What are some of the obstacles to implementing social and emotional learning in schools?
In our book, Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines to Educators, we made a list of obstacles that people throw out to prevent social and emotional learning from coming along. And there are three types of obstacles. The first one is, we don’t have time. We don’t have time, our curriculum is so crowded, it’s so crowded. And to that we respond much the same way as you would expect a physician to respond. So when a new cure comes along and the physician has to learn it, how would we like a physician to respond by saying, “I’m too busy. I can’t really learn the new cure.” Well, it’s ridiculous. In a profession, you have to learn what you have to learn; you have to do what you have to do. So you have to make time for social and emotional learning if it’s essential. The next set of objections that comes along is, it’s not the school’s job. The parents should be doing it. To which my response is well, perhaps that’s true, but are the parents doing it? To which the answer is no, t
