Social and Emotional Education in a Community

The selection below is from a blog post by author Sam Chaltain (I've put the link to his blog below).  It inspired me to think about how we as an educational community structure social and emotional education at Blair.  While we regularly talk about this type of education as a strength of the school, there is little conversation about how this education is actually provided, other than through the "process" of Blair life.  Should we be looking at a more curriculum based approach to educating the whole student at Blair?  Are there are methodologies already developed out there in the world that would help us engineer more formal opportunities for social and emotional education in our dorms, our school meetings, our chapels, our dining hall and our classrooms?  How can we maintain a conversation about this issue at Blair?

The good news is that our historically myopic view of schools as knowledge factories is starting to fade away, and public voices like Brooks and Tough are helping to promote a more holistic view of education to a wider audience of Americans. The bad news is that too many public voices are continuing to overlook a body of research and evidence-based practices that schools can rely on right now to transform their learning environments.  Across the entirety of his new book, for example, Tough cites copious research studies and school-based programs – yet not once does he reference the expansive field – social and emotional learning, or SEL – that has, for twenty years, been at the forefront of researching how schools can apply the science of learning in ways that will deepen, not diminish, the art of teaching. (Sam Chaltain)

Links that may prove relevant to the discussion:
Sam Chaltain's full blogpost
The Ruler Approach
Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life
Yale's Health, Emotion, and Behavioral Laboratory
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
Responsive Classrooms