SOCIAL EMOTIONAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (SECD) STANDARDS
SUPPORT ALL!
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL COMPETENCIES (CASEL*)
* Self-awareness—accurately assessing one’s feelings, interests, values, and strengths;
maintaining a well-grounded sense of self-confidence
* Self-management—regulating one’s emotions to handle stress, control impulses, and
persevere in overcoming obstacles; setting and monitoring progress toward personal and
academic goals; expressing emotions appropriately
* Social awareness—being able to take the perspective of and empathize with others;
recognizing and appreciating individual and group similarities and differences; recognizing and
using family, school, and community resources
* Relationship skills—establishing and maintaining healthy and rewarding relationships based
on cooperation; resisting inappropriate social pressure; preventing, managing, and resolving
interpersonal conflict; seeking help when needed
* Responsible decision-making—making decisions based on consideration of ethical
standards, safety concerns, appropriate social norms, respect for others, and likely
consequences of various actions; applying decision-making skills to academic and social
situations; contributing to the well-being of one’s school and community
*Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, www.casel.org
11 PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE CHARACTER EDUCATION
The School:
1. Promotes core ethical and performance values as the foundation of good character.
2. Defines “character” comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and doing.
3. Uses a comprehensive, intentional, proactive and effective approach to character
development.
4. Creates a caring school community.
5. Provides students with opportunities for moral action.
6. Includes a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners,
develops their character, and helps them to succeed.
7. Strives to foster students’ self-motivation.
8. Engages the school staff as an ethical learning community that shares responsibility for
character education and adheres to the same core values that guide the students.
9. Fosters shared leadership and long-range support of the character education initiative.
10. Engages families and community members as partners in the character-building efforts.
11. Assesses its culture and climate, the functioning of its staff as character educators, and
the extent to which its students manifest good character
Character Education Partnership, Rev. 2010, http://www.character.org/
For more information about the development of the SECD Standards contact:
Sue Kidd, State School of Character Coordinator, skidd.kschared@gmail.com
Kent Reed, Counseling Program Consultant, kreed@ksde.org