SEL Tuesdays are a new implementation at Waubonsie Valley this school year that carve out twenty minutes about every other Tuesday to discuss social and emotional learning. Though the lessons have good intentions, they aren't useful to the students and are a waste of time. On SEL Tuesdays, topics like collaboration, gratitude, respect, responsibility, and hard work are discussed. These are very valuable life lessons, but I and many other students at Waubonsie, find these topics to be quite boring, and very elementary.

For example, a few weeks ago students had to sit through a twenty minute lesson on how to use Google Drive. The lesson was pointless because high school students have been using Google Drive every day for years. High school students also definitely don't need to have lessons about showing kindness and being responsible, when we learned these basic terms as first graders. My class personally doesn't even participate because the lessons don't teach us anything, so the teachers being forced to teach them aren't getting much out of it either. Not to mention having three different bell schedules to follow in a school week gets confusing. Yes, it's only twenty minutes of the day, but just think about the many other things that can be accomplished in those twenty minutes. Student's can finish a homework assignment, study for a test they have next period, converse with their peers, or even take a quick nap.

There are so many ways students can use their time wisely. It shouldn't be wasted on discussions no one is engaged in. SEL lessons would have more of an impact in elementary schools because the younger students could actually get something out of it. SEL should be eliminated in high schools or replaced with something that's a better use of a busy young adult's time.