Good morning all. Something deeply important to me, today. For the time and cost to you of a quick email message, or a phone call, you too can help encourage an elected official to provide real and innovative support for American public school students (and have something for next Monday's MF Activist roll call!).
But, first, what's this all about?
HR 4223
Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Act of 2009
A bill to support evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programming.
I would like to see this one pass. And I'm asking you to take a brief moment of your time to help me see that it does.
This is a chance to make real progress for real students.
I make my case after the fold.
SEL as Controversy
Social and emotional learning has been a controversial topic in American education since the release of Daniel Goleman's bestseller "Emotional Intelligence" in 1995. Misinterpreted in two different directions, that EQ is the great savior of all human failings, or that its all a bunch of warm and fuzzy "feelings" junk that privileges happiness over competence, educators and businesspeople have now worked for more than 15 years to determine if any of it holds any real potential for improving academic performance and economic growth. Because in most Americans' minds, economic growth is a natural by-product of academic performance, I'll accept that assumption and focus on the educational here, as does the bill itself.
Education is the economic issue of our times.
- President Barack Obama, Dallas, TX, 8-09-2010
SEL as Common Sense
It is no great surprise that attention and memory are related. If I'm reading something and the ideas expressed are compelling, or I see a movie that really grabs my attention, I may be thinking and talking about them for days, or weeks, or even longer. If I'm reading something and instead thinking about something else, I may have to go back and reread because I'll have no idea what I just read, even though I'm 2 pages further in the book when I realize it. How many times have you driven home and not consciously thought about how you got there? Were you thinking about other things? Like what you needed to do when you arrived home? Or a problem at work that needs a solution? You got home safely, yes, but only because you had already learned the route and its variations. What if that misplacement of attention was happening every time you tried to learn the route, starting with the first time you tried to drive to your new address? How long would it take you to get there, every time you tried to find your way?
The things we pay attention to are the things that are most emotionally compelling to us. Attention is only one example of how the emotional brain and the rational brain are one brain together, influencing each other simultaneously. Until recently, western civilization has been obsessed with the rational mind to the point of ignoring, or denying, the emotional one.
Is it better to have students who glide through school reading, but thinking about other things? "Driving" through class, but not learning as much as they could otherwise? Wouldn't it be better for someone to teach them how to manage their attention so they could better focus it on what they need to be learning?
Of course. That's common sense.
And that's only one common sensical, yet deeply powerful, application of EQ in education. There are others.
SEL as Cold Science
For those of you who like research, I offer this link. And this one. The first is to a pdf file of a meta-study in press, due to be published soon in the academic journal Child Development. The other is to a simple Google search for "impact of social and emotional learning." There is enough there to keep you busily reading and dropping your jaw for a long, long time. I know. I'm writing a dissertation on it.
Why this is an important issue, and an important bill to support
- Reducing the dropout and excessive absence rates. SEL education gives students a reason to stay in school in the absence of other reasons as perceived by them. Why contribute to SEL's absence by doing nothing to support it, when supporting it is just a mouse click away? As President Obama said, just yesterday in Dallas:
It's an economic issue when the unemployment rate for folks who've never gone to college is almost double what it is for those who have," he said. "It's an economic issue when nearly eight in 10 new jobs will require workforce training or a higher education by the end of this decade. It's an economic issue when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that countries that out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.
- Reducing bullying and peer-to-peer and teacher-student/student-teacher harassment and abuse. One of the most widely accepted truths of public education is that students learn more in surroundings in which they feel safe. Teaching children, and the adults entrusted with them, to better manage their emotions, to find more appropriate and helpful outlets for negative ones, and to better leverage positive ones into academic growth and personal development is a core objective of Social and Emotional Learning. And that doesn't sound too bad, now, does it?
- Double digit gains on standardized test scores. For the most rational among us, teaching young people to be better aware of and to better manage their emotions leads directly to improvements in the very test scores, and class grades the modern education establishment has dedicated itself to pursuing. So much for the warm-and-fuzzy critiques.
- Teacher retention. Educators who better manage the ups and downs, uncertainties, frustrations, and elations that are an intense and daily part of teaching tend to continue teaching longer than those who don't. While some people should leave early, as not all who try it are meant for it, there are many potentially great teachers who leave too soon because of our insistence on ignoring their emotional experience of navigating the profession. HR 4223 provides quality professional development to teachers, administrators, and families, so that everyone in the educational system benefits, and supports, one another.
- Educating the "whole child."
- Empathy and Compassion. Imagine the society we'd have today if Newt, Little Dick (take yer pick, Cheney, Nixon, etc...), Little Rick (Santorum), GWB, Karl, Glenn, Sean, or Rush had as part of their regular school curriculum the following:
Goal 1: Develop self-awareness and self-management skills to achieve school and life success.
