Researchers, educators, parents, teachers and youth advocates across the country increasingly agree that learning and practicing social and emotional skills in tandem with academics is crucial to K-12 student success. That’s according to a report issued this week by The Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development.

Social and emotional skills include the ability to understand and regulate one’s emotions, practice compassion and develop healthy trusting relationships. There is growing consensus that those abilities — imparted through stand-alone activities and integrated into academic lessons through collaborations and project-based learning — are key to positive school climates.

A year or so into a two-year process, the commission concludes that social and emotional development is intertwined “in the brain and in behavior” with cognitive, linguistic and academic development and is equally central to “learning and success.”

Not surprisingly, it also points out that teachers and administrators need to work on their own social and emotional skills in order to impart them. Social and emotional development should also be woven into teacher training programs and professional development, the report said.

Read the full article about students social and emotional development by Lee Romney at EdSource.