To teach the whole child, a new report says, it’s best for teachers to braid academics together with social-emotional learning.

“The promotion of social, emotional, and academic learning is not a shifting educational fad; it is the substance of education itself,” the report says, adding, “Social, emotional, and academic skills are all essential to success in school, careers, and in life, and they can be effectively learned in the context of trusted ties to caring and competent adults.”

Released by the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, the report — “From a Nation at Risk to a Nation at Hope” — looks at its 36-year-old predecessor, a report called a “Nation at Risk,” and provides a “a more hopeful assessment” of education in the United States.

Drawing on the work of experts — notably Stephanie Jones, a Harvard Graduate School of Education professor who is also part of Harvard’s Zaentz Initiative — the report “offers a blueprint for how schools and communities can… act on what we know about how people grow and develop,” a news release explains.

There are, the report says, common ingredients for successfully incorporating social emotional learning in children’s education, including:

• intentionally teaching students social, emotional, and cognitive skills

• asking students to use these skills “as they learn academic content and in their interaction with peers and adults throughout the day,” and

• providing students with “equitable access to learning environments that are physically and emotionally safe and feature meaningful relationships among and between adults and students”

To do this work, schools should not go it alone.

“Youth development organizations, businesses, libraries, museums, civic and social groups, and faith-based groups are critical preK-12 partners. Organizations like 4-H, Scouts, YMCA, Special Olympics, and Boys and Girls Clubs have affiliates in most communities.”

These and other organizations “provide extracurricular activities, enrichment, and development opportunities before and after school and during the summer; character development; and volunteer and internship experiences. If engaged fully and creatively, they can extend learning time and expand learning choices for children and youth. They can play an essential role in galvanizing community commitment to integrating social, emotional, and academic development across learning settings, from the periphery to the mainstream of American education.”

The report also includes six recommendations for accelerating state and local efforts. These are:

1. “Set a clear vision that broadens the definition of student success to prioritize the whole child.” This begins with “articulating the social, emotional, and academic knowledge and skills that high school graduates need to be prepared for success in school, the workforce, and life.”

2. “Transform learning settings so they are safe and supportive for all young people.” These settings should be physically and emotionally safe, and they should “foster strong bonds among children and adults.”

3. “Change instruction to teach students social, emotional, and cognitive skills,” and “embed these skills in academics and schoolwide practices,” from recess and lunchrooms to hallways and extracurricular activities

4. “Build adult expertise in child development,” which will “require major changes in educator preparation and in ongoing professional support for the social and emotional learning of teachers and all other adults who work with young people.”

5. “Align resources and leverage partners in the community to address the whole child,” including “partnerships between schools, families, and community organizations…”

6. “Forge closer connections between research and practice by shifting the paradigm for how research gets done. Bridge the divide between scholarly research and what’s actionable in schools and classrooms. Build new structures—and new support—for researchers and educators to work collaboratively and bi-directionally on pressing local problems…”

“…these changes are not simple or easy,” the report says. “To make meaningful progress, districts and schools, in partnership with their communities, must embrace a process for change and improvement that is comprehensive, long-term, and can support the transformations in instruction, curriculum, teacher preparation, and school climate and culture that we seek.”

Delving into the theme of hope, the report concludes:

“We must come together now and act on our collective hope. Opportunities create responsibilities. And we are all responsible—all of us who interact with students and all of us who care about students—for an approach to learning that touches and challenges the whole child.”

“Together, we can change learning in America. We can write a new American narrative that lifts and binds together the exciting chapters being written today in schools and communities across the country.”