Remembering Two Who Brought Us to SEL

My View

Most of us enter the field of education with the intention of helping others, of making the world a better place. However, a few individuals so greatly exceed that benchmark that the rest of us can only stand in awe of their reach and their accomplishments.

We lost two such leaders in recent months: Eric Schaps and Roger Weissberg. While the world is made poorer by their untimely passing, it is also far richer for their contributions during lives of service. Perhaps you, as I, knew these men personally. Perhaps you only read about their work in professional journals. Or perhaps, even now, you do not recognize their names. Still, I venture their work has made your world a better place, thus deserving this tribute to their lives.

Schaps was the founder (in 1981) and president of the Developmental Studies Center (now the Center for the Collaborative Classroom). Weissberg was a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and founder (in 1994) of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, or CASEL. Tackling similar issues through different organizations, they provided the foundational research, program development and organizational leadership that launched social-emotional learning into a national movement.