Module 3

These are reflective questions. They may not be all relevant to you at the current stage of SEL planning and implementation you’re in, but it is helpful to go through them on your own. For ones that are currently relevant to you, reflect on them on your own dedicate time to discuss them with your SEL team. Flag questions you will reflect on and discuss as you move forward.Implementation is a social process. Because of this, we want to make sure that the relationships we build have a foundation of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and that all our implementation processes have equity embedded into them.

There are some general reflective questions related to equity you can ask yourself at any step in implementation.

• First set of questions

The first set of questions asks you to be critical of the evidence around the thing you want to implement (i.e., social-emotional learning).

• Second set of questions

The second set of reflective questions relates to people, and particularly the diversity and inclusion of people throughout implementation processes.

• Final set of questions

The final set of reflective questions relate to any decision point in your implementation process.

• Consider who benefits and who loses by making that decision.
• If someone experiences a loss, what is the magnitude of that loss and does it outweigh the magnitude of the benefit that might be experience by another party?

Action: These are reflective questions. They may not be all relevant to you at the current stage of SEL planning and implementation you’re in, but it is helpful to go through them on your own. For ones that are currently relevant to you, reflect on them on your own dedicate time to discuss them with your SEL team. Flag questions you will reflect on and discuss as you move forward.

• The role of power and trust in implementation

All implementation work is predicated on having relationships with other people. Spending the time thinking about cultivating trust and navigating power can set you up to have more transformative, equitable relationships and to move work forward.

There are three key elements that have to be in place for us to trust other people and for other people to trust us:

1. Competence – i.e., in a relationship, we believe in the other person’s skills and/or abilities and they believe in ours
2. Connection – i.e., in a relationship, we feel we have shared values and things that link us together
3. Authenticity – i.e., in a relationship, we think the other person is being transparent about who they are and why they’re at the table, and they think the same of us

There are four types of power:

1. Power over: your dominance over others and their dominance over you
2. Power with: lending each other power when collaborating to move work forward
3. Power to: lending power to others to move work forward
4. Power within: this is the power we have within ourselves based on the unique experiences and contributions we bring to the table. When you can identify your own power within and others’ power within, it can help you think differently about equity in relation to power.

Action: Think about your relationships with the other people you are working toward SEL implementation with and reflect on the level of trust and power and in these relationships. What is contributing to the current level of trust and power and how can you change these dynamics?