Giving Compass' Take:

• Christina Riley explains how the curriculum she developed teaches students compassion and empathy alongside literacy.

• How can funders help spread this model? Are educators in your school system receiving the support they need to implement a program like this one? 

• Learn about measuring social and emotional learning


What specific social-emotional skills does the EL Education literacy curriculum teach?

Riley: The way that we look at social-emotional skills is through “habits of character.” We have three habits of character that we use in the curriculum: working to become effective learners, working to become ethical people and working to contribute to a better world. Within the bucket of “effective learning,” we have collaboration. Within “ethical people,” we have respect and compassion. In “contributing to a better world,” we have habits like applying learning to improve something in the community.

Can you talk about how you embed social-emotional learning skills into the curriculum?

We begin with the four Ts of instruction: topic, task, target, text. We think … what would be an engaging topic that would make [students] want to contribute to a better world? Then, what texts would help them to understand that topic, would inspire them and engage them? Then students can analyze characters’ or real figures’ reactions to situations to see how they responded and use those as models of their own behavior, or even as [bad] examples — “What happened with a character there — he exploded in a fit of rage. Did that get him what he wanted or needed?”

The students make a connection between what’s happened in their own lives or things that have happened to their families, and they have an emotional connection or reaction to that. So that’s a really good opportunity to help other students show empathy and respect, as students are reflecting and sharing on what they’re reading that might have some kind of connection to their own life. Students learn how to respond in a way that is supportive of the students in their class. … I do say we’re very cautious with it. … We give them the opportunity to share with other students should they wish to, but it’s not an expectation.

Read the full interview with Christina Riley about teaching compassion and empathy alongside literacy by Kate Stringer at The 74.