Should public schools strive to teach character to students? One group in Texas says no. Mary Lowe, of the Tarrant County chapter of Moms for Liberty, recently spoke before the state board of education in opposition to SB 123, which would expand character education in Texas schools. Hollie Plemons, a parent, also spoke to the board. They’re mine,” Plemons said of her children. “They don’t belong to the government. They belong to me. I don’t want the government to teach my children character. That’s my job, and it’s a job I want to keep… Please stay in your lane… Focus on academics, and let the parents parent.”
This sentiment—which draws a hard line between the responsibility of the parent to raise a child and that of the school to educate a student—is part of a larger trend. As Rick Hess has noted, “Social and emotional learning (SEL) has become a new flashpoint in our educational culture wars.” For some families, teaching a social curriculum takes precious time away from academic subjects like reading and math. For others, like Lowe and Plemons, SEL seems to be tantamount to indoctrination. There’s a risk of that, to be sure, as some SEL programs are bunk. Just as some ELA curricula do a terrible job of teaching reading, some SEL curricula are heavy on questionable content and light on research documenting their effectiveness. And proponents of SEL have not been as transparent as they should be about what’s included in curricula, often disagreeing about what belongs in the tent. But that should not disqualify the entire project of SEL, much less efforts to teach character.
Both tend to get framed improperly—and incorrectly—in the current political debate. Conservatives tend to favor character education because it seems in line with traditional virtues and values, while progressives seem to favor SEL because it’s seen as a forward-thinking way to teach interpersonal skills and self-awareness. Although this distinction gets brought into sharp relief in op-eds and social media, it blurs in classroom practice.
Look to Responsive Classroom—a widely used classroom management system that weaves SEL practices into daily instruction—as an example. When done with fidelity, the first six weeks of the school year are dedicated to community building, setting norms, and learning routines. Thereafter, the first thirty minutes of each school day are dedicated to a morning meeting that reinforces SEL concepts like active listening and identifying emotions.
It is through these practices—not in spite of them—that virtues are taught. When children practice taking turns while speaking, they are learning patience. When they listen intently to a peer share a story during carpet time, they are learning empathy. When they identify their own negative emotions before erupting in a tantrum, they learn forbearance and moderation. And while some enviable children exhibit these character traits naturally, most need to be taught through explicit instruction. That means character education, and that means at least some versions of SEL.
Jennifer Frey has written extensively—and excellently—on the importance of character education. In a recent article, she writes, “From an early age [...] young children need to be exposed to stories that show them what good and bad characters are through plot that reveal the narrative dimension of their lives.” Frey is correct, and much of the SEL I led as a teacher began in texts like When Sophie Gets Angry, Big Al, and kid-friendly translations of Aesop’s fables. But the lessons rarely ended there. They were followed up with practice, practice, practice. Most children, especially young children, learn by doing. You can explain to children how to ride a bike, but they master it only when they hop on the seat and ride—and maybe fall once or twice and then get back up and ride some more. The same holds for empathy, courage, and perseverance.
Sure, one can point to examples of SEL gone awry and stories of teachers inserting their own political biases into classroom instruction. But we should not fall into what Nate Silver terms “nut picking”: singling out the worst or most offensive aspects of a group to discredit the whole. Properly understood and practiced, SEL is politically neutral because the children of Democrats and the children of Republicans both need to learn how to share crayons and use kind words. If an SEL lesson seems to be leading students to eventually vote a certain way, the teacher has crossed a line and parents are right to call it out. But these examples would be the “nuts” that fail to represent the whole.
Nor should SEL turn into “permission structure to downgrade the academic mission of schools.” As a teacher, I found that the time invested in SEL paid dividends later in the year. Children who cannot regulate their emotions, children who are in conflict with their peers, and children suffering from trauma won’t be doing much learning. In these cases, SEL makes academic learning possible, and teachers are courting disaster if they skip it. Talk to any teacher who has had a student suffer from abuse, neglect, or the death of a parent: A child in crisis is a child who is not ready to learn sight words or multiplication tables. Most children do not come to school as blank slates ready to receive knowledge. They bring with them the residue, good and bad, of their home lives, and this needs to be addressed by any teacher who cares enough to see it.
This does not diminish parents’ role in the development of children’s character. Surely, the family is the “little platoon” that is the foundation for society. Ms. Plemons is correct when she states that she is fulfilling a parent’s duty by teaching her children character. However, the family is not the entirety of society, and children have public facing lives in the same way adults do. The set of character traits that are introduced in the home need to be elaborated and developed for a larger sphere. Society is broad, diverse, and sometimes chaotic. The classroom, and by extension the school, is a natural place to develop these traits before children enter adulthood. It’s much easier to practice sharing and taking turns in a group of twenty-five than in a nation of 330 million.
Parents should not recoil from all forms of SEL. At the same time, those promoting SEL need to do a better job about engaging those parents. Families have a right and responsibility to know what’s being taught in the classroom. Teachers would do well to focus on the lessons that have buy-in from home, and perhaps avoid the squishier, New Age–inspired content around happiness and self-actualization.
Mostly, teachers just need to be explicit about which character traits they are teaching to students and be consistent with their follow-through. There’s even a time and place to teach edgier concepts like social justice, provided there is parental buy-in. (That’s easier to achieve in a school of choice, which should cause progressives to reconsider their opposition to charter schools.) When there is mutual trust, families and schools can work together to teach children the social skills required for success in school and life.
