SEL Lessons Are at Best a Waste of Time and at Worst Radically Political and Woke

I’ve previously argued why CRT, DEI, and BLM are terms you don’t want to see invade your child’s school. (See my previous articles, “Set Aside Race; Don’t Highlight It” and “The 3 Letters You Want to Find in Your Child’s School Are Not D-E-I; They Are G-O-D.”) But what about the latest trendy educational term, SEL, which stands for social and emotional learning?

In the big business of education, there are always fads and buzzwords introduced (and often recycled from previous generations) that promise the latest and greatest way to educate students, improve test scores, and/or advance woke agendas. During my 34 years as a Catholic school principal, I was known as “that principal” who often pushed back against these trendy educational programs and initiatives that the public school superintendents implemented in their failing public schools and that soon after our own Seattle Archdiocesan superintendent of Catholic schools would often join the bandwagon and urge all the Catholic schools to implement. Most times, I was the only principal who resisted certain Archdiocesan programs or the last principal to finally give in when the Archdiocese adopted new methods and products.

The reason for being a big skeptic on educational fads and buzzwords is based on the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The public schools were trying all these new programs because their students were failing and they assumed the next big idea would turn the tide. Conversely, Catholic schools’ students were performing much better because our schools never got away from “teaching the basics” and for the most part had more disciplined, on-task students and more supportive, education-emphasizing parents. We shouldn’t be as desperate as our public school counterparts in launching trendy initiatives. In fact, based on the track record of public education in the past generation, we should consider doing the opposite of whatever their secular institution implement.

Unfortunately, there one was time when I gave in to the superintendent and other Catholic school principals who were attracted to the newest, shiniest object that the public schools had recently enacted, and I still regret it. Although my principles (and natural stubbornness) helped me resist the previous buzzwords schools had been introducing – CRT, DEI, and BLM – I regretfully didn’t push back against SEL when all the Seattle Catholic schools sang its praises and exhorted its implementation.

SEL is one of those trendy things that most schools – public and Catholic – gladly accepted to adopt around the 2010s and 2020s. SEL was first brought to the educational system in the late 1990s, but it became the hottest educational trend in memory during a two-year timeframe – from November 2019 to April 2021 – when public school districts’ spending on SEL programs and personnel grew by 45% to $765 million.

SEL is promoted as an “integral part of education and human development” through which students learn and apply “the knowledge and skills to manage emotions, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.” In this best light, social and emotional learning lessons from teachers or counselors seem beneficial and harmless. After all, if teachers employing SEL can help students grow into well-rounded young adults who will be able to better manage their emotions and have positive interpersonal relationships, who would object to that? I didn’t investigate SEL enough when it was first recommended by our Archdiocesan Catholic Schools Office for all principals to adopt in their schools . If I could go back in time, I would have said no to SEL, just as I previously did to the CRT, DEI, and BLM agendas.

The problem is, most schools who embrace SEL don’t stop at a lone, fundamental objective of helping students have positive interpersonal relationships. Typically, the social and emotional learning lessons and SEL-connected events that teachers and school counselors direct lead to propagandizing and pushing political agendas. If you look more deeply into how SEL is defined and promoted, you’ll see some additional goals besides the fundamental one of wanting to help kids understand their feelings and treat others nicely. SEL is also striving to accomplish progressive talking points such as to develop in students “healthy identities and achieve collective goals, to “advance educational equity and address various forms of inequity,” and to train children to “contribute to just communities.” Furthermore, the terms “inclusive,” “gender identify,” and “sexual orientation” are also a part of the explanation of what SEL is about. All of the above phrases and terms are closely associated with the liberal objectives of modern society as well as components of the goals of Democratic Socialists.

Thus, in its worst light – and the way it is most commonly seen in schools – SEL has political connections, pushes subtle, yet radical agendas associated with CRT, DEI, and BLM, and stresses topics such as systemic racism, sexuality, and gender theory. I’m writing to both Catholic school educators and all school parents to warn them:

If you haven’t let SEL enter your school yet, keep it out.
If SEL is in your school already,
evaluate it and either boot it out or extremely edit it. 

The organization Courage Is a Habit states that SEL treats all children as if they have some sort of trauma, however the typical SEL definition for “trauma” includes “unconscious racial and gender biases.” In other words, SEL agrees with the CRT, DEI, and BLM objectives that see racism and so-called gender bias everywhere and thus follows the marxist “oppressed vs. the oppressor” model. As Courage Is a Habit notes, “SEL creates trauma where there is none so that schools can justify more SEL thereby creating more trauma to treat.”

