Inside the Know Yourself, Choose Yourself, Give Yourself framework that runs through every Synapse classroom
Quick Answer for Busy Parents
Social-emotional learning (SEL) is a foundational pillar at Synapse, not a supplemental program. Students learn 8 competencies organized under an EQ model with three pillars: Know Yourself, Choose Yourself, and Give Yourself. Every teacher and staff member is trained in SEL, and the school describes it as the language that bonds the Synapse community, fostering self-awareness, empathy, and resilience across every grade, TK through 8.
Three Pillars: Know, Choose, Give
Synapse organizes its 8 SEL competencies under three broader pillars. Know Yourself centers on self-awareness, helping students recognize and understand their own emotions and reactions. Choose Yourself focuses on self-management, giving students tools to regulate their responses rather than simply react. Give Yourself extends outward, building empathy and the capacity to consider and support others. Together, the three pillars move from internal awareness to external action, a progression rather than three disconnected skills.
Why Order Matters
Structuring the model to move from Know to Choose to Give reflects a deliberate sequence: students need self-awareness before they can meaningfully self-regulate, and self-regulation before they can extend genuine empathy to others, rather than treating all three as interchangeable, standalone lessons.
Curious How Synapse’s SEL Approach Fits Your Child?
Cardinal Education helps families understand how a school’s social-emotional learning model aligns with a student’s needs.
Speak with an Admissions Expert
Why Every Teacher Is Trained in SEL
Rather than assigning SEL to a single counselor or advisory period, Synapse requires every teacher and staff member to be trained in social-emotional learning. That structure means SEL principles show up across the entire school day, in a science lesson as much as in an advisory meeting, rather than being confined to one weekly period disconnected from the rest of a student’s schedule.
| Pillar | Focus |
| Know Yourself | Self-awareness of emotions and reactions |
| Choose Yourself | Self-management and regulation |
| Give Yourself | Empathy and consideration for others |
SEL as Language, Not Just Curriculum
Synapse describes SEL as more than a curriculum: it’s a process that nurtures a thriving learning environment and functions as a shared language foundational to the school’s culture. In practice, that means students and teachers use common SEL vocabulary and concepts across different contexts, whether resolving a classroom conflict, discussing a piece of literature, or working through a group project, reinforcing the same skills repeatedly rather than in isolation.
Connecting SEL to Academics and Innovation
Synapse’s three pillars, Leading-Edge Academics, Social-Emotional Learning, and Innovation, are designed to work together rather than as separate tracks; SEL skills like self-awareness and resilience directly support the kind of iterative, sometimes-failing project-based work central to Synapse’s innovation model.
Evaluating Synapse’s SEL Approach for Your Student
Synapse’s EQ model gives social-emotional learning the same structural weight as academics, with every teacher trained and the framework woven into daily school culture rather than confined to a single class period.
To ensure the best fit, we recommend families ask directly how SEL is applied in their child’s specific grade level, as the depth of the three pillars can vary across Lower and Middle School. Cardinal Education helps families understand how a school’s social-emotional learning model aligns with a student’s needs.
Speak with an Admissions Expert