Scholarly Research Journal for Humanity Science & English Language, Online ISSN 2348-3083, SJ IMPACT FACTOR 2016 = 4.44, www.srjis.com UGC Approved Sr. No.48612, FEB-MAR 2018, VOL- 6/26 https://doi.org/10.21922/srjhsel.v6i26.11851
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING FOR PROMOTING INCLUSIVE EDUCATION Mrs. Pooja Assistant Professor, Khalsa College of Education, G. T. Road, Amritsar. Email id-poojacommerce1981@gmail.com. Abstract Social emotional learning (SEL) is quickly becoming a cornerstone in the world of education in present scenario and inclusion of those with special needs is becoming more important. Inclusive education provides new opportunities and challenges for creating effective and conducive learning environment. In order to facilitate the success of inclusion as an approach, it is necessary that students and their teachers develop the skills to understand eachother, communicate effectively and work togetherin more conducive environment. Social emotional learning in defined to involve programs and strategies by which individuals learn to understand intrapersonal and interpersonal feelings, communicate and resolve conflicts efficiently and effectively;respect each other and develop healthy mutual relationship.SEL skills play a crucial role for children who are differently abledor to those who are not, for their social,emotional, cognitive, physical and spiritual development. SEL has the potential to enhance children academic, social, and relational outcomes. Moreover, teachers have also demonstrated positive outcome that use approaches and strategies related to social emotional learning (SEL). The present paper is an attempt to value the significance of SEL programs in inclusive classrooms/environment so that students as well as teachers understand and express their emotions in a healthy way, promotes empathy and acceptance for others. Besides developing SELskills, inclusive education also help to enrich academic skills and Improves Academic Outcomes Keywords: Social emotional learning and Inclusive education.
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INTRODUCTION Social and emotional learning is the ability to understand, manage, and express the social and emotional aspects of one's life in ways that enable the successful management of life tasks such as learning, forming relationships, solving everyday problems, and adapting to the complex demands of growth and development (CASEL, 2003). It includes self-awareness, control of impulsivity, working cooperatively, and caring about one and others. Social and emotional learning is the process through which children and adults develop the skills, attitudes, and values necessary to acquire social and emotional competence. In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman (1995) provides much evidence for social and emotional intelligence as the complex and multifaceted ability to be effective in all the critical domains of life, including school. The social and emotional education of children may be provided Copyright Š 2017, Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies
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through a variety of diverse efforts such as classroom instruction, extracurricular activities, a supportive school climate, and involvement in community service. Many schools have entire curriculums devoted to SEL. In classroom-based programs, educators enhance students' social and emotional competence through instruction and structured learning experiences throughout the day. Thomas (1997) has defined inclusion as acceptance of all pupils in the mainstream system identified as the responsibility of all teachers ―The goal of inclusive education in recognizing ―education for all children and youth with disabilities in all available mainstream educational settings, by providing them with a learning environment that is available, accessible, affordable and appropriate to help develop their learning and abilities.‖ KEY ELEMENTS OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 1. Teaching all students 2.
Exploring Multiple Identities
3.
Preventing Prejudices
4. Promoting Social Justices 5.
Choosing Appropriate Material
6. Teaching and Learning about culture and religions 7. Adopting And Integrating lessons affectively and appropriately THE PROMISE OF SEL IN INCLUSIVE CLASSROOMS AND SCHOOLS
Responding to diversity: As classrooms become more diverse as a result of inclusion, the need to ensure that children develop pro-social and emotional skills and can create positive peer relationships in these settings becomes essential. Social and emotional learning programs that focus on developing protective factors and prosocial behavior have been shown to reduce depressive symptoms and improve inclusivity and respect for diverse others (Katz, 2013).
Impacts on bullying: The impact of bullying is multi-directional: Bullying harms the person who is bullying others as well as the recipients. Children who bully others have been found to be at increased risk of delinquency, depression, and suicidal ideation (Klomek, Marrocco, Kleinman, Schonfeld, & Gould, 2007; Winsper, Lereya, Zanarini, & Wolke, 2012). Bullying victims have lower academic achievement scores, fewer relationships, higher rates of mental illness, and they are at increased risk of suicide and early school leaving. Moreover, the effects of bullying are long lasting—
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college students who have been victims of bullying during their school years show lower academic motivation and achievement and feelings of competence, even when the bullying has long since ceased. The implementation of SEL programs can reduce both bullying and victim behaviors (Domino, 2013), thus attention to the development of social emotional learning, in particular emotional regulation, conflict resolution skills, and relationship maintenance skills, are essential to successful inclusive classroom communities.
Impacts on trauma and mental health: Research has indicated that because of the ongoing plasticity of brain development, the building of healthy peer and staff relationships at school is key to promoting long-term outcomes of health and wellbeing (Puskar & Bernardo, 2007). With the knowledge that students whose parents have experienced trauma, or who have experienced trauma themselves can be impacted in terms of wellness, learning, and brain structure and function, the importance of programming in preventative mental health areas rises significantly.
