Social emotional learning (SEL) is the newest curriculum that education experts have warned is spreading through the American public school system. Although not as blatantly anti-white as CRT, it isn’t any less concerning for parents.
SEL is often described as a euphemism for CRT, which has become a contentious issue among teachers, parents, and politicians worried about the state of America’s public schools. According to education specialists interviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation, educators are teaching gender ideology and racial essentialism under the guise of SEL.
“It’s a debate of linguistic nuances,” said Jennifer McWilliams, a parental rights consultant. SEL is an umbrella phrase that left-wing ideas are implemented under, according to her.
“They’re teaching these children to destroy our country,” McWilliams explained. “The Critical Race Theory is the underlying ideology, but Social Emotional Learning is the method through which it’s implemented through our K through 12 schools.”
The idea that white people are inherently racist has been a long-held belief among the Left. It teaches people to perceive every social encounter and person through the prism of race, regardless of whether or not this is true. Its followers pursue “anti-racism” via the use of race as a criteria for determining eligibility for government programs and other racial preferences
The Heritage Foundation’s Jonathan Butcher, told TheDCNF that SEL injects ideas “very neatly into somewhat vague issues of social interactions and feelings by using really nice words that seem innocent until you understand what they truly imply.”
Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, agreed, telling TheDCNF that the language used is frequently “unobjectionable,” because everyone desires their children to have a decent mental health and social skills. However, having looked at the materials carefully, SEL employs the same jargon as CRT.
“It’s psychological manipulation of our children to agree with critical race theorists… (and) our country will be unable to stand when it happens at scale,” McWilliams added.
