I am interested in how to teach the social-emotional conditions of learning, especially CASEL Wheel which includes five key areas that makes up SEL, also called as CASEL 5:

1. Self-awareness, like identifying emotions, recognizing strengths and needs, and developing a growth mindset
2. Self-management, like managing emotions, controlling impulses, and setting goals
3. Social awareness, like seeing things from other people’s perspective, showing empathy, and appreciating diversity
4. Relationship skills, like communication, cooperation, and conflict resolution
5. Responsible decision-making, including thinking about the consequences of personal behavior

CASEL 5 can be taught and applied at various developmental stages from childhood to adulthood and across diverse cultural contexts. I am really impressed by CASEL and the evidence-based program that are grounded. According to the meta-analysis of 213 rigorous studies in SEL in schools, students who received high-quality, evidence-based SEL programming demonstrated better academic performance, improved attitudes and behaviors, fewer negative behaviors and reduced emotional distress.

While the SEL and implementation of CASEL 5 should be based ont the preliminary asumption: the characteristics of the five areas can be taught. According to the social learning theory, the environment place a large part in learning, and we can learn by obersving others. Then the first question I would like to argue is: can self-awareness can be taught? When we learn self-awareness by watching and imitation, is that the real self-awareness?

Based on the assumption that the characteristics can be taught, I still have the question on how to implement the CASEL 5 in the real SEL programs. Students are different individual, then what to do with students that think and behave differently, and what to do with students with some mental health confusions?

In addition, social-emotional conditions and behaviours development is not a linear process, so I have the third question: If someone is not taught how to identify motions and internal needs since childhood, is it possible for him/her to regain self-awareness with CASEL as an adolescent or an adult?

Reference:

https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/what-is-the-casel-framework/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/social-learning-theory#:~:text=Social%20learning%20theory%2C%20developed%20by%20psychologist%20Albert%20Bandura%2C,ourselves%20or%20if%20we%20want%20to%20emulate%20them.

https://www.understood.org/en/articles/social-emotional-learning-what-you-need-to-know

https://gdc.unicef.org/resource/how-does-social-and-emotional-development-affect-learning#:~:text=How%20does%20social%20and%20emotional%20development%20affect%20learning%3F,children%E2%80%99s%20developing%20neural%20circuitry%2C%20particularly%20the%20executive%20functions.