Social and Emotional Learning : 5 Things ALL Art Teachers Need to Know

For art teachers, there are many areas of expertise that must be mastered in order to be successful in the classroom. But as social and emotional learning in schools becomes more and more prominent, art teachers need to make sure they’re up to date on what they need to know about social and emotional learning (SEL).

PS. If you are interested in going beyond this blog, check out my 4-part course on Social-Emotional Learning and Art. It comes with five lessons you can use immediately in your classroom to begin implementing SEL strategies.

Here are 5 things that ALL art teachers need to know about SEL:

Self-Awareness

Perhaps the most critical element of SEL is self-awareness, or recognizing that everyone has unique strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, feelings, and goals. Fostering student self-awareness allows students to accurately assess their abilities as well as their relationships with others.

The sooner students learn about themselves and their emotions—what makes them happy, what makes them sad—the better equipped they are to interact with others in a healthy way.

For example, art teachers looking to promote social and emotional learning in school through art can begin by creating activities that prompt students to reflect on and recognize their own feelings. These social emotional learning activities help students develop empathy over time so they can be more compassionate human beings.

Students might draw a picture of what makes them happy or sad, or cut out magazine pictures of people expressing emotions. Asking students to match these expressions with words like anger or sadness will encourage self-awareness and help teach students how emotions affect other people’s behaviors.

This doesn’t have to be a stand-alone activity. If you are doing collage with students anyway, spend a few minutes talking about and recreating the expressions in the images they are using.

This method will also inspire discussion around common themes—for instance, if all of your class’ drawings include sad faces, it might mean that something is collectively bothering the students. What a great opportunity for discussion and really digging into deeper meanings in the creation of artwork! Challenging students to express complicated feelings in an artwork offers opportunities for both growth and reflection.

As students become more comfortable sharing their inner thoughts and opinions, teachers can then expand discussions about social and emotional development beyond just focusing on an individual level to building respect for all different types of identities. For example, when talking about another student who comes from a different background than theirs, many children have difficulty understanding why some cultural norms might be foreign to them. This leads us into Social Awareness.

Social Awareness

Understanding how other people feel can help us be more sensitive and tolerant. This is a concept we call empathy. However, it’s not just about noticing that another person is sad or scared—it’s about being able to put ourselves in their shoes. This is such a critical skill for students to develop, and the art room is the perfect place for that.

Help your students keep in mind that different people express emotions differently. For example, some people may get mad at others for no reason when they're actually embarrassed; other times others may seem like they have no emotions when they're really hurt and afraid. Help them understand and notice these differences as well!

So how do you teach kids about these things?

First, model your own social awareness. It’s hard for kiddos to understand how someone else feels. If they see you genuinely seeking to better understand others, they will follow your lead.

Just as you would model a drawing strategy or a method for collage, you should model your own social awareness.

Next, use open-ended questions to get them talking. When you are looking at works of art with your students, try asking thick questions like "How do you think she feels?" or "What could be making him feel that way?" Thick questions are ones that require lengthier responses and in-depth thinking.

If students aren't giving strong answers at first, try warming them up by throwing out some thin questions like" Does it look like he's mad?" or Does she look joyful?" Thin questions don't require critical responses but are great for making students feel comfortable in situations where they have to talk about feelings.

As you probably guessed, it is important to find a balance between thick and thin questions. It will be interesting to see what kinds of answers your students give!

Finally, creating works of art with students that show different perspectives can be a great way to incorporate bring social emotional learning in schools directly into the art room. This is a powerful way for students to communicate complex feelings and ideas as they develop their social awareness.

Self-Management

Also known as self-regulation, this concept is central to the other four levels of social and emotional learning (SEL), which can be viewed as a spectrum that encompasses interpersonal relationships, self-motivation, self-awareness, and positive attitudes.

Most students have self-management skills but don’t recognize them, or they believe that others have them more than they do. They might say something like, I get mad too easily! Or, all of the other kids feel happier than I do. This inward concept of self is directly related to outward behavior.

That's why it is important for teachers to help students understand how thoughts impact behaviors, and behaviors impact self and others.

