SEL Day Banner created by Burcu Vardarli (RU’21).
On March 26, 2021, the SECD Lab celebrated the second International Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Day.
The aim of each year’s annual International SEL Day is to mobilize educators, practitioners, researchers, and students to spread awareness about the benefits of SEL to people around the world, and provided the SECD Lab with an opportunity to showcase important strategies to help build positive school climate and social-emotional skills in students.
Where did International SEL Day come from?
SEL Day is an international social media campaign led by Urban Assembly and The Social Emotional Learning Alliance (SEL4US). In its first year (2020), International SEL Day raised awareness for SEL with two million people in five hundred schools, districts, and organizations across all 50 U.S. states and 35 countries. This year, #SELday did even better - reaching even more people, and was the #8 trending hashtag on Twitter!
Click the above image to check out an inspiring Youth Nation blog post by Deja Bonney (UA Bronx Academy of Letters, Class of '21), portraying a positive narrative for the graduating class of 2021!
Teamwork and Talent from the SECD Lab
This year, many members of the SECD Lab team worked together to make the 2021 #SELday a huge success, with representation from multiple projects and with many creative efforts and skillsets, including posting on social media, videography, translation into different languages, blogging, Twitter chats, and even podcast creation!
Dr. Maurice Elias joins Mallika Verghese (RU’22) and John Khalil (RU’21) from the SECD Lab social media team to promote International SEL Day by highlighting the importance of implementing SECD skills in schools. Click the picture above to listen to our SEL Day podcast!
Reaching Wider Audiences
The SECD Lab acknowledges that utilizing different forms of media increases our dissemination efforts; therefore, this year, the team created a podcast, and started a new initiative of translating posts into Spanish to reach a larger audience. However, we know that the importance of social-emotional learning does not end with SEL Day, and will continue to work hard to improve the lives of students using our platforms the other 364 days of the year (until SEL Day 2022!)
““The reason these children are ultimately going to want to learn SEL skills is because they believe they can do good in the world...””
The SECD Lab uses platforms such as TikTok (created by Charles Gravina, RU’22), to highlight important SEL skills for relationship building - such as active listening, communication, and conflict resolution through emulation!
Click the above image to view the SECD Lab 2021 SEL Day Video!
Kriti Jain (RU’21) of the SECD Lab prepared an amazing video illustrating CASEL’s 5 core SEL competencies: Self Awareness, Social Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision Making!
(Instagram post and Twitter chat images by Alexa Santana Ruperti, RU’22.)
In honor of SEL Day, the SECD Lab also participated in several Twitter chats. Check out some of our posts below!
2021 SEL Day Recognized by US Congress
Congressman @timryanoh and his hard working team has recognized International #SELDay in the Congressional Record!
Check out our SEL Day posts available in both English and Spanish (Created by Charles Gravina, RU’22; translated by Sofia Madrid, RU’21).