Art and Social-Emotional Learning

Overview

Encourage Self-Confidence and Creative Expression

Partnerships with local arts organizations can be formal or informal and can occur in school or after school. They can include anything from teaching artists in the classroom, to after-school theater productions, to visual art instruction.

Arts organizations can bring much-needed resources to your students without much cost, and can provide students with new outlets for creativity and ways to develop essential critical thinking and collaboration skills.

Glenview Elementary School, certain gender-based behaviors were getting in the way of learning. As a result, Glenview partnered with two organizations: 51Oakland, a local nonprofit that supports music and arts education, and Glitter and Razz, a nonprofit that teaches SEL skills to girls through creative play. These organizations developed programs to help improve collaboration skills within and across gender lines.

How It's Done

Implementing Arts Partnerships 

Developing partnerships with local arts organizations can provide an opportunity for artistic expression, while helping to solve issues that affect school culture. At Glenview, artist-in-residence, Jahi, encourages cultural awareness, self-confidence, and critical thinking through music, art, and poetry. They also partner with Glitter and Razz, a local children's theater and arts group, to develop drama-based programs to help students deal with bullying and peer conflict. 

Find the right organization for you.

Reduce conflict through theatre: Dramatizing conflict and allowing students to role-play different situations can teach healthy conflict resolution.

Teach collaboration skills by creating and critiquing each other’s art. Discussing art can also teach students how to communicate without judgment.