End SEL
Since our country’s inception, Americans have elevated education as bedrock to the foundation of a free society. Rightfully so, as ideas set forth in the Enlightenment by luminaries like Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke have led humanity from the age of kings and tyrants, to flourishing democracies across the globe.
We maintain that vision today, both nationally and here in Massachusetts, with annual education expenditures totaling almost $19 billion. The priority Massachusetts places on education is a lynchpin to what makes it attractive to live here.
However, in spite of the massive financial support we provide to our education system, the system is actively unraveling the concepts that brought it into existence. Exposed by Covid lockdowns, parents have become aware of aspects in curriculum that appear to run counter to [l]iberal values.
For a society to flourish, it must be unified. Civilizations across time have largely been unified by culture and land, the “blood and soil” rhetoric we see in modern political movements in Europe. America is different in that we are unified by an idea, the rights of the individual.
Eating away at our unification is a cancerous program called SEL (Social and Emotional Learning). In SEL curriculum, students from K-12 are required to examine the cosmetic differences in their’s and others’ appearance. Consistent emphasis is placed on racial, ethnic, and gender categorization. The prima facie reasoning behind this practice is to teach “empathy and kindness.” A noble effort indeed, but extremely misguided.
As implemented, SEL has two fundamental problems. First, beyond the curriculum itself, the teacher executing it is tasked with either putting aside their bias, or in many cases interjecting their own activist agenda. Second — and more importantly — SEL’s focus on categorical and demographic differences runs counter to the crucial social cohesion necessary to move past seeing others as a mere bundle of characteristics.
This flaw cannot be overcome and is inherent in the SEL design.
Perhaps in another era we would be able to discuss education policy rationally, absent emotional, partisan bickering. Unfortunately, we live in 2023 where everything is loud, poorly thought out, and has to fit into 280 characters. However, there is reason for hope and it comes in the form of well known liberals who are willing to express a heterodox opinion against policy and the culture itself. Comedian Bill Maher has lambasted the injection of “woke” ideology in schools and Jonathan Haidt has been exemplary in his analysis of the derivations of this recent phenomena.
Politically, this issue was brought to light as millions of students were forced to learn from home during the Covid lockdowns. Parents were able to see first hand what their children were being exposed to. The resulting uptick in competitive races for school boards nationwide was perhaps the first counter attack on this front of the culture war.
From there we saw an electoral victory by Governor Glenn Youngkin, running on an education reform platform, in Virginia where President Biden won a year before by 10 points. Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida signed into law “Parent’s Bill of Rights” legislation garnering both praise from supporters and ire from opponents who falsely maligned the law as “don’t say gay.”
It remains to be seen if proactive legislation in the mold of a Parent’s Bill of Rights, or reactive steps to remove SEL from curriculum are the most effective. Regardless of the methodology of these efforts, they have yielded reelection in the case of DeSantis and high education policy approval in the case of Youngkin.
Unfortunately, in Massachusetts there is little appetite to address the problems in Social and Emotional Learning. With a Democrat supermajority controlling both chambers on Beacon Hill and a Democrat in the Governor’s office, there is even less ability to do anything about it.
SEL taps into the primal instincts of human beings. The instincts that run counter to the philosophies that advance human civilization. The othering of groups foreign to us draws from milenia of tribal warfare and regional strife. To extricate it from culture is a massive undertaking, one that has seen amazing progress over the last two hundred years, especially when compared to the previous two thousand.
If SEL sets out to not divide, it divides nonetheless. Social and Emotional Learning curriculum is a new concept. We have flourished for generations without it and will do so again upon its removal. The entire citizenry of Massachusetts would be well served to return to the concepts and ideas that have made us the gold standard for education for decades, not the broken belief that exploiting our baser impulses will yield the same.
