Finishing a dissertation is supposed to feel like an ending. For me, it also created a new beginning. After years of research, interviews, analysis, revision, and reflection, I completed my doctoral study focused on high school teachers' perspectives on social-emotional learning professional development after COVID-19. I expected to leave the process with answers. Instead, I left with one question I could not stop thinking about: who is developing the adults?
The expectation placed on educators
Schools ask educators to support students' self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. We ask adults to recognize distress, respond to behavior, build belonging, maintain expectations, communicate calmly, and preserve relationships — sometimes in interactions that unfold in seconds. Those are not only student competencies. They also require adult capacity.
What I heard in my research
The teachers in my study did not describe professional development as completely unnecessary. They described something more complicated. Professional learning could be valuable, but it was often episodic, inconsistently prioritized, disconnected from follow-up, or too far removed from what teachers had to do the next morning. Many participants relied on personal experience, informal collaboration, and what they had learned through trial and error. They wanted practical application, modeling, leadership alignment, time, reinforcement, and accountability.
Awareness is not the same as capacity
An adult may believe deeply in relationships and still be unsure what language to use when a student refuses a direction. A school may value restorative practice and still provide little opportunity for staff to practice curiosity, listening, boundary-setting, or repair. Knowing why something matters is different from being able to do it under pressure.
What research suggests
Scholarship on teachers' social-emotional competence connects adult emotional awareness and regulation with teacher–student relationships, classroom management, inclusion, and classroom climate. Research also suggests that professional development is more likely to influence practice when it includes active learning, opportunities to apply new skills, collaboration, reflection, coaching, and sustained support — not merely exposure to information.
The problem I am carrying forward
I am increasingly convinced that adult capacity-building should not be treated as an optional side conversation within SEL, MTSS, school climate, or school safety. It belongs at the center. Yet I do not think the answer is always another large initiative. Adults are already carrying too much. They may need something smaller: shared language, a memorable process, and repeated opportunities to practice how they want to show up during ordinary interactions.
What comes next
I have been developing one possible response to this problem of practice. It is not a proven solution, and I will not present it as one. It is an evidence-informed attempt to translate established principles about regulation, context, relationships, accountability, and follow-through into a practical tool for adults — The SSCC Practice™. In the next article, I will explore the gap between saying "relationships matter" and helping adults know what to do in the moment.
Completing my dissertation did not close my research agenda. It clarified it. We invest deeply in what students need to know and do socially and emotionally. We must become equally serious about how adults are prepared, supported, and developed to create the conditions in which those student competencies can grow.
Until next time, keep building safer schools — one relationship at a time.
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