Group Urges Parents to Fight to Remove Social Emotional Learning From Classrooms

Jennifer Pippin, president of the Indian River County chapter of Moms for freedom, attends Jacqueline Rosario's campaign event in Vero Beach, Fla. on Oct. 16, 2022. Rosario's candidacy for re-election to a school board was supported by "Moms for Liberty.” Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images

A new resource from Moms for Liberty helps parents who want to keep “antiracism” training and other politically charged social justice topics out of their children’s classrooms.

The new guide tells how schools use Social Emotional Learning (SEL) to weave left-wing ideology into teaching, often in unrelated classes, such as math.

Parents can access the free guide to spotting SEL on the Moms for Liberty website.

Critics say SEL peddles critical race theory (CRT) as a way to navigate emotions. CRT stems from Marxist teachings of critical theory and paints most of what goes on in society as dominated by a power struggle between the race of the oppressor and that of the oppressed.

It’s the theory that propels Black Lives Matter and demonizes the country’s Founding Fathers.

The 110,000-member parents’ group also is pushing participation in the Moms for Libraries program. That effort places in schools books that teach civics, history, and “American values” to “benefit present and future generations,” the group says.

Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, helped present "The Liberty Sword" to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during the organization's Joyful Warriors National Summit in July 2022 in Tampa. Courtesy of Moms for Liberty

In 2022, Moms for Liberty donated more than 6,740 children’s books to schools and has given 75,000 pocket versions of the U.S. Constitution to classrooms.

“This is the start of the parent revolution,” Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice told The Epoch Times.

Justice helped start the parental rights activism group in 2021. In just two years, the parent-driven organization has launched more than 260 local chapters nationwide in 43 states.

In the recent midterm elections, members’ campaign efforts helped shift the balance of power on at least 56 school boards from having a majority of members pushing left-leaning views to having a majority of conservatives making policies for schools.

And 50 percent of the candidates supported by members for school board seats nationwide won their bids for office, as previously reported.

The group’s efforts helped elect 272 school board candidates who campaigned on a platform of supporting parental rights.

Arming Parents With Knowledge

Now the group is focused on helping arm parents with knowledge about spotting SEL in schools and coaching them on how to get those ideas removed from the classroom.

“The people in control of education, continue to sell snake oil solutions—like DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and CRT and SEL—instead of focusing on the real issue at hand, which is kids are not learning to read in school,” Justice said.

Schools today fail in their core mission, then compensate with political platitudes, she added.

Not everyone agrees.

The Victory Group, a left-wing activist organization dedicated to electing “members of the LGBT community,” calls Moms for Liberty “bigoted fear-mongering masquerading as parental power.”

It says Moms for Liberty uses “homophobic dog whistles” to stop the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity to children.

And some experts argue students need to learn CRT because it reveals the truth about American history.

People protest critical race theory in schools outside the Loudoun County Government center in Leesburg, Va., on June 12, 2021.  Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

“CRT recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation,” wrote Janel George, an associate professor of law at Georgetown University, for the American Bar Association.

Recent political fights over how schools teach children have created an ever-changing debris field of terms.

Some say those who promote this ideology are “woke,” a term that used to be considered positive for those promoting left-wing policies and thoughts.

The term “woke” suggests that someone has been “awakened to the fact” that people are oppressed for characteristics such as race, sex, class, or gender identity.

Conservatives now use “woke” as a term of derision for their political opposites.

A mother and daughter show they oppose school curriculums that indoctrinate children with radical "woke" ideology during a Moms for Liberty rally in Troy, Mich. on Oct. 14, 2022. Steven Kovac/The Epoch Times

In some states and communities, conservative leaders have banned the teaching of CRT, as previously reported.

To counter those moves, some schools began teaching the material under the name of SEL.

To call attention to the switch, Moms for Liberty has put together a Social Emotional Learning Guide for Parents.

In the guide, Moms for Liberty argues that SEL programs indoctrinate children into left-wing ideology, and the guide tells parents how to combat it.

Ideological Persuasion

“Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is an educational method that focuses on emotions, identities, and ideological persuasion,” Moms for Liberty writes in its guide.

