In Germany, there has been a strong interest in social emotional learning (SEL) for recent years. Especially special education in the focus on emotional and social development and the discipline of pedagogy for behavioral disorders support the introduction of social emotional learning (SEL).
The SWPBS (School Wide Positive Behaviour Support) is often used as a framework to implement SEL.
A stronger focus on evidence-based pedagogical research and practice also supports the awareness and implementation of SEL in Germany.
Currently, about 20% of all children and adolescents have characteristics of problems in the area of behavior At the same time, however, the rate of students with increased special educational needs is only 4.8%. In order to adequately address the undiscovered and misinterpreted problems, preventive models are of central importance against this background.
In Switzerland, we are beginning to anchor SEL more firmly in the Swiss education system, especially in the pedagogy of social-emotional development. We are working on this at the University of Applied Sciences for Special Education in Zurich.
Our institute has derived three strategic focal points (I) subject, normative foundations and scope of social-emotional and psychomotor development promotion, (II) diagnostics in the field of behavior, social-emotional and psychomotor development as well as (III) evidence-based multimodal social emotional learning (SEL) and implementation of SWPBS and demonstrated in the development of the institute.
Ensuring the learning, performance and personality development of pupils is the central concern of school education. A key factor for achieving the goals are the interdisciplinary competences, as they are formulated in the Swiss Curriculum 21 (Lehrplan21 - LP21. A promising approach to the explicit promotion of these skills is social-emotional learning. Internationally, this refers to programs that address the promotion of five interconnected groups of cognitive, affective and behavioral skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship competence and responsible decision-making.
As far as I know, there are experiences of this kind of education in refugee camps where teachers must make do with what they have to serve students who have a variety of social and emotional needs, as well as the pressure to keep up with their academic work and avoid falling behind in class, due to inadequate resources. But I hope that such experiences will be adopted in our schools as well, because it may be useful in terms of making the children more able to communicate, solve problems and interact with the teachers... My sincere gratitude to all.