“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” That’s the key message delivered by R. Keeth Matheny of Austin, TX, at a Capitol Hill briefing held by Committee for Children, in collaboration with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), on the importance of effective social and emotional learning (SEL) at every stage of education, from early learning through college and career prep.

Learn more about social-emotional learning at http://www.cfchildren.org.

R. Keeth Matheny of Austin, TX, is a high school teacher, mentor, and SEL instructional coach. He has more than 25 years of experience in a wide variety of educational settings. His personal mission is to help young people find and pursue their dreams through an emphasis on academic excellence, character education, and social-emotional learning.

Matheny currently teaches a success skills course he wrote for freshmen at Austin High School and serves as an adjunct instructional coach for AISD’s Department of Social and Emotional Learning, for which he has led a character education project for athletics and helped to train over 1500 teachers and administrators. He is the district’s lead Methods for Academic and Personal Success (MAPS)/Character Education teacher and helps train and support the 40 MAPS teachers who are delivering lessons to over 1100 students in AISD.

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