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In a recent article, Russell and Hutzel, two of the authors of this article, proposed a framework for teaching social and emotional learning (SEL) in art education through collaborative service-learning. As defined in that article, SEL is a "process through which children and adults develop the skills, attitudes, and values necessary to acquire social and emotional competence." The core competencies of SEL include self-awareness, social-awareness, self-management, responsible decision making, and relationship skills, and within each competency is a set of skills. This article describes a situation in which the proposed concepts of SEL, coupled with service-learning and art education, were included in a curriculum unit and implemented during two sequential years in a private middle school near Akron, Ohio. This article considers potential outcomes in addition to SEL competencies in art education, namely the students' positions as role models in the experience. The authors present an analysis and interpretation of the learning experience for the eighth-graders, including (1) the teacher's description of the experience; (2) analysis of outcomes related to SEL core competencies; and (3) possibilities for further engaging social and emotional learning in the middle school art classroom. (Contains 2 figures.)
This article intends to encourage teachers to explore ways "social and emotional learning" (SEL) and art education can enhance each other. Service-learning art projects were presented as one example, employing collaborate-and-create, asset-based methods integrated with SEL instruction. Advantages anticipated from combining these methods result from students confronting social-emotional issues within community art tasks over an extended period of time (several-week unit). Because SEL skills to be developed in the unit are made explicit, they can be intentionally practiced and reflected on by the students in real time, authenticated by real situations, and purposely explored-expressed through artistic form. Social-emotional learning during this process may, in turn, increase the sophistication of content given from in the collaborative artworks. These dynamic circumstances would seem to be optimal for rich, long-lasting, and, perhaps, life-changing learning. (Contains 2 figures.)