Explicit SEL instruction helps students diversify their inventory of social-emotional skills and strengthen their SEL knowledge.

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is the set of skills people use to manage everyday emotional responses, form healthy relationships, and make constructive choices.

Imagine you want to build a bookshelf, but when you open your toolbox, you find yourself at a loss of which tool to pick. Should you use a hammer or screwdriver? How will you make sure it’s level? If you’re like me, at this point you’d start looking for the instruction manual.

In schools, explicit SEL instruction is the “instruction manual” to helping students know what all the “tools” do, and what is best for their current “project.” It gives names to students’ feelings and strategies for handling their experiences. With explicit names and strategies, students can identify and employ these “SEL tools” when they need them outside of the classroom. Not only that, but once students can identify specific strategies to help them grow or respond to situations, they may practice using them more often, making their overall grasp of SEL stronger.

Say that next time, you want to build a chair. Even though there’s some overlap in the knowledge you gained from building a bookshelf, a chair requires a whole new set of skills. How do you make sure it can carry enough weight?

Explicit SEL instruction, or the “instruction manual,” takes care of this, too. Well-designed SEL programs dedicate equal efforts to a variety of social-emotional (SE) skills, ensuring that students leave the program well-rounded in their SEL knowledge. Like in the building metaphor, once you know how to use something like a wrench, or a cool-down technique in SEL terms, you’re more likely to see opportunities where it could help in your everyday life.

By making SEL visible and explicit in the classroom, teachers are one step closer to equipping their students with the knowledge and confidence to autonomously use SE skills throughout their life.

By Despoina Lioliou, Project Coordinator at the Center for Social Development and Education.