were modeling all these things you know and for your child and even for your community because think about it we're all a 15 second decision away from life
• 38:30 - 39:00 being totally different you could have done some really rough things in order to provide but you made other decisions instead you know you reflected on who you were or who you wanted to be as a mom your strengths your limitations and what you wanted for your child that's all self-awareness you know you were although and i know it as you described you were dealing with a lot of different emotions
• 39:00 - 39:30 but you were coping and you weren't trying to get rid of your feelings but and you're still here so you figured out a way to appropriately express those emotions so you can be who you needed to be for your child and your child is the product that you are sharing with success with society that's making the world a better place when i work with different teachers and they kind of lump oh social emotional learning i'm not doing something extra
• 39:30 - 40:00 whatever once we really start diving into the things that they do and aligning it to each one of the seo competencies they're like well you know what i am doing that oh you know oh my gosh had no idea that's what it was and and we validate our teachers we validate ourselves in the work that we're doing so that we can lift each other up and lift ourselves up and that to me is
• 40:00 - 40:30 civic engagement i didn't look at it like that and i you know what at the time at that place in my life i felt so isolated you know i was i felt isolated and i think part of it sharon was um the weight of the responsibility and i think the secret shame of some past decisions i felt like i couldn't i wasn't civically involving anyone
• 40:30 - 41:00 but i think i want to say thank you for making me aware that even when i was unintentionally engaging others that i was and i think if i were looking at someone else i may have been able to eloquently say to them what you said to me i think that sometimes in looking at self we don't see the impact and the rippling effect that we have with others so thank you for saying that to me thank you for supporting me in that way i don't know if i saw that until today you know people don't pay you're welcome people don't pay attention to what we
• 41:00 - 41:30 say they pay attention to what we do and you are a live and breathe and model every single day and now and now you're not as hyper focused now your eyes you're beginning to see that oh i am being more engaged but you're engaged anyway girl you know i can't i can't help but but you know maybe this is just you know the nature of my work but uh point out the tensions in this work right um
• 41:30 - 42:00 you know to be able to think about how in the midst of those conditions um many of us just we do the best that we can um but we just in general we we fail to to talk about the the bigger limiting factors on us you know like why is it that my mom is struggling you know like she is doing a great job and she's you know uh uh she's implementing social emotional strategies whether she called it that or not but
• 42:00 - 42:30 i think sometimes this causes us to to be able to zoom out and go yes she's really good at it but why does that keep happening to her what is that what are the the bigger outside forces that put people in positions to have to be so good at using their social emotional skills and like you know diversifying the way that they become civically engaged um and and so that's that's one of the tensions for me that i think is is a real promising site for the work is to really
• 42:30 - 43:00 uh zoom out and take a macro look at not just the individual skills that kids can learn but to the civic engagement point or maybe it's more of a social political conscious piece like how can the growth of those skills then empower young people and adults really to transform the conditions that bring on this collective suffering that we experience some of us experience it goes back to your earlier point adam really when you were saying when i asked what was the definition of civic engagement and you brought up you know people youth
• 43:00 - 43:30 have to be really reflective right and i think that's what you're getting at now is that maybe that's the connection right it's not that they have to like take these skills they have to look at what's kind of happening in the society and communities around them and put two to two and two together right and really reflectively think about well how am i going to take these skills and figure out and let's let me figure out what the problem is and how am i going to take these skills and apply it to hopefully try to address the problem is what i'm hearing i think that's uh that what you said
• 43:30 - 44:00 earlier that's where the tension is right and makes me think just you know is it important then for schools and educators to really prioritize connecting social emotional competencies to larger questions of civic responsibility and justice like should we really be making that link and making it more explicit and help them with those reflection pieces just what do you all think given that inherent tension that adam i think is really appropriate for you to bring up
• 44:00 - 44:30 even if we don't they're going to discover it on their own and so we use the term in education called scaffolding which is really what i think about is the onion you're peeling back the layers and so when you teach it when you teach children and you're teaching yourselves to be more inquisitive and ask more questions the more that you peel back the more wise and housed and when okay and how did that happen and when this occurred what was the result of that and so when we continue to ask those questions we will get to the root cause of the problem it's all about
