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Crucial Living Skills And Social Emotional Learning Education (For Children of All Ages)
by Joy Berry
on September 23, 2023
Living Skills And Social Emotional Learning Educational Goals
Insight Behavior Modification
The first goal of Living Skills and SEL education is to generate insights that automatically modify behavior. For example, touching a hot stove causes an immediate insight (“a hot stove can burn me”) which causes the automatic modification of behavior (the child does not touch a hot stove again).
When children acquire an insight about something, their behavior automatically changes to accommodate the newfound understanding and knowledge. Consequently, the motivation to behave appropriately becomes internal rather than external. Children do what is right because of what they know better, not because of what they are being forced to do.
This moral autonomy is the only way one can survive ethically and pragmatically in the eventual absence of parental and other types of authority. Thus, behavior modification through insight, attained through Living Skills and SEL education, is crucial to the creation and maintenance of a healthy, happy, successful childhood.
Pragmatic Intelligence
The second goal of Living Skills and SEL education is to teach children HOW to think rather than WHAT to think so they will live their lives intelligently rather than reflexively. This means that all Living Skills and SEL materials must be presented as objectively as possible, and children must be encouraged, then allowed to formulate their own conclusions. In addition, it means that children must be encouraged and allowed to relate to the materials at their own level, in their own way.
Personal Responsibility
The third goal of Living Skills and SEL education is to provide the information and skills children need to become personally responsible:
• for themselves,
• in the way they relate to others, and
• for the way they relate to their environment.
Living Skills And Sel Educational Materials
It is imperative that the editorial standards applied to all Living Skills and SEL educational materials include the following:
Standards Regarding the Text in Living Skills and SEL Educational Materials
1. The text needs to be grammatically correct.
2. All of the words need to be spelled correctly.
3. The text (not including the cartoon illustrations) needs to be void of slang.
4. The text needs to be void of obscenities and verbal expressions that might be offensive.
5. All of the words used in the text needs to be age appropriate. They need to be recognizable, understandable, or adequately defined via the content of the corresponding illustration.
6. The text needs to be age appropriate in regard to readability and comprehension.
Standards Regarding the Content in Living Skills and SEL Educational Materials
1. The text needs to convey the content that it is intended to convey.
2. The text needs to be conveyed in the simplest, clearest, easy-to-understand way.
3. The content needs to discourage any attitude or behavior that could endanger oneself, others, or the world in which one lives.
4. The content needs to encourage positive attitudes and behavior towards oneself, others, and the world in which one lives.
5. The content needs to be developmentally correct regarding the reader’s:
• Physical abilities, needs, and interests
• Mental abilities, needs, and interests
• Social abilities, needs, and interests
• Moral abilities, and social context
6. The content needs to be politically correct. It needs to avoid perpetuating negative prejudices, attitudes, and misbehavior regarding:
• Physical appearance
• Physical abilities
• Mental abilities
• Sexual identity
• Sexual orientation
• Age
• Race
• National origin
• Religious affiliation
• Political situation
• Social status
• Economic status
Standards Regarding the General Approach of Living Skills and SEL Educational Materials
1. Living Skills and SEL materials need to avoid being condescending or disrespectful to the reader.
2. The role of the writer of Living Skills and SEL materials should be that of an observer, recorder, and reporter, rather than a brainwasher.
3. Living Skills and SEL materials need to be focus on teaching the reader HOW to think rather than WHAT to think.
4. Each stated concern in Living Skills and SEL materials needs to be accompanied by a viable recommendation.
5. Each recommendation made in Living Skills and SEL materials needs to be supported by a solid, unbiased rationale.
6. Reading Living Skills and SEL materials needs to cause the reader to feel empowered rather than frustrated.
Concerns About Using Living Skills And Sel Educational Materials
Many parents have expressed three main concerns about using Living Skills and SEL educational materials with their children. They are as follows:
Concern #1
Are we pushing children to grow up too quickly by exposing them to Living Skills and SEL education too early?
Answer: We push children when we expose them to subject matter that has no relevance to their everyday lives. When we try to teach children information they cannot use immediately or are not ready to assimilate, they have to strain to learn and remember it. This is the case with many of the academic and religious programs to which children are exposed.
Children are naturally motivated to learn information that will help them survive and live their lives efficiently and effectively. Living Skills and SEL materials can address subjects children experience on a daily basis and can help them understand and deal with these experiences.
By bringing understanding into children’s’ lives, we can help prevent many of the frustrations and problems that surface when children do not live their lives intelligently and responsibly. Helping a child in this way is not pushing the child. Instead, it is cooperating with and enhancing a child’s natural tendency to grow and mature.
Concern #2
Are we taking the fun out of children’s lives by expecting them to become responsible too early?
Answer: Being out of control is not fun. Like most adults, children want to be in control of what they do and what happens to them. Control is proportionate to responsibility. The more responsible people become, the more control they have over their lives. When we help children become responsible, we help them gain control over their lives, and the more control they have over their lives, the happier they are.
Concern #3
Is the straightforward approach used in Living Skills and SEL materials inappropriate for children?
Answer: Developmentally speaking, most children younger than 11 or 12 years of age are unable to derive personal meaning from stories or fables because they have not yet acquired the experience and skills that are necessary to think abstractly. Younger children cannot look at something symbolic and understand that it stands for something it is not. For example, children who see an illustration of a cat wearing clothing see a cat wearing clothes and do not automatically conclude that the cat is representative of them wearing clothing.
Therefore, if the objective is to teach a child how to clean his or her room, the least effective way is to tell the child a story about how an imaginary character cleaned a fictional area. Instead, the most effective way to teach a child how to clean a bedroom is to explain, simply and clearly, step by step how to get the job done.
This illustrates the fundamental difference between traditional children’s literature and Living Skills and SEL materials. The main goals of most traditional children’s literature are to stimulate the imagination and to entertain, while the main goals of Living Skills and SEL materials are to educate and modify behavior. If the goal is to help children modify their behavior, it is important to “tell it like it is.”
CONCLUSION
For the best-selling, most effective Living Skills and SEL educational materials available for parents and teachers, go to www.joyberryenterprises.com
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