SEL Equity: Self-Management
As stated in previous posts, CASEL is working on an update of their SEL guidelines to reflect increased focus on equity and social justice. The primary focus in this change has to do with advocacy for anti-racism practices and taking cultural and racial components into account when giving SEL instruction. What they do not directly address, but needs to be included in the alterations of this and other models, is individuals with disabilities.
Two areas of interest here for our population are: stress management and coping skills, and collective agency.
Some stressors are universal, some particular to specific identities. Regardless of where students place their disability within their identity framework (see post on Self-Awareness) stressors will be ongoing. Access, expectations, and prejudices will be prevalent throughout their lives and environments. If we do not directly address these potential complications, we are setting our students up for failure. There is a plethora of stress management and coping techniques that can be made available in our work and for our students. What we must not forget, however, is the disability component. They need to know that there are specific stressors they will encounter from cradle to career that are particular to this element of their identity. That aspect must also be kept in mind when we are talking about adapting technique resources.
When working with students with visual impairments, there is a temptation to convert things to braille, simplify layout, magnify text, or digitize materials. Such approaches make the material accessible, but they don’t become meaningful. Depending on their additional identity aspects and the environment in which they live, students may not know about disability specific stressors. Our intent is never to drag them down and make them fear the hurdles, but to give them an idea ahead of time. Examples of stressors are vital in this approach. They can be taken from what we have seen, what adults have to relate, what other students have experienced, and any other reliable resources. The true necessity is to name stressors, to classify them, and then to cope.
Collective agency is one of the coping and empowerment techniques where students can gain strength and inspiration. When you were in school, did you learn anything about the movement to pass the ADA? The people who gathered for sit-ins and fought for equity in common spaces? There are many areas where our history books our lacking (some understandable, some grievous) but students must be aware of this battle for civil rights. It is a vital part of their history but also because it isn’t over. If it isn’t covered in their core classes we have a powerful tool — the Expanded Core Curriculum.
It is something I have said in previous posts and will no doubt say many more times — we have to adjust the ECC framework with the same diligence that organizations like CASEL are revising theirs. It may seem as though we have an edge since the ECC was designed with a specific population in mind. If you flip through existing checklists, lessons, and standards, how much relates to the battle for equity? The ECC was designed to explicitly teach students things that their peers are learning incidentally. If the disability rights movements are not addressed in their core curriculum classes, the ECC is the perfect place to show them what has come before, what people are capable of, and how they can participate in continued change, even if it is only on a personal or small environment level. Teachers are their to guide, but all of our guidance comes to naught if the students are not able to act for themselves.