Credited for the development of SEL is The Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). The organization is dedicated to the spread of SEL.

According to CASEL’s definition, SEL is “the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.”

Both CASEL and Moms for Liberty agree that SEL revolves around a framework with five “core competencies:” self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness.

CASEL’s website says equity is “essential” to SEL’s framework and “refers to every student—across race, ethnicity, family income levels, learning abilities, home language, immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other factors.”

President Joe Biden prepares to sign executive orders related to his racial equity agenda in the White House in Washington on Jan. 26, 2021. Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images

Moms for Liberty argues SEL uses its framework to “shift the values, beliefs, attitudes, and worldviews of students.

“The goal is to psychologically manipulate students to accept the progressive ideology that supports gender fluidity, sexual preference exploration, and systemic oppression.”

By 2016, most public schools had SEL curriculum, the Moms for Liberty guide reads. But in 2020, CASEL updated its definitions for SEL, according to the parental rights group.

CASEL’s new definition pointed to “inequity” as a severe problem. Equity means that every racial group should have the same outcomes, a CASEL teacher workshop video on SEL explains.

For instance, if African Americans get more suspensions on average than white American students, it isn’t equitable, a teacher in the video said.

Goals of Emotional Learning

Moms for Liberty’s guide explains how SEL focuses on teaching radical gender ideology. Its guide argues that SEL redefines the phrases “self-awareness,” “self-management,” “responsible decision-making,” “relationship skills,” and “social awareness.”

In SEL, “self-awareness” means being aware of one’s race, gender, and socioeconomic status, the Moms for Liberty guide advises. SEL asks students to see themselves as privileged or oppressed from their identities.

“Self-management,” in SEL teaching, suggests using mental exercises to “control” emotions to “transition to a new set of social norms,” it states.

“Responsible decision-making,” in SEL terms, means making decisions “based solely on if your identity qualifies as privileged or oppressed and what is best for the group (collective) priorities,” it states.

‘New Consciousness’

The “Relationship Skills” children are advised to strengthen involve forcing children into relationships with people they disagree with because of the idea that the “mob rules,” Moms for Liberty’s guide reads.

And the “social awareness” teachings of SEL put children on the road to becoming anti-American social justice warriors, the group says in its guide.

Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a pro-parental rights organization. Courtesy of Moms for Liberty

By using these categories, SEL intends to “create a new consciousness” in children, so they believe in critical race theory, Moms for Liberty argues.

“SEL transformed the entire education system around CRT as objective truth [not theory],” the Moms for Liberty guide reads.

Parental rights activist Alvin Lui blames the trend for the tide of children’s books flowing into schools that promote “obscenity” and a wide range of sexual orientations.

“Why is it that we’re only seeing the influx of these horrible books over the last three or four years?” he asked in an interview with The Epoch Times.

“They’re using [SEL] as a cover to say, ‘Kids need to be represented. If they don’t feel represented, they can’t learn.’”

If all kids need representation, SEL supporters can justify bringing in books on any topic by saying a child might have an experience like the one the book describes, Lui said. That’s how SEL supporters gain acceptance for books for children on transgenderism and LGBT topics.

Some experts say exposing children to these topics often causes confusion and depression, and should be considered child abuse.

California state Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond reads from the LGBT book "Red: A Crayon's Story" to second-grade students at Nystrom Elementary School in Richmond, Calif., on May 17, 2022. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Moms for Liberty guide advises parents on how to fight this system in several ways.

Parents can explain the real meaning behind SEL language to people who don’t understand the term. They also can research and expose the SEL programs currently in use in their schools by asking to review the curriculum. And they can attend school board meetings to ask for a halt to the expansion of SEL programs, the guide suggests.

As parents have learned public schools sizzle with political radicalism, they’ve leaped to retake control, Justice told The Epoch Times.

“If the fundamental right of the parent to their child is ignored by the government, we are facing a very bleak future for America,” Justice said.  “These are our children that attend these schools.”

The Epoch Times attempted to contact CASEL for this story, but the organization didn’t respond by press time.

Nanette Holt contributed to this report.