• 44:30 - 45:00 asking questions at some point we'll get there i think a few of us have already made that journey but our kids will i agree i and my answer is yes um making those connections create clarity um and when you do that it's it's one of those where okay this has happened we didn't always get it right
• 45:00 - 45:30 but what can i do right now within my sphere of influence in order to work towards getting it right and those are the conversations that i have with my 18 year old and my 14 year old yeah i think i think there are some promising connections and um for me i think if we can figure out how to take the work and deepen it uh broaden it to address issues
• 45:30 - 46:00 of power and culture as well i think uh we we would be looking at the next phase of the work you know to have a much uh a bigger impact for for for kids and caregivers yeah you know i've really really enjoyed this conversation um i wish i we were actually in person but unfortunately we're you know running out of time so be you know just to conclude you know i really appreciate the discourse but if there was um anything that you'd love to share
• 46:00 - 46:30 with folks on you know what you're currently working on or what you're really passionate about these days i'd love to hear what that is gosh um i'm really passionate about adult social emotional competence and wellness i feel like we cannot give what we don't have the pandemic is a golden opportunity for us to model the skills that we would like to see within our kiddos because we
• 46:30 - 47:00 have all experienced the shared trauma so um building our adults up so that they can take care of the littles that's that's what my work is about i'll share i i uh i'm continuing to kind of explore that intersection of race and trauma and one of the things that um i've really come to understand is that to to to shift the discourse away from this westernized medical
• 47:00 - 47:30 you know what i've called white dominant colonial logic um it's important for us to bring in multiple ways of knowing so for me uh you know thanks to my my colleague uh abiola ferende wu she's over at the university of massachusetts in boston um she's been really helping me better understand this work be uh by bringing in the work of black feminism um that's not an area that i'm really familiar with uh
• 47:30 - 48:00 but as i'm becoming familiar with i'm telling you it's it's really changing my views on trauma suffering and healing really push us i think uh and the listeners of this conversation to think outside of that mainstream book you know don't just go and pick up the newest seo book read outside of your the genre to try to understand how social emotional skills and learning
• 48:00 - 48:30 and competencies show up in other and other another texts you know let us do the work of analyzing other texts to see how it emerges i would say the english teacher smiles i like that he said analyzing the text i like that he said that i had this answer together last night and i wanted to sound really smart yeah but i feel comfortable with this group and so i'm just going to speak from my heart and so um [Music] what i want to leave is that i've committed to healing myself
• 48:30 - 49:00 um and i realized that when i'm here and when i'm whole and when i'm safe i can impact the lives of those around me i want every person that i'm connected with to behold and sound and then the thoughts and the emotions i'm committed to helping the people that i'm connected to and now whatever that looks like i'm open i'm open to relationships and connectedness after this call um just want to do good work right with good people
• 49:00 - 49:30 and live a good life you know that resonates with me too i you know i and what you're saying sharon too i've been thinking a lot about this and just how important adults are in supporting um kids um in their own you know social emotional journey and i think um you're right i think for all of us myself included um we really have to work on ourselves and make sure that we're socially emotionally strong so that we can support kids positively so i appreciate that i appreciate all of you
• 49:30 - 50:00 for taking this time away from i know you're very busy days to have this conversation with me i really appreciated it i don't know if i'd be happy to to connect with folks who are if you're interested in talking outside of here or collaborating but also to the listeners as well if they're interested in reaching out other welcome questions just again thank you so much for all your time and i really appreciate the conversation and i hope that we can continue the discourse outside of here and hopefully
• 50:00 - 50:30 around food sometime thank you hi everybody yes have a great rest of the week saying hi everyone i am t i was the facilitator on the video um thank you all for joining us um i
• 50:30 - 51:00 hope you appreciated the conversation and discourse as much as i did when i was facilitating it so i would you know we've gotten some questions and i'm gonna take um maybe seven or eight minutes or so to answer some of these questions for you um [Music] let me see i'm just going um so one question that we got in the q a and actually a a precinct question as
• 51:00 - 51:30 well a couple of them reflected the same thing so it's how can we encourage civil discourse among elementary school students while keeping sel in mind um i think some of this was talked about in the video that you all watched but again i think the way um i think about it is really thinking about those critical scl skills that are important to have really good civil discourse and civil engagement so really thinking about perspective taking thinking critically about what might be