Here are four strategies for encouraging self-management in art classrooms:

1) Encourage students to notice when they are frustrated or upset and let them choose from a variety of coping strategies. (Deep breathing? Sculpting? Free painting? Doodling? Listening to Music?)

2) Give specific feedback on how emotions affect performance. (When we make a good choice, we usually feel good. When we make a bad choice, we usually feel bad. The way we feel impacts future decisions we make.)

3) Share resources with kids; books and websites can provide information about positive emotional responses. Many art teachers use read-alouds with their students. Perhaps a book will pair well with an upcoming art project. You could also read to your students as they line up to wait to change classes.

4) Model appropriate behavior by talking about your own feelings (When he made me upset...I felt like ...). Sometimes teachers avoid doing this type of work with students. There is a bit of pressure to maintain a relationship with students where the teacher is the perfect expert and the students are the clay to be molded.

However, students really respond to seeing their teachers as human beings. It is okay to tell them how you feel. It is okay to apologize when you need to. These things can be done professionally and really do benefit everyone in the big picture.

If you are not sure if you can be that open with your students, choose some random scenarios to act out with them. This also pairs well with looking at art prints. You could choose images that elicit responses to self-management scenarios.

This leads us into the next facet of social emotional learning, relationship skills.

Relationship Skills

Relationship skills, or social skills, are crucial for success in school, at work, and in life. The ability to interact with others efficiently and effectively is a huge part of any career. And, of course, in art classes social skills are especially important for getting along with other students or working on group projects.

There are many ways that art teachers can incorporate social skills into their curriculum—having students discuss their own views on an artwork can help them improve communication skills as well as gain insight into other people’s perspectives. It also helps them learn how to properly give or receive feedback in a constructive way (instead of being overly critical). In group projects, social skills make for more productive environments where everybody is invested in working together and pulling his or her weight.

In general, including social emotional learning activities in the art curriculum will also encourage students to think about how their actions affect others, which can ultimately lead to making better decisions on both personal and professional levels.

They may start considering how what they say or do impacts their relationships with others or even start thinking about whether a certain activity might have negative consequences in future years if left unchecked.

It’s also important for art teachers to consider themselves as role models when it comes to demonstrating relationship skills. Students learn by watching their teachers, so if you behave in a way that you would like your students to emulate, they will be more likely to do so. Standing at the door to greet every student as they walk into your classroom is a great way to start.

Responsible Decision Making

How does one teach their students how to make responsible decisions? This is a key skill when it comes to growing up and entering adulthood. A lot of time, you might hear that good judgement comes with age or that experience will teach them. While these may be true in some cases, there are many ways for teachers to work on developing good decision making skills for kids, as early as possible.

Seriously, this can be explicitly taught, and it can be done in the art room without an excessive amount of extra work on the teacher.

One way is to correct undesired behaviors by focusing on children’s decisions, not their judgment. Children are young and can be developmentally immature, meaning that they may understand something but not always be able to execute a good decision about it.

If we focus too much on whether or not a child "gets it" or "knows better," we aren’t helping them make better decisions in the long run. They usually do know better. They just can't always act on what they know. Instead, we should focus on how they went about making a choice, which is an amazing opportunity for learning.

Another example would be helping a child choose art tools and use them in a way that is safe, as well as appropriate. Give feedback on choices rather than always stipulating every material or tool that is allowed. It might require some planning but you can structure your classroom in such a way that choices are safe and appropriate.

Implement SEL in Your Classroom: The Guide

When we talk about implementing social and emotional learning in schools, or SEL, into K-12 curriculum, it’s important to think about how we are implementing it. We can’t just teach kids the fluffy stuff like how to make friends or get along better with others. While each of those are really important, there's harder and deeper work to be done. We need to give them a chance to practice all five of these social emotional skills in real life situations.

I know getting started with SEL, especially when you haven’t been trained and there is no curriculum in place, can be really challenging. That’s why I created a 4-part course for teachers called Social-Emotional Learning and Art.

It comes with four video lessons, five downloadable resources, and five lessons you can use right away in your classroom. Whether your an art teacher, or just know the value art can bring students, I want to show you the magic of using art to dig deeper into your students needs.