Academic impacts on students: In addition to the direct effects of social emotional learning on factors such as bullying and trauma recovery, inclusive educators must pay attention to the social and emotional influences on academic learning. Neurocognitive research investigating the links between emotions and learning has demonstrated that for students to learn, the diversity of their needs must be recognized and classrooms created that address social and emotional well-being and belonging (CASEL, 2016). According to Hertzman (2012), ―Developmental systems theory is now the dominant paradigm in understanding children’s development, and it is also now well established that the early experiences of children become biologically embedded, that is, experiences influence biological development‖. Thus, social and emotional issues will continue to contribute to barriers to learning for youths around the world unless successful SEL programming is implemented. Indeed, the ability to learn is impacted by the joy associated with the experience of learning and the relational environment of school. Involvement, motivation, self-esteem, hope, play, and the positive emotions experienced with the grasp of new concepts, all facilitate plasticity and learning supported by positive emotion. It should come as no surprise then that SEL programs have been shown to impact academic achievement, even at the college level, including improving scores on standardized exams (Zins,
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Bloodworth, Weissberg, & Walberg, 2007). Thus, even when considering academic outcomes alone,
inclusive,
socially and emotionally supportive classroom
environments support positive outcomes for students.
Impacts of SEL on teachers: Although the focus of social emotional learning is on its effects on students, research has shown that implementing SEL programming in their classrooms can have both direct and indirect positive impacts on the teachers who teach these types of programs. Teachers who have implemented SEL demonstrated lower levels of stress and those with greater comfort in implementing SEL showed greater general professional commitment to teaching (Collie, Shapka, & Perry, 2011), together suggesting that ―implementation of SEL nurtures teachers’ own well-being‖ Teachers who have well-developed social emotional skills demonstrate greater enjoyment of teaching, and feel more self-efficacy (Goddard, Hoy, & Woolfolk-Hoy, 2004). SEL programs that reduce challenging behavior and improve achievement in the classroom are likely to further reduce teacher stress, given that student behavior and failure have long been known to impact teacher well-being (Schaubman, Stetson, & Plog, 2011). When teachers and students learn about SEL and take part in its programs, teacher stress is lowered and poor conflictual relationships between student and teacher are mitigated.
Impact on Students Achievement: Yeager (1994) made analysis of absenteeism, achievement and self-concept of elementary students in an inclusive classroom. The study results confirmed that inclusive model or special education services was effective in the interaction of the positive self-concept with good attendance and produced similar results on students’ achievements. Although students with disabilities compared to their peers have enduring significant differences in the achievement levels tested, class with-A-Class results presented a positive academic progress for all students involved. Inclusion is a term which can define as an attitude or a commitment of appreciating diversities and accepting and all that all the children can be educated in a common school to their maximum potential. It requires increasing the capacity of regular schools. so that they can respond creativity to greater diversities. It also involved building the capacities of teachers to deal with diverse population of students and to acquire pedagogical competencies that facilitates the learning the learning of all students in their classroom (Julka, 2001)
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ROLE OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS IN DEVELOPING SEL THROUGH INCLUSION Parents are first teacher of
students who educate them by all
means. It is necessary to
involve parents in the planning of implementation of Inclusive Education Policy (IEP).SEL skills can’t be develop without the active participation of Parents. Today schools are encouraging parents to the integral part of their child’s learning experiences .By working together parents and teachers experiences mutual support satisfaction showing
positive
changes in children beside this it helps to improve the self-esteem academic outcome and improved behavior children should encouraged to develop friendship with classmates or other neighborhood children and for fostering positive emotions of self and others. Inclusive education helps to identify the five come competencies associated with SEL: Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management and responsible decision making. Parents can discuss goals, expectations and preferences for a child with their teachers and make efforts to identify their interest and emotions. DEVELOPING SEL THROUGH INCLUSION Social Emotional Learning (SEL) refers to the process of integrating , thinking, feeling, and behaving in order to become aware of the self and of other make responsible decisions and manage one’s own behavior programs focused the process of teaching and learning in more systematic and comprehensive way. Therelation between inclusion and SEL is very positive and encouraging. The concept of inclusion needs that all students attend in age appropriate, regular classes and are supported to learn, contribute and participate in all aspects of the life of the schools. The mission of inclusive education is that ―children who learn together‖. It is about how we develop and design our schools, classes, programs and activities so that all students learn and participate together. The concept of SEL is grounded in the field of positive youth must be addressed by creating environments or settings that promote outcome like school achievememt,mutually supportive relationships with adults and peers, problem solving and Quiz engagement. To accomplish the broader educational agenda in present scenario, school based programming needs to two standards:
Enhance
the social and emotional assets and learning of students across the
