This article asserts that social emotional learning can provide a unifying vision, structure, processes, and assessment tools to assist school counselors in becoming effective change agents in their schools. The article describes a case study in which counselors helped teachers complete a social emotional intelligence survey, reviewing their own social emotional competencies and comparing them to those of their students who were given a similar survey. When adults within a school survey themselves they can use the data to improve relationships and leverage working styles amongst colleagues, as well as gain a fuller understanding of the skills they hope to help their students foster.
The strategic approach to using data described in this article may enable counselors to champion the value of social emotional intelligence at their school, helping teachers and other school leaders to better model and help students develop these critical skills.
Source Organization: Arizona School Counselors Association