Administrators often require educators to implement social-emotional learning (SEL) in schools, libraries, camp programs, and wherever children exist. But I argue that institutions are causing harm by not understanding the meaning of “social-emotional learning" and by not supporting effective implementation methods.

In 2013, social work colleagues and I were placed at a predominantly Black school in the Bronx school, tasked with implementing a curriculum by an education department of an Ivy League institution. This sounded good to me—it was great to have it all done for us. They even sent us multiple copies of the books we would read for each lesson.

The lessons included learning objectives, feelings check-ins, activities, discussion questions, outcomes, and a closing activity with takeaways. It was incredibly helpful. I did not have to come up with and prepare entire hour-long lessons of life skills material. I could focus on my teaching style—as a social worker, I wasn’t used to being in front of a classroom of 25 children, so having these lessons made it a bit easier.

The curriculum even had characters and vocabulary that........

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