OPS, DCPS merge SEL with fine arts
Sep. 24—Owensboro Public Schools and Daviess County Public Schools fine arts teachers and staff participated in a professional development day Friday, during which they learned more about incorporating social-emotional learning into their classrooms.
Scott Edgar was the event's keynote speaker. He is an associate professor of music at Lake Forest College and director of practice and research for The Center of Arts Education and Social Emotional Learning.
"SEL is a buzzword across education circles across the country," he said. "For the last 10 years I've dedicated my professional life to interpreting what SEL looks like in the classroom."
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Edgar said he believes people would have thought SEL in the classroom would be nice, but now it's essential.
"We see the challenges that our students and teachers are facing on a daily basis, and we know that we need skills to confront those," he said. "We can either ignore that there are challenges happening or we can do something about it."
Edgar said SEL has gained unparalleled attention and implementation in schools across the country.
"It is imperative that we are meeting the needs of the students that are in front of us," he said. "The three big ideas around SEL are how do we know ourselves and our identity, how do we facilitate a sense of belonging and how do we increase agency?"
Emily Plummer, a visual arts teacher at Owensboro High School, said the professional development day also gives teachers the opportunity to connect with other art teachers in and out of their district.
"We always look forward to that because we can share ideas and learn what others are doing inside their classrooms," she said.
Plummer was looking forward to the visual art session with Edgar, where they learned how to plan an art lesson in alignment with SEL competencies.
"That's something that's being encouraged; our school systems are trying to figure out ways to use SEL more frequently and in a natural way," Plummer said.
Madison Wells, music teacher at Sutton Elementary School, said her first session of the day was with Edgar reviewing and sharing a variety of effective strategies to combine artistic processes and standards with SEL competencies.
"It's nice to formally have a way to express what we're doing in the classrooms to help our students socially and emotionally in music," she said. "We're looking forward to finding ways to give our students the tools to communicate and communicate their needs, find their identity and become better musicians and humans."
Barbara Poynter, visual arts teacher at Country Heights Elementary School, said SEL is embedded throughout everything the teachers do.
"When you are newly out of college, you realize how important relationships are," she said. "When you have a relationship with the student, the student has a relationship with you. That's when learning happens, that's when productive struggle happens."
Shelby Ratliff, choir director at Apollo High School, said one of the great things about being an arts teacher is that they see the same group of students for three to seven years and they can develop relationships and get to know them.
"We are doing SEL things in our classrooms all the time with our music-making and our art-making," she said. "I think that's what makes the art teachers so unique and special when it comes to the arts and SEL."
