8. Teaching SEL, Building shared meanings.

We are learning and practicing SEL every Wednesday. I have kept thinking about SEL as content and skills that students are essentially required to learn for their and society's health. There is no doubt that SEL is crucial but it became vague when it comes to a class, particularly concentrated on SEL itself. How could we focus on SEL? How could I help students improve their skills? Will understanding SEL knowledge be helpful to perform better SEL skills?

As a first step, I introduced and taught the definition and components of SEL. If my teaching focus is on SEL, it seemed natural to me. Without having a clear vision of what SEL means, students will not be able to perform better SEL skills even though these are skills that they already have or show involuntarily. However strongly I believe that SEL skills can be taught and improved by intentional cooperative physical activities, it will just happen willy-nilly if students and I are not on the same page. It was important to share my understanding of SEL in advance. Knowledge of SEL might be able to build common ground.

But... What is SEL? The knowledge I can introduce was about how different definitions and components we can find. Even though the CASEL framework was introduced, it would be unclear due to its intrinsic nature. Now that sharing clear students' expectations is the common sense for effective education, I felt like lost a way to go next. Social and emotional aspects could depend on the inside of individuals and the situations people interact. This is an extremely difficult notion that can be clear or definite knowledge that could transfer to other contexts. In this situation, my choice was to let students know about my conceptual idea about social and emotional learning. Students and even me as a teacher won't be able to achieve a clear conclusion though, we might be able to build shared meanings in this context throughout the course. And then, we might imagine or infer how our shared meaning could be applied and utilized in the future life.

Some scientists and scholars believe that schools should focus on transferable and assessable knowledge. But, educators believe that only teaching knowledge does not even seem possible. Even though we teach 1 +1 for students, teachers and friends will be there and there will be a self who perceives that situation based on their experiences. Understanding and revealing vague and uncertain moments is still important and at some points inevitable. I am going to go to the place covered and unreachable. Therefore, my confusion is natural.