This testimonial is a personal learning journey of a participant in the Implementation Journey by Teach For All and Enseña por Colombia. In the project, university students become Fellows of the programme, taking a two-year placement in the countryside of Colombia to learn and implement social-emotional skills with their teacher colleagues, students and the wider community. Researchers at Teach For All iterate the innovation based on the results.
Name: Luis Ramos
Role: Deputy Director of Training and Support, Enseña por Colombia
Location: Barranquilla, Colombia
Expectations and Goals for the Programme
Why did you decide to join Enseña por Colombia?
Being part of Enseña por Colombia was a professional dream. Since I did a fellowship in 2016, I had envisioned continuing to contribute to education. Initially, I wanted to be a coordinator, but becoming Deputy Director was a great achievement.
As an economist, I believe education can bridge gaps and help people build better life paths. I like that Enseña por Colombia has a strong political conviction, and this role is about strengthening community processes, supporting the transformation of professionals, and developing collective leadership skills. I am passionate about learning.
Do you believe the development of socio-emotional skills is important for students and teachers? Why?
I believe they are extremely important for teachers, as they provide the tools needed to navigate the challenges of the education system.
Teachers must embody socio-emotional skills, not just understand them, because these skills allow them to build their own well-being and create spaces where students can develop their own socio-emotional competencies. A teacher who doesn’t internalise these skills will struggle to implement them effectively with their students.
For our students, socio-emotional skills are critical because they face violence, inequality, and discrimination in their daily lives. These skills equip them to manage these challenges both at home and at school.
Additionally, socio-emotional learning helps students recognise and respect others. It works in two ways: to counteract the negative influences in their environments and to promote positive social awareness and action.
We often focus on giving students tools to defend themselves against bullying, but what we really need is for Fellows to create safe learning environments where bullying doesn’t happen in the first place.
I believe developing socio-emotional skills enhances learning. When students are aware of their strengths and areas for improvement, when they build relationships and collaborate, their learning outcomes improve significantly.
Do socio-emotional skills impact your daily responsibilities?
Yes, because they help students become active participants in their own learning. When a teacher encourages students to recognise their strengths and areas for improvement, it fosters a sense of responsibility for their learning process.
It also sends a positive message—showing students that their teacher cares about their progress. This shifts the approach to assessment—instead of just measuring performance, evaluation becomes a tool to understand each student’s starting point.
With this awareness, students can take action to improve their learning. For me, the most important skill is self-leadership, as it enables self-awareness.
Other key skills include:
- Responsible decision-making
- Interpersonal skills
- Collaborative teamwork with purpose
These skills foster accountability and contribute to a stronger learning environment.
Implementation of the Innovation
How would you describe your experience implementing the socio-emotional skills module?
It felt like climbing a mountain. At first, I was scared – I didn’t feel like an expert because I hadn’t formally studied or researched the topic.
I had to lead a team through this change, asking them to adjust their approach. But my team was resistant to change, and at the time, it wasn’t expanding.
”I struggled with how to shift my team's mindset, especially since they were already frustrated with other challenges.”
However, as we began discussing why socio-emotional skills mattered, the team gradually became more engaged. I also had to convince myself that this wasn’t an additional burden but rather a way to improve our process.
At first, it felt like extra work. But once we shifted the narrative, we saw it as a tool for growth.
There came a point when I no longer felt afraid – if anything, I became so engaged that my enthusiasm had to be tempered. I had to remind myself that this was a pilot project and to take it step by step.
Once we believed in the process, our progress accelerated. The key was to make strategic changes within the team. When one coordinator shared their positive experience, it encouraged others.
I entrusted two key people, one visionary and one highly structured, to lead the effort. Joyce and Angie created a powerful balance. I would propose ideas, and they transformed them into spectacular initiatives. I remained involved, but they led the charge, which made all the difference.
Now, I’m eager to see the results. This data will not only confirm what we already suspect, but also reveal new insights.
Ultimately, the goal of this project is to make evidence-based decisions about what is truly happening in schools.
Lessons Learned
What has been your biggest challenge in implementing the socio-emotional skills module?
Convincing, inspiring, and engaging the Fellows in the importance of socio-emotional skills. Fellows experience intense challenges in their roles. They are so focused on managing their classrooms and ensuring learning takes place that they often overlook socio-emotional skills.
They see these skills as secondary, without realising that once socio-emotional skills are in place, everything else flows more easily. But this generation lacks patience.
If I tell a Fellow, “If you develop socio-emotional skills over six months, your classroom will improve significantly,” they might respond, “Six months is too long!”
This is because school leaders and coordinators put constant pressure on them, expecting immediate classroom management results. We also haven’t given Fellows enough time to personally internalise these skills before teaching them to students. This year, we addressed this by integrating socio-emotional skills training into our November and January induction sessions.
We realised that Fellows needed these skills to stay calm during the stressful school placement process, and to navigate the challenges of joining a new community that might initially be highly critical of them.
What strategies did you use to overcome this challenge?
We started by focusing on Fellows themselves. Instead of introducing socio-emotional skills as something they had to teach, we first helped them apply these skills to their own lives.
We built a gradual approach:
- Personal reflection—How do these skills help me?
- Team relationships—How do they help me work with colleagues?
- Classroom application—How do I introduce these skills to students?
We also encouraged peer-to-peer learning. Fellows who successfully implemented socio-emotional skills shared their experiences with others. And we created learning communities where Fellows discussed challenges and exchanged strategies.
The biggest misconception is that schools prioritise discipline and academic performance over socio-emotional learning. But the truth is, socio-emotional skills enhance both.
Now, our message to Fellows is that leadership is impossible without socio-emotional skills.
Take-Aways from the Implementation Journey
What was your greatest accomplishment during this process?
Building a team that fully believes in the power of socio-emotional skills. Now, when I hear a coordinator remind Fellows about the importance of self-leadership, I know this change is permanent.
90% of Fellows are now actively using socio-emotional strategies. Some are even running workshops to share these methods with other teachers.
What do you take away from Enseña por Colombia?
The ability to apply my expertise to a meaningful project.
If you could start again, what would you do differently?
I would have listened to the communities first.
