When challenging student behavior arises, the instinct in many schools is to turn to discipline: assigning detention, suspension, or removal from class. But John Gasko, chief well-being officer at Uplift Education, has spent his career exploring a different option: What if the key to thriving schools lies not in control, but in connection?

His work integrates both social-emotional learning (SEL) and character education, hoping to create the conditions for students and educators to flourish together. From early childhood centers across Texas to the classrooms of Dallas charter schools, Gasko has explored how SEL’s focus on skills like Self-awareness and emotional regulation can work hand in hand with character education’s emphasis on purpose, values, and moral courage.

“We think character gives SEL its why,” Gasko says. “You become aware of yourself, and you become aware of others, and you learn how to regulate stuff, whether good or bad, because it’s helping you to form character, which is a recognition of your noble purpose and unique identity in the world.”

In an era of political polarization, where approaches to SEL and character education are often framed in opposition, Gasko’s work offers a quietly radical bridge between the two.

Purpose at the center

At its core, SEL focuses on developing skills related to Self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and responsible decision making that can be incorporated into everyday life. The concept emerged in the mid-1990s as researchers, educators, and community leaders looked to incorporate a more holistic approach to student success that attended to both their academic and emotional needs. 

While SEL focuses on social and emotional regulation skills, character education leans toward helping students define who they want to be by cultivating qualities like respect, compassion, courage, and honesty that give value to SEL skills.

Although the two share many similar goals, SEL has taken a more non-partisan approach, with roots in psychology and public health, while character education has roots in both civic and moral traditions. These differing foundations have led these teachings to be viewed in opposition to one another, as opposed to being deeply interwoven.

Uplift sits at the intersection of SEL and character, focusing on purpose-based education. They believe if we don’t help kids locate their purpose, then what they do in school loses some meaning, because students don’t understand the larger relevance and usefulness of what they’re learning.

By connecting their actions to personal purpose, students are able to understand the meaning behind them. Those actions no longer feel like a set of rules students must follow, but rather part of their own identity. For example, they can choose to be honest not because they will get in trouble for lying, but because they believe telling the truth is pivotal to their own integrity.

Research finds that character education can help students gain a stronger sense of self and connection to their community, in turn leading to healthier school environments and better student achievement. Not only do character and SEL work together, but they both work in support of student success.

“The idea that you can, say, divorce social-emotional learning and character education from learning and content is a bit short-sighted,” says Johari Harris, a postdoctoral fellow at UVA’s Youth-Nex. “I think they’re very much connected, and we can do a really better job of integrating them more intentionally.”

Linking SEL and character

Gasko’s belief that purpose and inner well-being are foundational is echoed by Arthur Schwartz, president of Character.org, who has spent decades researching moral courage, character development, and positive psychology.

Schwartz sees character as an essential way to help students answer fundamental questions like “What kind of person do I want to be?” And he, too, believes it’s important to view character and SEL as complementary—not competing—frameworks for student growth.

Both aim to develop well-rounded students by helping them understand themselves, grow personally, and make thoughtful emotional and ethical decisions. However, while SEL equips students with vital emotional tools, Schwartz sees character as the “North Star,” offering guiding principles that give those tools deeper meaning.

“One of the strengths of character is that it starts with the end in mind,” Schwartz says. “What decision has to be made right now that aligns with the kind of person I want to be, whether I’m a five year old or a 50 year old.”

Even the SEL framework reflects this. When the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning set forth grounding principles of SEL, they started with Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship skills. Later, they added a fifth, responsible decision making—which signaled the growing influence of character-based thinking.

“That fifth one was added because of what, again, is the story around character,” Schwartz says. “It was more about helping students understand Self-awareness and self-management of their emotions. Why are you bullying someone? Are you able to understand how that makes other people feel?”

Making learning relevant across cultures

Harris from Youth-Nex emphasizes that well-being and character formation cannot be separated from cultural identity, race, and social context, especially for young people navigating systems not always designed for them.

In a culturally relevant classroom, the way you connect with students should reflect and honor their cultural backgrounds. For example, in some African American communities, oral traditions and call-and-response are important cultural practices. So even if you’re teaching a curriculum that requires strict adherence, you can still create space for students to engage in ways that feel familiar and meaningful to them. This responsiveness helps make the learning environment more inclusive and effective.

Harris emphasizes the importance of understanding how race, gender, and cultural identity shape SEL and character development. Adolescents are already thinking about their identities in relation to societal forces, and effective SEL should help students explore these dimensions thoughtfully, challenge negative narratives, and build agency and purpose.

For example, “What does it mean to, say, show up as a Black boy in my community?” offers Harris, as a potential reflection question. “In my context, what does it mean to show up as a Black girl? What does it mean to show up as somebody with wealth and status or somebody without wealth and status? What am I supposed to look like? How am I expected to behave? How am I going to decide to behave?”

Culture is the curriculum

Maurice Elias, director of the Rutgers Social-Emotional and Character Development Lab, echoes these integrative visions. Further, Elias argues that lasting change doesn’t come from curriculum alone; it requires culture, leadership, and purpose.

His new course, Brick by Brick: A Leader’s Guide to Building SEL in Schools, outlines four essential pillars: SEL competencies, character, culturally responsive education, and supportive school culture and climate.

“There’s no program that can be climate-proof,” Elias says. “The climate and the character are completely enmeshed.”

In many ways, the framework Elias presents is already embodied at Uplift. Under Gasko’s leadership, supporting the culture and climate of the school—including the well-being of the adults who work there—becomes the ground from which school-wide character and SEL efforts can flourish. The environment reflects the inner life of its leaders.

Successfully implementing character education in schools requires a holistic, collaborative approach involving both leadership and teachers. Elias suggests that this is possible by setting up an explicit, positive culture and climate.

Although each individual teacher can create a class of social-emotional competence and character, if every individual teacher tries to do that on their own, you don’t end up with a school of character.

“A school has to make a systematic and collaborative commitment to how to do this in an organized, coherent, developmentally sequenced way,” Elias says. “And when they hire new personnel into that school, those folks have to be prepared to pick up the oar and start rowing along with everybody else.”

The work being done by Harris, Gasko, Schwartz, and Elias point to a shared unified vision: SEL gives students the tools for Emotional intelligence and social connection, while character education offers them the purpose and moral grounding to know why and how to use those tools. Neither can take root in isolation. They grow best in a school culture where adult well-being is prioritized, where educators model authenticity and moral courage, and where every student’s identity is honored.