A. Identify and manage one’s emotions and behavior
B. Recognize personal qualities and external supports
C. Demonstrate skills related to achieving personal and academic success
Goal 2: Use social-awareness and interpersonal skills to establish and maintain positive relationships.
A. Recognize the feelings and perspectives of others
B. Recognize individual and group similarities and differences
C. Use communication and social skills to interact effectively with others
D. Demonstrate an ability to prevent, manage, and resolve interpersonal
conflicts in constructive ways
Goal 3: Demonstrate decision-making skills and responsible behaviors in personal, school, and community contexts.
A. Consider ethical, safety, and societal factors in making decisions
B. Apply decision-making skills to deal responsibly with daily academic and
social situations
C. Contribute to the well-being of one’s school and community
Source: Illinois Social Emotional Learning Standards (considered by many educators to be a gold standard of successful state SEL policy)
HR 4223
The full text of the bill is here.
My summary:
HR 4223 appropriates $5 million to create a National Technical Assistance and Training Center for Social and Emotional Learning (NTATCSEL) that would provide training and support to state education departments, school districts, schools, teachers, and community-based organizations to assist them in evidence-based implementations of SEL programs.
It also appropriates $30 million to directly fund competitive grants for states and school districts to, in collaboration with the new NTATCSEL, create SEL programs. Grant recipients would be required to report all program details and measurable results to the NTATCSEL, devise professional development and long-term support systems, create a leadership team to manage the execution of the grant and reporting of results, train SEL coaches and coordinators to support teachers and parents, communicate SEL goals, methods, and outcomes to parents and community members, and create standards for SEL instruction at state and local levels.
In other words, it takes SEL education out of the category of things-we-know-we-should-do and begins the process of putting it in the category of common-sense-things-we-do-that-make-a-real-and-positive-difference.
My biggest problem with the bill is that $35 million is such a small amount to promote something with such enormous potential to change so many peoples' lives for the better.
CALL TO ACTION!
Let's make some progress happen, people.
Here's the place to figure out who your own Representative in Congress is, just in case.
I'm providing the sponsor, co-sponsor, and subcommittee members' webpages as links below. I'm sympathetic with govtrack's take on contacting members of Congress. Many don't accept emails from outside their districts. House rules prevent them from responding to correspondents outside their districts, but you have the 1st Amendment at your back when it comes to contacting them!
If any of those below are your elected rep, please email and/or call their local offices forthwith. Personal interaction is most effective. Unless you have the deep pockets to buy a little office time, or a nice sit-down lunch, town-halls or appearances at local events are still good opportunities to get words in edgewise. And just imagine how convincing you'll sound when you not only say,
Um, uh, the economy? Nice to meet you.
But, instead, something like,
HR 4223 is important to me. Your vote in support of getting HR 4223 out of committee is, too. More importantly, HR 4223 will help provide children and educators the skills and abilities they need to succeed not only in school, but in life. I'd like to see you meaningfully support our kids and vote for HR 4223. And, it is nice to meet you.
I'm also including the phone lines to DC offices on the co-sponsors list so you can rehearse that conversation with a real-live, flesh and blood, Hill stafferperson!
Alternatively, www.congress.org has a really nifty contact-the-elected-officials feature and some neat reporting on The Hill. I read up on them (owned by The Economist, and managed by the same people who do Congressional Quarterly) and didn't find anything unusual or especially troublesome, so I traded my "dummy" email address for access to their tools and analysis. It made it surprisingly easy to send all of these! (Anyone have any knowledge or scoops on congress.org different from what I've found?)
First, the House Sponsor and Co-sponsors deserve some love. If one of these is yours, please call the local number at the link and say thanks for supporting HR 4223. Keep it up! (Ok, it did just get a little warm-and-fuzzy there. For just a second.) They are:
Sponsor - Dale Kildee (D-MI5) 202-225-3611
Judy Biggert (R-IL13) 202-225-3515
Mark Kirk (R-IL10) 202-225-4835
Danny Davis (D-IL7) 202-225-5006
Timothy Ryan (D-OH17) 202-225-5461
Marcia Fudge (D-OH11) 202-225-7032
Judy Chu (D-CA32) 202-225-5464
Bob Filner (D-CA51) 202-225-8045
Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA 34) 202-225-1766
Chellie Pingree (D-ME1) 202-225-6116
David Loebsack (D-IA2) 202-225-6576
Frederick Boucher (D-VA9) 202-225-3861
Keith Ellison (D-MN5) 202-225-4755
John Yarmouth (D-KY3) 202-225-5401
Ok, enough love. Let's get to butt-kickin'. Or, if you're more of a love person, tough-love.
