Promoting the Social and Emotional Learning of Millions of School Children

This brief article describes how I have applied my knowledge, skills, and dispositions as a psychological scientist to help make the world a better place for children and youth. Over the last 40 years, I have collaborated with hundreds of researchers and practitioners to advance social and emotional learning (SEL) research, practice, and policy. Our long-term goal is to help make evidence-based SEL an essential part of preschool to high school education. Many countries, states, and districts now support quality implementation of systemic SEL in schools. I highlight a few challenges of doing this work and why it has been meaningful to me. I reflect on what I might do differently if I were to do this work again. Most important, I would spend more time in schools, central offices, and state departments of education so my research would be influenced even more by the realities of everyday practice.