A big component of teaching SEL lessons from most national curricula includes the teacher/counselor surveying their students by asking highly sensitive questions about their feelings and beliefs, and then delving into personal questions about their family and their sexuality. Sometimes the school will first inform parents that these surveys will be given, but more often than not the schools don’t give the parents a heads-up. Additionally, there can be guarantee that the results of the surveys – specifically your own child’s answers – will remain private and not revealed to other school personnel.

There is one social-emotional learning curriculum used by some schools nationwide that surveys elementary students with the question, “How do you feel when you see two men kissing?” Another SEL program used by many school districts wants teachers of first graders to get their students to question the sex they were assigned at birth. Yet another SEL curriculum that many schools use cites that so-called social justice is the main goal of its lessons and also provides eighth graders tips for how to have sex for the first time. How about the SEL lessons in one school district that tells teachers to share their pronouns and hang a rainbow flag in their classrooms so to assure students they are their allies in the so-called LGBTQIA2S+ movement. There are some social-emotional learning lessons that ask middle schoolers, “How do you feel about your gender?” and “Where do you consider yourself on the gender spectrum?”

Even if your child’s school has SEL lessons which aren’t as progressive and degrading as these examples, social-emotional learning is connected with another buzzword, “mindfulness.” Most SEL curricula used throughout the country involve teaching children the non-Catholic practice of mindfulness. Practicing forms of the Eastern-practice of mindfulness has said to bring about positive effects such as making students feel better emotionally and physically, decreasing stress and anxiety, and increasing compassion and kindness. What could be so bad about this, right? Well, the research found mindfulness practices result in low evidence of improved mental health-related quality of life. 

This research led to more alarming findings. Mindfulness isn’t merely ineffective; it can be harmful. Mindfulness can backfire on people as they focus intently on the moment and leave their thoughts behind, including the positive ones.  It can also lead people to disconnect rather than focus and engage in critical thinking on problems that require more thinking and not less. Furthermore, mindfulness is rooted in Buddhism and thus counter to Catholicism, because it’s not designed to ultimately lead one to God.

Teachers are always complaining that the basic problem with education is they don’t have enough time in the school day to teach the basics. Adding SEL to the curriculum in recent years has been amplifying this problem. Do you really want your child’s teachers to devote time to social and emotional learning instead of to reading and math? Most significantly, there is no evidence that a school that added social-emotional learning lessons has improved student performance, and there is no statistical evidence that SEL programming has benefited children socially and emotionally. 

The U.S. education system has been broken for the past few generations. Our students have fallen behind the rest of the world in science and math scores, and many public school districts have a majority of their students unable to read at their given grade levels. For the most part, Catholic schools and homeschools aren’t part of this failure in education. That’s because, unlike public education where they have made an industry of perpetually rolling out new techniques that promise to improve student learning, of pushing the latest fads that end up watering down the curriculum, and of spending more time on perpetuating woke, worldly principles, many Catholic schools and almost all homeschooling programs don’t get as easily engaged in trendy fads and have never totally gotten away from teaching the basics.

However, not all Catholic schools are authentically “Catholic,” so parents should investigate if their Catholic school has succumbed to teaching fads such as SEL or DEI, or is considered “old-fashioned” in that is still emphasizes the basics such as cursive and spelling and avoids looking at trendy, shiny objects. First and foremost, a Catholic school religion curricula already teaches students about supposed SEL goals of showing empathy and making caring decisions. In every Catholic school religion class and permeating throughout the school’s culture you should obviously observe the instructing and catechizing of virtuous principles such as “the golden rule,” the parable of the Good Samaritan, the Ten Commandments, and Jesus’ command to love your neighbor. There is no need for a Christian school to add superfluous and cloaked SEL lessons to the curriculum.

Today’s educational culture not only sees the public schools embracing SEL but also pouring on the cushy methods of collaborative learning, no homework assignments, and non-graded schoolwork, all the while stomping out the tougher, traditional methods of drilling, memorization, and detention.  It’s not working. Public school students are failing both in academics and in maturing into responsible adults with good work ethics. Homeschooled children and students from authentically Catholic schools are not failing.

To Catholic school principals and superintendents, I urge, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” To parents, I strongly suggest that if your child’s school promotes any of the 3-letter fads of CRT, DEI, BLM, or SEL, you should go find another school ASAP.