A high school student is promoting a module — Social and Emotional Learning — to help his peers manage an uncertain world marked with an increasing lack of empathy.
“Some of the attacks on empathy and basic skills that we hold true are coming from the very top,” said SEL promoter and developer Krish Butani in an interview with Ethnic Media Services. “It’s especially important to have SEL to combat that. We’re doing that from the ground, to sort of stop it from spreading.”
“My goal with SEL is to foster community; that is the defense against these attacks,” said Butani, a junior at the Khan Lab School in Mountain View, California. Butani and Dr. Anabel Jensen, president of Six Seconds, have teamed up to host a free online webinar March 8: “Letters Across Time: Advice to Your Past & Future Self.” Butani describes the workshop as “a discourse about what we can tell our future and past selves.”
Boosting Mental Wellness
Developed in 1987 by Timothy Shriver and Dr. Roger P. Weissberg, SEL is an introspective process of developing essential skills for understanding and managing emotions, creating and maintaining positive relationships, and practicing accountability and responsibility, said Butani. It can also boost academic and professional success and promote mental wellness, he said.
“These skills certainly show up everywhere. You’re always going to need to understand yourself, to work with other people, take accountability, be responsible, manage yourself and practice executive functioning,” said Butani.
The beginning of March marks National SEL Week, commenced by International SEL Day on March 3rd.
Life In An Anxious World
In the US, an increasing lack of empathy is demonstrated by the actions of our current administration: the reversal of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, the minimization of the Education Department, as well as aggressive anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-feminist sentiment and policies.
The National Institutes of Health cites political uncertainty as a contributing factor to growing rates of anxiety among young people worldwide. According to an NIH study, “The prevalence of anxiety among adolescents has seen a notable increase in recent years, becoming a significant public health concern” and “over 50% of children have anxiety about at least one political issue.”
Butani was first introduced to SEL in middle school, where the process was baked into the curriculum and implemented by trained teachers. He found the practice of mindfulness to be powerful, carrying the experience with him and ultimately becoming an SEL promoter and developer just before 10th grade.
Isolation
The young innovator held a summer camp, using board games to impart SEL skills onto a group of elementary school kids. According to teachers, these simple activities resulted in drastic improvement for these students. One 8 year-old student would never participate in class, physically facing away from the front, always isolated. Butani engaged with him, opening him up through these games.
Towards the end, the student became highly interactive and far more collaborative in the classroom environment, even offering to help his peers. A “night and day difference,” noted Butani.
In addition to this upcoming workshop, Butani is working to promote SEL by creating a curriculum for his current high school. With his head of school, who he brought onto the project, he is creating workshops for 9th, 10th, and 11th graders. Each group focuses on a different aspect of SEL: 9th graders learn impulse control and 11th graders learn life skills, for example. The model is based on peer to peer engagement: 12th graders will teach these workshops, strengthening SEL skills through instruction.
In the future, Butani hopes to bring this curriculum to other schools, intending to use roleplaying games to integrate SEL skills. He emphasized the importance of developing these skills early on, but noted it is never too late to start.
