How Roger Weissberg accomplished his vision to help millions of schoolchildren: Our personal perspectives

Abstract

Trying to help millions of schoolchildren is indeed a bold and ambitious idea. Ideas are important and have resulted in some major societal changes, but how does one go from an idea to reality? In this paper, we first describe several principles associated with SEL and offer examples of Roger P. Weissberg’s initiatives illustrating the use of these principles in action. We believe that Roger’s leadership in following these principles contributed to the growth and success of the field and achieved his vision of helping millions of schoolchildren. Second, each of us offers a few examples of our own work with Roger and our personal observations and commentary about these experiences as they relate to principles of SEL.