4 Ways Schools Can Leverage Social Emotional Learning Through the Arts

In a recent opening activity for a professional learning day, I asked art teachers to reflect on their proudest teaching moment. Teachers shared stories of quick, meaningful moments and student growth with one common thread: the social-emotional or academic growth they described was a direct result of engagement in the arts.  

The arts naturally foster emotional awareness, collaboration, critical thinking, and creative expression, 21st-century learning skills that are critical for our students to develop in an ever-changing world (DeWilde, 2019). Arts educators have a unique position and opportunity to support students by creating a safe space to educate the whole child in our classrooms, and this is often overlooked. When educators intentionally design instruction to meet the unique needs of their learners, integrating Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) through the arts becomes a powerful and natural approach. 

Here are four strategies to help your students thrive academically, behaviorally, and socially through the intersection of the arts and SEL: 

• Include arts teachers intentionally in your Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) or Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) plans. They often serve every student in your school and have unique perspectives on their social-emotional development due to the curriculum in their classes. They might recognize trends in behaviors and attitudes about school that are not showing up in general education classrooms. On the Academic side of MTSS, studies show there is a clear correlation between arts education and cognitive skills needed for mathematics and other academic areas (Spelke, 2008). 

• Create a safe space in your classroom through the arts where students can take risks, make mistakes, and learn from their failures. When students are given opportunities to represent their inner world through creative expression, they build self-awareness, social awareness, and emotional vocabulary—key components of SEL.  This might look like creating a drawing in response to a SEL prompt, using theatre to role-play social scenarios, or creating a playlist to represent an important milestone in your students’ lives.  

• Build mindfulness transitioning students from a traditional classroom structure to a classroom that allows more movement, sound, conversation, and expression. For example, incorporating a “Mindful Minute” routine will help students focus and wind down from transition to and from a music or dance class. 

• Structure the pacing in your arts classroom to support self-management through graphic organizers, visual timers, thinking, and discussion protocols. The examples below are protocols often used in arts classrooms that can be transferred to all content areas: See, Think, Wonder Thinking Routine (Project Zero, 2022) | Accountable Talk Strategies (Teacher Toolkit, 2016) | Visual Journaling (Bogatz, 2021) | Visual Thinking Strategies (Chaparro, 2022)  

When SEL is embedded authentically through the arts, it becomes more than a “buzzword”—it becomes transformative. By tapping into students’ creativity, we can nurture the whole child, support mental health, and elevate academic outcomes. Whether you’re a building leader, an arts educator, or a classroom teacher, integrating arts-based SEL practices will create deeper, more authentic learning experiences for your students.