Teaching the Social Skills of Academic Interaction, Grades 4-12. Harvey "Smokey" Daniels

Most of us went to school under an authoritarian discipline system. Why would we feel comfortable or eager to depart from the paradigm on which we were raised?

      Even as the call for social-emotional learning grows louder, teachers aren't exactly leaping forward to lead the movement. This is not just because state officials, school reformers, and publishers got a jump-start (though they did). We teachers, let's not forget, were students once too, and we didn't necessarily encounter good teaching around social skills, either. Most of us went to school (and future teachers are still attending school) under an authoritarian discipline system. We didn't have much experience with approaches other than rules, rewards, and punishments. Why would we feel comfortable or eager to depart from the paradigm on which we were raised, especially considering how well we turned out? (And it is worth recognizing that most of us eventual teachers were “good kids,” who didn't run afoul of the discipline system enough to taste its harshest lash.)

      In our workshops, we often ask teachers to think back on their own experiences with collaborative, partner, or group work in school. Many simply laugh and say, “I hated it!"The most painful problem they recollect is that, when working in small groups, they always had to do the majority of the work to ensure their own good grade, carrying the slackers to the finish line on their own bent backs. We now realize that these folks, so many of today's teachers, were victims of ill-structured cooperative learning, and carry negative attitudes and misconceptions about students working together. And even if we later got some formal training in proper collaborative learning, it may have been be too brief and weak to overcome those early negative experiences. So, if we are going to be required to explicitly teach social-academic skills, we need more support, training, and materials than we've been offered so far.

      But it gets even more personal. Some states—Illinois, for one—are adopting teacher assessment rubrics that assign points for classrooms that feature well-structured student collaboration, discussion, and debate. These ranking systems reward teachers who successfully incorporate such interaction into their daily teaching—and punish those who don't. For example, the widely used Charlotte Danielson teacher evaluation rubric requires kids to be working cooperatively in order for their teacher to receive the highest possible “Distinguished” ranking. In her rationale, Danielson writes:

      As important as a teacher's treatment of students is, how students are treated by their classmates is arguably even more important to students. At its worst, poor treatment causes students to feel rejected by their peers. At its best, positive interactions among students are mutually supportive and create an emotionally healthy school environment. Teachers not only model and teach students how to engage in respectful interactions with one another but also acknowledge such interaction. (Danielson, 2011)

      With salaries and even continued employment now depending on one-time evaluations like these, teachers better have an interactive community humming when the principal comes around to score them.

      Bottom line: the world is asking teachers to run their classrooms in new ways, but it hasn't yet provided the practical tools they need to make such large and sometimes uncomfortable changes.

       Emerging Research: Social-Emotional Skills Can Be Taught

      There is a robust and growing body of research that validates the explicit teaching of social-academic skills. Earlier, we cited the Durlak meta-analysis, which showed remarkable academic gains for kids who had been taught key social skills. The Chicago-based Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning www.casel.org.

       Today's most commonly used teacher evaluation rubric requires kids to be working cooperatively in order for their teacher to receive the highest possible “Distinguished” ranking.

      A variety of researchers have looked closely at the relationship between school climate and student achievement. Evidence consistently ties poor socioemotional climates to low achievement and test scores. In its School Climate Research Summary, the National School Climate Center summarizes recent findings:

      School climate matters. Positive and sustained school climate is associated with and/or predictive of positive child and youth development, effective risk prevention and health promotion efforts, student learning and academic achievement, increased student graduation rates, and teacher retention. (Thapa et al., 2012)

      One related line of inquiry comes out of the Consortium for Chicago Schools Research at the University of Chicago. Over a series of studies, Anthony Bryk and colleagues have shown that “relational trust is the ‘glue’ or the essential element” that potentiates all the other factors leading to school improvement (Bryk et al., 2010; Bryk & Schneider, 2002). In other words, in schools that cultivate friendliness and mutual support, kids learn better.

      It is important to note that in addition to general studies of social-emotional learning, investigations in separate academic disciplines cross-validate these findings. For example, the pioneering literacy researcher Richard Allington has shown that when students regularly discuss their reading with peers, gains are seen in engagement, in comprehension, and on high-stakes reading tests (2012). In the mathematics world, similar connections have been found between social-emotional skills and academic achievement. In several studies, researchers at the Yale Child Study Center found strong links between social competencies and academic achievement. As the investigators reported, “the strengths of the relationships between students' knowledge of themselves and others and their achievement in math was found to be strong” (Haynes et al., 2003).

       My Kids, Right Now

      There's one more reason why we need to teach social skills in our classrooms: this is our life. We are in real classrooms today, each of us with a group of kids (or five groups of kids), in some kind of relationship, for nine months. For everyone's morale, sense of safely, hunger for belonging, and need to take risks and grow, we must create a friendly, supportive place to be. We want everyone to walk through that classroom door with smiles on their faces this morning, acknowledging and savoring our differences, feeling our solidarity, and feeding off one another's energy.

      We are complicated and separate people, and we'll bring some junk through that door too, but if we address our interaction forthrightly and practice sociable behavior together, we can dial down the static, put aside our baggage, and grow with our friends' support. Instead of cutting each other down, we can all stand on each other's shoulders. In the game of school, we can enjoy Home Court Advantage every day. And we would prefer this to happen right now.

How to Address These Problems and Seize the Opportunities

      In this resource, we offer thirty-five classroom-ready lessons that address this whole array of problems and opportunities. These lessons

      • Are all directly correlated with the Common Core standards for Speaking and Listening

      • Engage students in experiences that systematically build a sense of belonging and personal significance

      • Make kids feel safer and more connected, so they are less likely to put down or bully others

      • Enable highly interactive, student-driven best practice instruction to succeed in your classroom

      • Help you feel comfortable and ready to tackle this new teaching task—and enjoy the challenge

      • Get you ready to be assessed in your own classroom, by showcasing students who work together fluidly flexibly, and with focus

      • Ground you with a strong research and knowledge base in the emerging field of social-emotional learning, as well as related and longer-established fields of inquiry

      • Help you grow or mend your classroom climate now, to solve management and morale problems, and develop long-term spirit and solidarity

      • Make sure all your students acquire the social-academic skills they need