Opinion: Competent Grads Need Emotional Strength, Too

“The skills that help students develop and restore relationships, improve decision-making, solve problems and communicate effectively are social emotional skills. Let’s teach them.”

New Yorkers care that our students are educated in things like reading, math, science and history, but they expect and deserve more. We also want our young people to know how to resolve conflict, build community and create connection. These skills are as basic as reading, writing and arithmetic.

What we in public schools teach our kids about conflict, community and connection reverberates across their lives and charts a map for how society will navigate these challenges when our students become leaders. These social-emotional skills are the bedrock of the annual Social and Emotional Learning Day on March 14, now recognized in New York City by the City Council.

Let’s start with how we teach our students about conflict, an unavoidable fact of life for everyone, from loving spouses to rival politicians. This is why it’s less important to eliminate conflict than to teach ways to resolve it constructively. Society’s collective success is tied to our ability to navigate conflict effectively, consider multiple perspectives, create opportunities for consensus and solve problems for the common good.

When our schools teach these skills to every student, then New York City’s shared capacity to resolve conflict will improve and our relationships, politics and our city at large will be stronger for it. 

Let’s talk about community. Approaches like restorative practices teach young people the value of community, how to navigate conflict and how to make amends for the impacts of their decisions on their peers and teachers. When we succeed in this work, our students learn that they are valuable to us. They realize they won’t be discarded or excluded when they make poor decisions, but are worthy of the time and effort it takes to teach them more effective ways of solving problems. They see they have a place in our city. The skills that help students develop and restore relationships, improve decision-making, solve problems and communicate effectively are social emotional skills. Let’s teach them. 

And let’s talk about connection. We are still in the midst of an unprecedented mental health crisis for adolescents, with 78 percent of New York City teachers saying students’ mental health is worse than before the pandemic, suspensions increasing for students across the city and parents calling for more social emotional learning for their children. 

Teaching social emotional skills leads to a stronger school climate, an increased sense of belonging in schools,  less emotional distress and improved mental health for students up to 20 years after they learn these concepts and skills.  Teachers with stronger social emotional skills are more likely to create a positive classroom climate, facilitate greater learning and are more likely to stay in the profession. 

The Urban Assembly, a city-based education nonprofit, and the New York City Council are committed to increasing social emotional learning across New York City Public Schools. That’s why the City Council passed a resolution, introduced by Rita Joseph and Linda Lee, supporting SEL Day annually, and why the Urban Assembly partners with dozens of city public schools to elevate the practice of SEL at its symposium every year, and in classrooms every day.   

By embracing social emotional learning throughout New York City Public Schools, we can contribute to the public good. We can disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately affects students from marginalized communities. We can empower every child in our schools to show concern for someone, think before they act, resolve disagreements, get along well with different types of people and learn from experience.

We can increase academic outcomes. We can improve work-force readiness. We can decrease mental health challenges for our students. We can ensure our children know that their social emotional development is worth our time and is in the interest of all public schools, because it is the interest of New Yorkers as whole. So, now that we know these are social emotional skills, let’s get to teaching them. 

David Adams is the CEO of Urban Assembly, a leader in SEL programming. Rita Joseph serves as chair of NYC City Council’s Committee on Education.