• 51:30 - 52:00 impacting your own community and people around you and trying to learn from others and trying to collectively solve those community problems together and i think those kinds of skills and discussions can happen even at a young age because i think all kids are cognizant of kind of what's going on around them so that's what i would say on that and then
• 52:00 - 52:30 let me see another question here's a good question um it says you know i like the conversation about words actions and behaviors on the community the world in which we are living um tends to be um eurocentric or individualistic and not from a collective collectivist frame
• 52:30 - 53:00 how can we promote the notion of community in the world of social media which emphasizes a me culture and that's a really big question we have to think about that duplicity and i think that is a really important thing to think about i know in the development of our programs we really try to take both of those lenses and think about not only how does sel help an individual but how does it help individuals to form a collective and really think
• 53:00 - 53:30 about problems from a community or group standpoint and really impact those for good another thing i think that sel could do to promote this idea is really um thinking about providing opportunities for all children to see themselves either in a program or a conversation and then also being able to
• 53:30 - 54:00 see other different points of views and lived experiences and to learn from that so that everyone can share in that collective learning let me see there was another uh question that actually came in um
• 54:00 - 54:30 earlier thinking about how do we have these conversations with parents um who may think that being civically engaged is has something to do or is correlated with politics and again i think it goes back to helping parents understand that every community has its own unique issues and problems and again it's getting kids um and youth to think about that and what's impacting the communities that they live in
• 54:30 - 55:00 and to think critically about that and try to figure out solutions to that so um i think that inc helps all kids let me see this is such a great topic i wish i could talk to all of you actually instead of just answering your questions be great conversation
• 55:00 - 55:30 and let me see i really like this comment although they it's not really a question from one of our guests um i think of civic engagement and sel connection is mutually beneficial civic engagement requires knowledge
• 55:30 - 56:00 knowledge about power how it shifts through institutions and laws and skills to choose the best strategy for change based on understanding the context relationships and systems at play and emotional engagement whether you call it passion or spark is a critical piece of the civic engagement and integration with sel i think that is a great comment and actually highlights a lot of how sel skills and competencies really does play a big part and like this person said is
• 56:00 - 56:30 mutually beneficial to being civically engaged [Music] see
• 56:30 - 57:00 um i'll probably take one more question it looks like there was a question around um measuring sel impact um i think it's important to do so i think there are a lot of really good research-based measures and assessments out there that measure sel competencies i think the thing to think about though and related to this topic is what are really ultimately the outcomes that we're trying to improve um and
• 57:00 - 57:30 you know things around student belonging and feeling included and being engaged i think are important outcomes that we would hope that sel competencies improve thinking about civic engagement as well as an outcome and whether or not removing the needle on that is important as well so i think we are at time and i'm going to hand it back over to castle but thank you all so much for listening and
• 57:30 - 58:00 participating we really appreciate it thank you dr kim we really appreciate your being here today and for your facilitating um the pre-recorded conversation um please share with the panelists that um their comments and their insights they were just so rich and wonderful so we really appreciate um committee for children bringing together that discussion and sharing with us today and we also want to thank committee for children again for their sponsorship of sel exchange which is coming up on
• 58:00 - 58:30 october 14th um registration for the virtual summit is open and there is a link um there on your screen and in chat and we'll also include it in the email that you'll get tomorrow so that you can go ahead and register for the exchange we'd love to have everyone participate um in that four hours of learning as well and just a reminder you'll be receiving an email tomorrow again with a link to register for the sel exchange um as well as with a link to the recording so you can um watch any part of that conversation again or feel free to share
• 58:30 - 59:00 it with colleagues as well that email will also include your certificate of attendance so keep an eye out tomorrow for that um thank you again for joining us and thank you dr kim for being here with us and again a special thank you to the panelists and for all of their openness and insights that they shared we hope everyone enjoys the rest of the day and again we hope to see you october 14th at the sel exchange