P.I.L.Y. People Inside Love You

In the mid-1990’s researchers in the fields of psychology and education began to understand that students who are under emotional duress are not going to be optimal learners.  Whether it is because of difficult home environments, neighborhood violence or conflicts at school, children who have most of their energies focused on day to day survival don’t have a lot left over for algebra and U.S. History.

Psychologists published a work titled Promoting Social and Emotional Learning:Guidelines for Educators which has since inspired a variety of curricula being introduced across the country.  The links provided here are worth the time to look up.

Anchorage School District SEL

Educating Hearts

The EQ Guy

Kenai Peninsula Borough School District pilot program

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a systematic approach to “prosocial” survival strategies for children in school.  The statistics (according to the stupidly expensive text) show a remarkable improvement in academic performance and a giant drop in behavioral referrals for schools that have implemented these kinds of programs:

·         50% of students show increased test scores

·         38% of students show increased GPA’s

·         28% drop in behavioral referrals

·         A rise in rates of attendance

The three “essential principles” of SEL are:

1.       Learning requires a foundation of caring relationships

2.       Emotions dictate what we learn and how we learn it

3.       Students who can set goals and problem solve will have more success in school and in life.

Within these programs teachers are encouraged to work the following concepts into classroom management and academic activities whenever possible:

·         Communication skills

·         Self-control and appropriate expression of emotion

·         Empathy and perspective-taking

·         Conflict resolution

·         Problem solving

·         Respect for others and appreciation of diversity.

For the last couple of years an irritatingly obscure acronym was posted on the entrances to our local PreK-8 school.  “P.I.L.Y.”

Give yourself a minute to try and figure out what that stands for.  Go ahead.  Wander around a little bit, maybe…  Ready to rip the sign off the door and feed it to the cat?  Yeah.

P.I.L.Y. printed in big black letters on red paper and scotch taped to the inside of all the building’s entrances was to stand for “People Inside Love You.”  While I get a little skeezed out by all that sort of stuff, the principles of prosocial engagement and Social Emotional Learning are carried out by making sure that students understand that school is a safe place for them to learn with peers who accept them and from adults who care about their best interests and their future.

Personally, I try to skip the team-building and pep-rally activities whenever possible.  I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day dissecting my aversion to intimacy and my other random displays of anti-social behavior, however, it seems pretty clear to even me that a kid who feels safe and happy in a classroom environment is going to have an easier time learning.

All that being said...  Raise your hand if you've ever made a student cry....  Ah, yes.  You there, in the back row reading Bukowski....