Woke in the WELS: More SEL at the MN District Lutheran Teachers' Conference

 MN District Lutheran Teachers' Conference Agenda

More Social and Emotional Learning in the WELS: Three speakers at the MN District Lutheran Teachers' Conference have SEL in their bio's and agendas.

First up is keynote speaker Kayte Gut. Ms. Gut's work was previously referenced regarding implementing SEL into WELS Early Childhood Ministries (ECMs). Her bio shares that

"In 2020, she received her master's degree from MLC in educational administration with a focus on early childhood programs. She wrote her thesis on social and emotional education in WELS early childhood programs, highlighting the importance and impact social and emotional education has on the children in our WELS ECMs."

Next we have Paul Bernabei, co-owner of Top 20 Training. Their tagline? "A Social and Emotional Learning Company" 

Finally we have Dr. Rhoda Wolle who is advertising her Christ-centered SEL curriculum, "Thrive Time." Rhoda is a product of the WELS and spent 14 years as a director and then a dean at Wisconsin Lutheran College and is currently VP of Organizational Development at WELS Kingdom Workers. 

We've previously discussed at a high level the issues with social and emotional learning. SEL hijacks the traditional reading-writing-arithmetic to impart social and emotional values on our children 'beyond the text'. For instance,

An excellent resource we referred to earlier is CourageisaHabit.org: actionable tools for parents to defend their children against SEL. As James Lindsay has stated, SEL is "practicing psychology without a license" and should be illegal.