How do you integrate a Leadership Curriculum into your existing Social Emotional Learning (SEL) framework?
In one sentence, a Curriculum Director from Georgia put it exactly like this: “I don’t need another program. I need this one to talk to the program I already have.” Her school was three years in the process of creating an SEL program and she did not want to lose that and that’s a stance any one of us would want to have! And the best way to do a social emotional learning and leadership curriculum is to build on top of what you have, not to abandon it.
In particular, find out the areas of overlap!
If you add an element of a program to an existing program, take the time to understand the existing program. Most SEL frameworks (like the CASEL framework that many schools use) focus on five areas of growth: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. iLead touches two of the five directly: self-awareness and responsible decision-making. That’s good for students who have had the experience of recognizing emotions and weighing consequences and are ready for the iLead curriculum. The leadership lessons are based on what your staff already teaches, in familiar language, and will be well received.
And to skip this first step is dangerous, because if “making good choices” is being taught in two slightly different ways, your staff will be confused. Name the overlap, and you have turned it into reinforcement.
In practice, that means looking at your existing SEL framework and the iLead curriculum and seeing how they work together. It is a short exercise (15 minutes at most) and you will see how you can cut down on redundant instructional time and how iLead can elaborate on a concept your SEL program already introduced.
Then Identify Where Leadership Goes Further
While identifying the areas of overlap is a vital exercise, it is much more exciting to think about how the iLead curriculum goes further than what your current SEL program covers. Here are three big ways that iLead can take what your students are learning and run with it:
Values Formation. Where SEL programs teach students to manage their emotions and to understand the feelings of other students, the iLead curriculum asks a more complicated question: ‘Given what you feel and value, who do you choose to be?’ This question prompts us to think about moral identity: the idea that right and wrong are internalized, so a person makes good decisions even when no one is watching. Emotional awareness doesn’t necessarily come with that, and the moral identity developed in iLead can equip students with the fortitude to make good decisions when it’s tough.
Peer-led Facilitation. While most SEL programs are designed to be taught by adults to students, iLead is intended to be facilitated by students, with older students guiding younger ones. That’s not a preference for delivery. It is how leadership actually develops, because you don’t simply teach them leadership by talking about it. It is a very different instructional model and needs a plan for who facilitates, how they are trained and supported.
Service Orientation. While many SEL programs will give students the tools to learn responsible decision making by thinking about what the consequences of their actions will be, the iLead curriculum will help students apply that to the real world. Good decision making is critical, but service orientation is about taking that lesson and putting it into action for others.
A Practical Integration Model
You do not need to devote a certain time to incorporating a leadership curriculum into an SEL framework, because you can take advantage of natural SEL learning times.
Advisory Period. If your school has an Advisory period in which students are taught social emotional learning, you can implement the peer-led modules of iLead in that same block of time on an alternating week basis. Students who already have an emotional vocabulary from advisory can build on it in the iLead lessons, where they can apply their SEL skills to leadership challenges.
CTE and Elective Tracks. Schools with career and technical education tracks have found that iLead’s focus on real-world applications is suitable for project-based CTE classes, so students can apply their leadership skills to an existing curriculum.
After-School Clubs. Since iLead is peer-facilitated, one of the easiest ways to begin embedding it into an SEL framework is to encourage student leaders to run after-school clubs with their peers.
Staff Training. One of the most important things your staff can do is be able to explain, in one sentence, how the iLead curriculum extends the SEL program they are using. Make sure that your first staff training is focused on the mapping-out exercise rather than a deep dive into the curriculum itself.
What Success Looks Like
The success of integrating an SEL program and a leadership curriculum does not mean that they need to have two programs or that they need to work on it at the same time, but rather one coherent arc in which students develop a sense of who they are and who they want to be. Your SEL program will teach students self-awareness and responsible decision-making skills, and iLead will help them learn to think and act morally and develop leadership skills. What teachers will do is to build on what they have built. iLead is not meant to replace an SEL program; it’s for students to take what they’ve learned and apply it to the work.
The result is a stronger culture and deeper engagement. SEL programs give students something to engage with, and leadership programs give them a reason to engage with it.
Building the Bridge at Your School
And for a curriculum director who wants to connect a leadership curriculum to an existing SEL curriculum, there is no need to choose between the two or start from square one. iLead is designed to enhance what your school’s SEL curriculum is doing already, and it turns basic SEL concepts into opportunities for values formation, peer-led facilitation, and real-world applications.
To learn how Growing Leaders Elementary, Middle School, and High School curricula can be used to enhance your program, visit growingleaders.com and build character that sticks with what you have already built!