curriculum Copyright © 2017, Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies
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Improve the quality of environment in which academic social and emotional learning occurs (Zins, Elias, Greenberg and weissberg,2000)
Education and process of inclusion helps to promote SEL skills among the children and facilitates to develop the balanced personality of child. Inclusion helps to measure perfectly the quality of head, heart, hand and health. Ultimately, the success of any attempt to educate the whole child is dependent upon the extent to which learning occurs and in
caring,
supportive, safe empowering settings. Students are more likely to thrive in classroom that foster meaningful, caring, safe and empowering is the interactions (oysterman, 2000) CONCLUSION: Hence it is the responsibility of schools to provide enriching environments for young people assimilate into and contribute to society. Convincing empirical evidence indicates that schools can be highly effective in promoting positive youth development even the presences of the other contextual variables such as low family socio economic status and segregated, economically depressed neighborhoods (Mc Evoy andwalker, 2000).when the students do not feel connected to schools, their grades slip; they become disruptive in class and they are unlikely to aspire to higher educational goals. Struggling students are more vulnerable to anxiety and frustrations accompanying are more likely to give only taken efforts in schools(Paris, 1993).Such environment pose real threats to the availability of school resources like caring relationship and empowerment building opportunities (Ravitch, 2010).Specifically, SEL programs are designed to create learning environments that meet the developmental needs of students, including feelings of belonging, safety, and community, and thus provide ideal conditions for success across the domains of their lives – academics, relationships, personal, and ultimately in the workforce (Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczek, & Hawkins, 2004). So inclusion helps to develop of children to their maximum potential in aspects academically socially and emotionally REFERENCES Catalano, R. F., Berglund, L., Ryan, J. A. M., Lonczek, H. S., & Hawkins, J. D. (2004). Positive youth development in the United States: Research findings on evaluations of positive youth development programs. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591, 98-124. Doi: 10.1177/0002716203260102 Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning. (2003). Safe and sound: An educational leader's guide to evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. Chicago, IL: Author. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2016). SEL impact. Retrieved fromhttp://www.casel.org/impact/
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Collie, R. J., Shapka, J. D., & Perry, N. E. (2012). School climate and social-emotional learning: Predicting teacher stress, job satisfaction, and efficacy. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104, 1189–1204. Domino, M. (2013). Measuring the impact of an alternative approach to school bullying. Journal of School Health, 83(6), 430–437. Goddard, R., Hoy, W., & Woolfolk-Hoy, A. (2004). Collective efficacy beliefs: Theoretical development, empirical evidence, and future directions. Educational Researcher, 33, 3–13. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Hertzman, C. (2012). Putting the concept of biological embedding in historical perspective. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109, 17160–17167. Julka, A. (2001). Concept of inclusive education. In self-learning Material on National Curriculum Framework for School Education and Education of Special Focused Groups. New Delhi, NCERT, p. 4. Keyes, C. (2005). Mental illness and/or mental health. Investigating axioms of the complete state model of health. American Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(3), 539–548. Katz, J. (2013). The Three-Block Model of universal design for learning (UDL): Engaging students in inclusive education. Canadian Journal of Education, 36(1), 153–194. Klomek, A. B., Marrocco, F., Kleinman, M., Schonfeld, I. S., & Gould, M. S. (2007). Bullying, depression, and suicidality in adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 46(1). McEvoy, A., & Welker, R. (2000). Antisocial behavior, academic failure, and school climate: A critical review. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 8, 130-140. Doi: 10.1177/106342660000800301 Oysterman, K. E. (2000). Students' need for belonging in the school community. Review of Educational Research, 70, 323-367. doi: 10.3102/00346543070003323 Paris, S. (1993). Four perspectives on educational assessment. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 39(2), 95-105. doi: 10.1080/0156655920390202 Puskar, K. R., & Bernardo, L. M. (2007). Mental health and academic achievement: Role of school nurses.Journal for Specialists in Pediatric Nursing, 12(4), 215–223. Ravitch, D. (2010). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice areundermining education. New York, NY: Basic Books. Schaubman, A., Stetson, E., & Plog, A. (2011). Reducing teacher stress by implementing collaborative problem solving in a school setting. School Social Work Journal, 35(2), 72–93. Thomas, G. (1997). Inclusive schools for an inclusive society. British Journal of Special Education, vol. 24, 3,103-106. Winsper, C., Lereya, T., Zanarini, M., & Wolke, D. (2012). Involvement in bullying and suiciderelated behavior at 11 years: A prospective birth cohort study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 51(3), 271–282. Yeager, N. S. (1994). Analysis of absenteeism: Achievement and self-concept of elementary students in an inclusive classroom. Dissertation Abstract international. VOL.56, 4, Oct. (1995), p.1317A. Zins, J. E., Bloodworth, M. R., Weissberg, R. P., & Walberg, H. J. (2007). The scientific base linking social and emotional learning to school success. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 17(508), 191–210 Zins, J. E., Elias, M. J., Greenberg, M. T., & Weissberg, R. P. (2000). Promoting social and emotional competence in children. In K. M. Minke & G. C. Bear (Eds.), Preventing school problems--promoting school success: Strategies and programs that work. 71-100.
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