Second, HR 4223 has been sent to the House Committee on Education and Labor, and is currently in the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education. As GovTrack.US tells us
Introduced bills and resolutions first go to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise them before they go to general debate. The majority of bills and resolutions never make it out of committee.
I want this one to more than make it out of committee. Let's move, people. Or, should I say...
Let's move these people.
If one of these is yours, and some are the same as above, please contact their local number and tell them it's time to get HR 4223 out of committee and up for a full Senate vote as soon as possible, as written.
Members of the Subcommittee on EC, E, & SE:
Dems
Chair: Dale Kildee (MI)
Donald Payne (NJ)
Robert Scott (VA)
Lynn Woolsey (CA)
Ruben Hinojosa (TX)
Dennis Kucinich (OH)
Rush Holt(NJ)
Susan Davis(CA)
Raul Grijalva (AZ)
Joe Sestak (PA)
Dave Loebsack (IA)
Mazi Hirono(HI)
Jason Altmire(PA)
Jared Polis (CO)
Pedro Pierluisi(PR)
Dina Titus (NV)
Judy Chu (CA)
Repubs
Michael Castle (DE)
Thomas Petri (WI)
Peter Hoekstra (MI)
Mark Souder (IN) oops
Nernon Ehlers(MI)
Judy Biggert (IL) (original co-sponsor)
Todd Platts (PA)
Rob Bishop (UT)
Bill Cassidy (LA)
Tom McClintock (CA)
You can even have this guy do it for you! He works for nuts!
Thank for you for reading, for learning, and for those of you who call and email the above folks, not only thanks to you, but I have a real-live hot fudge banana split ice cream sundae right here just for you! But, heat index today is over 100, so if it starts to melt, don't worry, I'll take care of it.
Thanks again. For real.
TWLTW
- Teabaggery is running amuck in Williamsburg, VA where Teabag people are vacationing in noticeably greater numbers, apparently drawn to impersonators dressed as Founding Fathers. Whether the numbers are greater, or the notice-ability of those vacationing is greater, is as yet undetermined. Full report with somewhat amusing video of Teabag people being smacked down by period actors after asking Glenn Beck inspired questions here.
- Did Fox News deserve a front row ticket to the WH Press Room?
- There have been so many developments and editorials about the mosque and community center in lower Manhattan that I considered doing this entire diary on it. The
conflict differences of opinion between the people who live in that neighborhood and those who live in the world of rightwingnuttia, I think, is the difference between someone's relationship with their local community and neighborhood and someone's else's only seeing that community as a symbol. A symbol that the same people quickly dismiss as being not Real America. In which case, why care so much, if the neighborhood is full of librul educated elites? As a constitutional test of inalienable rights, I hope we pass this one rather than fail it. We don't need another target of right-wing nutjobs anywhere in our country, let alone near Ground Zero.
- Surprise, surprise. David Brooks finally writes an op-ed I can get into and not feel misled, duped, or hoodwinked. Not that I'm a fan of the simplistic formula of the essay, but at least the content wasn't an overtly offensive misreading of fact, as I find
many most nearly every single one of his to be.
- Give this to the person on the cell phone beside you on the bus. Or in line at Chipotle. Or the Post Office. Or wherever.
- In a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art we learn the ukulele originated in Portugal, and the name translates as "jumping flea."
- We spend some time trashing crass consumerism on this site, and justifiably, but this ad I caught on Keith O's Countdown show has just really, really stuck with me. Doubt I'll buy a Subaru, but it played my heartstrings like a..well...not like a ukulele. See what you think for yourself (remember, I have a 3.5 year old daughter):
The two girls in the ad are actually real-life sisters. The father is their actual father. The ad company said in a presser that when they found this family they threw their script out and just asked him what he would actually say. And then filmed him saying it.
- And, speaking of daughters, Rudy Giuliani's daughter Caroline (20 years old) was just arrested in Manhattan for having shoplifted $150 worth of makeup from a Sephora shop. Apparently, the video security monitor caught her on camera and nabbed her on her way out the door. Rudy on crime in 2003:
You've got to pay attention to everything, and you can't give criminals a sense of immunity.
- Loved this essay. A taste:
It's repellent to see politicians claim that what ails our country today is not their own incompetence but rather the Constitution. And the squalor is made worse when the attack is made on the Fourteenth Amendment.
- As for the flight attendant who jumped ship, so to speak, why isn't the public discussion as much, or more, about the behavior of the looney-tune who set him off and how inappropriate it was instead of how looney-tunes the flight attendant might have been? Different people, different place, same story and this ends in a revenge-shooting. The trigger behavior deserves more attention and more public discredit. What a perfect example for the need for more SEL education for both children and adults!
What Did You Learn This Week?