5 Ways to Develop Students’ Social and Emotional Skills in Music Class

Teachers have always cared about the emotional and social needs of their students, but in the 2010s there was a significant and intentional rise in teaching these skills. The term social and emotional learning (SEL) and specific curricula for these skills began to be more commonplace. Standards for social and emotional learning were also implemented. Soon, and heightened by mental health concerns from the 2020 Covid-19 protocols, schools and districts realized that the explicit teaching was a start, but SEL becomes even more effective if it’s also integrated into other parts of the day. Music class is a great place for this integration.

SEL and skills such as flexible thinking, teamwork, and empathy don’t have to be crammed into music teaching; these skills have always been a part of music making. Being deliberate about calling out these skills, as students practice them, and coordinating with other SEL professionals in the district maximizes the learning in music and SEL.

I use the following five activities to combine music education with social and emotional learning.

Sea Shanties and Flexible Thinking

Each year, third-grade classes write sea shanties in conjunction with their study of the sea in language arts. This gives students lots of ideas about what to write about, but also supports flexible thinking. I begin by taking students’ suggestions for song topics. This is very open-ended. Once we write a line together, students have to be able to let go of their original idea and readjust to the lines we are writing. The next line needs to rhyme, and it needs to make sense with the previous line. Sometimes, that means students need to save an idea for later, or they have to abandon it altogether.

I prepare the students by letting them know that they will be thinking of many great ideas, so if they want their ideas to be used in the song, they’ll need to practice flexible thinking to meld their ideas with what other students suggest.

This also works to break students free from a “once-in-a-lifetime-idea syndrome” or scarcity mindset. It’s easy for students to feel like their current idea is the best they’ll ever have and there will never be a better one. Instead, with flexible thinking, they learn, “If I thought of a good idea once, I can think of a good idea again.”

Folk Dancing and Teamwork

“Alabama Gal” is a great song and dance to teach teamwork. There is a point in the dance where dancers have to follow different leaders—splitting into a new configuration—and then combine again. To further complicate things, they do this while singing! When I teach the dance for the first time, typically in kindergarten, some students understand the concept much faster than others. This activity is a great lesson in teamwork and leadership. Kids start to think, “How do I help my classmates in a way that actually feels helpful and not in a way that just makes them mad? How do I receive help from others without feeling like I need to prove that I can do it myself?”

Teamwork is more than just doing a task together or dividing it into parts. Teamwork means that each person understands that their work makes a difference not just to themselves, but to the whole group. Teamwork is also letting others lead in areas where they have strengths and leaning on others when members need help.

An individual student’s participation in ensemble performances matters. Whether it’s a choir, a group playing bucket drums, or a dance, each student’s effort matters to the success of the group. As a teacher, I contribute in a way that affects the overall performance. This is a shared responsibility. When things go well, I can take credit for it, and when things don’t go so well, I can examine what I have done and see how I can improve.

Gumboot Dancing and Chunking

I love learning experiences where I show students a performance that seems very complicated but achievable. After we slow it down and review each piece, and then slowly put it back together, we get it to where it needs to be.

A gumboot dance from South Africa seen all put together is quite complex. But this video tutorial breaks it down in a way that many students are able to perform it in just one rehearsal. I make sure we don’t rush the process—students go slow and repeat small sections until they know each move, and then we put it all together. This chunking is an important skill for whenever students are learning something new.

Chunking also reinforces a growth mindset. When students realize that this is how even professional performers learn new skills, they see that time and effort is what enables great performances, not innate talent.

Theme Songs and Shared Experiences

Each year, I teach a theme song for the whole school. All of the students learn the song in music class, then sing it at various gatherings throughout the year. This year, the song was “Kiss the Sky” from the movie The Wild Robot. The song was selected because the author of the book, Peter Brown, was a guest author at our school last year. All of the students interacted with Brown and saw the movie at the local theater.

Hearing all the students sing together, as well as hearing about how older siblings teach the song to their younger siblings in school, has shown me the power of shared experiences, which create bonds across families and classes.

Spirituals and Empathy

Students in my fourth- and fifth-grade music classes recently completed a mini-unit on African American spirituals—songs that were created by enslaved people. Spirituals mix stories of Christianity with musical ideas from West Africa and coded messages about freedom. Teaching a song like “Wade in the Water” not only has important musical and historical components, but helps students understand the perspective and hardships that African Americans endured during that time period.

Empathy, the ability to understand and connect with someone else’s experiences and emotions, is a powerful tool in building relationships and overcoming conflicts. Whether it happens through a character in a movie or in songs that students sing, performing music guides students to empathize with the characters in the music.

When music educators take a deliberate approach to developing students’ SEL skills in music class, they can advocate for the importance of arts curriculum in schools and provide other teachers with valuable resources.