SEL Equity: Social Awareness
Looking at better ECC instruction through the new CASEL draft promoting equity in the social awareness category is vital at any time but especially appropriate as we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the passage of the American with Disabilities Act. Why? Because the draft examples include perspective-taking, empathy, and belonging.
As with our other discussions about identity and the role of a visual impairment in each individual’s identity shaping, their placement within the wider society is an inescapable component. All students need to learn about their place in the world, not in the vein of an established hierarchy but as pertains to their rights as a human being within society. In direct instruction, placement in society should be pursued in two ways: exploration and encouragement.
After two long posts in this series, and a good deal of repetition, I’ll try to keep this brief and whittled down to a list of proposed practices:
Tell them, strongly and frequently, that they are important facets of the world and deserve to be treated as such. Be specific. The purpose is not to pat them on the back just for existing, but to give concrete points.
At the beginning of the lesson, discuss what they have done within their school or community environment since you last met. If this is a new practice, be prepared to come up with some examples to prompt them. It can be as simple as walking down the hall without assistance or asking for help when necessary, anything that can get the juices flowing.
Teach lessons about opportunities their predecessors didn’t have. The purpose is not sadness or pity or being grateful, but showing how they are participating citizens at whatever level possible. Going to school, spending time with different types of peers, and accessing information through large print or braille materials are pathways of equity that are relatively recent. The tools and opportunities are not just proof that things are improving, but also proof that they belong.
Explore the wide scope of the visually impaired community. As a teacher, how often have people presumed that all of your students have no light perception and read braille? That’s such a small percentage! We want kids to know about their visual impairment and some level of understanding of the wide net of visual impairments need to be pursued as well. All facets of physical and processing characteristics are part of the identity and the development of any hierarchy within the group only serves to fuel established discrimination.
Pity is not an option. Students should never be shamed for expressing and/or experiencing pity for themselves or others, but we need to use our collective might to expose its lack of validity. Help them to step back, take perspective of the situation and see the ways that they deserve equitable treatment not because of who they are but for what they do.
More than any other area, this process cannot stop. Empathy, perspective, and belonging have to be taught and reinforced with every interaction from first meeting until last with a fervor that will help them spread the same concepts to each person they meet.