Whole Child Education

Hot off the presses, our whole child partner the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has released a preliminary report about the impact of school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs on academics. Its meta-analysis of 207 studies involving nearly 300,000 children concludes that students who experience SEL programming improve significantly with respect to:

• Social and emotional skills;
• Attitudes about themselves, others, and school;
• Social and classroom behavior;
• Conduct problems such as classroom misbehavior and aggression;
• Emotional distress such as stress and depression; and
• Achievement test scores and school grades (by 11 percentile points!).

In fact they found that "these positive results do not come at the expense of performance in core academic skills, but rather enhance academic achievement" and persist over time. Not surprisingly, CASEL's study also demonstrates that programs conducted by teachers themselves with strong administrative support for high-quality implementation were the most effective. An earlier CASEL study also demonstrated the impact of after-school programs that promote personal and social skills.

So what's working in your schools and communities? What's not working? Are students in your community healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged? Use our Share Your Story tool to tell others about your experiences. See a story that interests you? Now you can add your comment or question by clicking the link below the story.

The February 2008 issue of The School Administrator, the American Association of School Administrators' monthly magazine delivered to every public school superintendent in the United States, highlights a wide-ranging conversation about schools, parents, mash-ups, horizontal thinking and the value of "yes, but" teaching between Dan Pink and Thomas Friedman. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, is pushing educators to promote creative thinking and Friedman's most recent edition of his book, The World Is Flat, stresses the need for 21st century skills and liberal arts education in a challenging curriculum.

"You've got schools moving ever more toward routines, right answers, and standardization—at precisely the moment that the wider world is moving toward novelty, nuance and customization. It's scary. And it's not the fault of teachers, principals and superintendents. In fact, the more time I spend in schools, the more I realize how heroic the work they're doing really is," says Pink. "It's such a massively screwed-up system that it's inspiring that they’re willing to show up every day to push the boulder a little further up the mountain. But that leads me to another question—one that I don't think is asked often enough: Are we asking too much of schools?"

Read the full article.

What do you think? Share your comments below!

The Centers for Disease Control reports that girls who increase physical activity may do better academically, according to USA Today.

"Just making children run laps won't necessarily make them smarter, cautions Craig Buschner of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education. "We're talking about learning. … Our goal is to guide children and youth in the process of being physically active for life."

But Cirasuolo says educators are frustrated at schools constantly being caught in the middle of dueling expectations. "If you want a broad curriculum … then we (schools) should be judged on how we educate the whole child, not just on reading and math."

Read the full story.

Are your school and community committed to health?

A three-year, seven-university research project suggests a connection between the arts and thinking skills, reports Education Week. Read the full research report supported by the Washington-based Dana Foundation. The report includes a paper by researcher Elizabeth Spelke titled “Effects of Music Instruction on Developing Cognitive Systems at the Foundations of Mathematics and Science.”

Does your school provide a well-rounded curriculum for all students, including rigorous programs in arts, foreign languages, and social studies?

Schools in Washington, D.C., often go beyond academics to meet the emotional, social, and health needs of at-risk students, reports the Washington Post.

Does your school have counselors, social workers, and other personnel to support students?

Just one year ago this week, ASCD launched the whole child initiative by releasing The Learning Compact Redefined: A Call to Action, and developing WholeChildEducation.org. The results have been a growing commitment across the world to ensure that each child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. In just one year,

• 12, 500 people have signed up to receive this newsletter!
• 11,167 people have viewed ASCD's whole child video on YouTube!
• 5,078 people have graded their school and community!
• 28 organizations have signed on as partners to further the whole child cause!

We are tremendously grateful for all your support and, of course, there is more to be done. Please learn more, do more, and be heard as you advocate for a whole child education. In recent months we've added blog posts and an RSS feed to the homepage—share your thoughts and comments as you track news about the whole child. We've also added new tools to our Policy Blackboard, including advocacy tips and a Whole Child Resolution Tool Kit. And, in the weeks to come, we will open up a comment feature for you to share your thoughts about the more than 100 stories parents, educators, and policymakers have shared. Thank you for all you do for children!

What's working: Outside agencies routinely adopt schools and provide sometimes needed supplies. Community volunteers come in to tutor individual students, or listen to them read.

What's not working: Our school district is planning to reenact corporal punishment as an answer to discipline problems. This is not the solution. Parent involvement is very low at some schools, as been mentioned they are overwhelmed with jobs, or feel inadequate.

—Diana B., Jackson, MS

Share your story to tell us what's working and what's not working in your community.

Leaders in your state and community are speaking out to promote learning that supports the whole child. Visit the Policy Blackboard to see more policymaker quotes like these—you may find some unlikely supporters or some people who need more information.

"If you want to learn a lot and if you want to be productive, it helps if you stay healthy."
—Governor Chet Culver (D-IA), March 7, 2008

"A lot of educational success depends upon a strong early education and a mastery of a certain number of words when [children] start school... Parents are their kids' best teachers, and reading to their kids early ensures they have the best chance of being successful."
—Governor Tim Kaine (D-VA), March 4, 2008

"The rest of the world teaches a foreign language in the early grades. It's expensive, but I think it's necessary when we operate in a global environment."
—State Senate Majority Leader Tommie Williams (R-GA), March 3, 2008

One easy way to build support and awareness for whole child education is to encourage your school board and local government to pass a resolution. Get started with the Whole Child Resolution Tool Kit and our advocacy tips.

High School math teacher Basil Lee engages at-risk students by making real-life connections with math and building relationships based on trust.

"I believe that in any situation, if you think of yourself as the parent of that child and ask yourself, 'What would I want to happen to my own child?' the answer would be, 'I want that person to be successful,' " Lee says. "That's what I do with my students." Read the full story at USA Today.

Tell us how you actively engage students in learning and connect them to the school and broader community. Share your story.

What's working: My son has a principal and special educators who genuinely want to help him with his learning disabilities. So do I. Atfer trying to get him services for 10 years, his highschool psycholgist finally nailed a way to get him some educational support. He recalls what he reads or hears at the 1st grade level. He is in the 11th grade. The evaluator was intellegent to realise something was wrong, as I have stated for years, and decided he required special education services. Someone finally listened and considered the whole child, not just his strengths when evaluating him.

What's not working: Proper identification of LD students, how to support them, and allowing the use of technology for all students are serious issues for my son's school, as are poor quality, way out of date textbooks. Instructors are forced to compensate by creating entire chapters to meet standards/state requirements and go off on college level tangents with poor textual support. Students have no access to the text their instructors use for instruction. When asked where I could find information about how to help my son research properly and keep himself organized at school even his special ed coordinator didn't know. Can anyone help me find proper educational resources to help students/LD students in school study and research properly? I do whatever I can at home, I even bought a complete set of science textbooks, a math texbook on CD, and a social studies textbook because so much is taught off book and hasn't enough reference material in class. I also purchased a volume library from the Southwestern company which has standards K-12 info in it. A lot of what comes home for home work isn't even in those books. I have no idea what book I could buy to help me help my son research and organize. I am very worried for him.

—Donna M., Gilbertsville, PA

Share your story to tell us what's working and what's not working in your community.