"What We Saw on the Wall": Adult Transformative Social and Emotional Learning as a Lever for Equity and Excellence in Schools

• In Event: Five Perspectives on Leveraging Systemic Social and Emotional Learning to Create Equity in Schools

Abstract

Jagers et al. (2021) define transformative social and emotional learning (tSEL) as a process whereby “young people and adults build strong and respectful relationships that facilitate co-learning to critically examine root causes of inequities and to develop collaborative solutions,” across differences that lead to improved academic, social and emotional outcomes for children, adolescents, and adults in the school community. At King Elementary, an old mural’s troubling, racially stereotyped depictions of students became the impetus for not only a new mural, but for schoolwide implementation of tSEL as a way to foster community engagement and center student voices and perspectives. The school, located in a highly impoverished area of the Southern U.S., is predominantly attended by Black (50%) and Latino (33%) students, making the previous mural’s depictions all the more troubling.

King’s home district has engaged in a years-long partnership with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a nonprofit organization dedicated to making SEL part of a high-quality and equitable education for all. As members of CASEL’s research and practice teams, collaborating within a research-practice partnership (RPP) model of continuous improvement, we were asked by the school’s principal and the district’s SEL Director to join the process of creating a new mural.

Methods. Using mixed methods (i.e. surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observations), we explored the critical role of adults—and their own transformative work—in the tSEL implementation process and ensuing mural development. In addition to our collaborative planning work, we provided support for professional learning sessions on both SEL and tSEL for King’s staff.

Findings. The main aim of the mural project was to paint a new mural that reflected and affirmed the identities of the King community. Transformative SEL’s core constructs of identity, agency, belonging, collaborative problem solving, and curiosity, were each evidenced throughout the project. The centrality of collaborative problem-solving to tSEL was particularly evident in the adult work. In collaboration with CASEL, the SEL team and King’s principal brainstormed ways to not only recreate the mural, but to involve students, teachers, district departments, families, and community stakeholders in the effort. All told, thirteen partners—from the district’s grants department to parents—were involved in the new mural. As adults in the King community engaged with the work and each other, they modeled actions that they hoped to see among King students. These actions among adults then shifted the nature of their interactions with youth. This chapter argues that adult opportunities for personal transformative development are critical to the facilitation of similar developmental opportunities among youth.

Significance. The King Mural project is an important example of how adults can practice and model the core competencies of tSEL, serving not only as a foundational support for building student SEL competencies, but to initiate and potentially sustain community-wide equity and civic engagement—a beautiful demonstration of adult tSEL. The old mural, which reinforced racial stereotypes of students, did not represent the true nature of the King community—a civically minded, justice-oriented, racially diverse school.

Authors

• Olivia A Kelly, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
  Presenting Author

• Bloodine Barthelus
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alexandra Skoog-Hoffman, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
  Non-Presenting Author

• Robert Jagers, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
  Non-Presenting Author