How ‘Social and Emotional Learning’ Became the Newest Battleground in the Classroom Wars

Wendy Turner sees social and emotional learning as central to everything she does in her classroom, from how she welcomes her second-graders each morning to how she guides them through math activities.

"It's the base layer of education," says Turner, a teacher at Mount Pleasant Elementary School in Wilmington, Del., who was named Delaware's Teacher of the Year in 2017.