i'm kalani das music educator and board certified
music therapist and this is a short talk about social and emotional learning and how as
music educators musicians music therapists we can help people to achieve a lot of the goals that
are set forth in this idea of social and emotional learning so by the time we're done you'll have
some idea of what social emotional learning is and how it can be addressed through
musical experiences and activities primarily in the music education classroom but
also beyond so let's start by identifying what social emotional learning is and i'm going to
read you the definition that is set forth by the collaborative for academic social and emotional
learning and they say that it is the process through which all young people and adults acquire
and apply the knowledge skills and attitudes to develop healthy identities manage emotions
and achieve personal and collective goals feel and show empathy for others establish
and maintain positive relationships and make responsible and caring decisions
so we have five main areas and i'm going to talk about each of them and while i do that
i will also talk about how those areas can be addressed through musical experiences because
my belief is that a lot of these can very easily be achieved through the music classroom or
music experience and that as music educators social and emotional learning is
right in our wheelhouse and has been all all along for the whole time so we don't
really have to do too much we just have to look and see where uh our process as music educators
is aligning with the goals of social and emotional learning so let's do that let's start with the
first one create healthy identities another way you could say we're creating a healthy identity
is to use the idea of a positive self-regard or self-concept and lots of people have talked about
this throughout time but what does that look like one of the ways it looks is just uh somebody
who's willing to jump in both feet and engage in an activity um and music you know most people like
music they're ready to go they're looking forward to it and they have fun they enjoy it so the music
space is available willing you know it's open it's a non-threatening environment it's a very
welcoming environment but it's also an environment where you can be creative you can share ideas
you can present yourself your ideas you can try things out you can make mistakes you can try this
try that and be creative and so being creative taking risks being vulnerable you know presenting
your ideas listening to the ideas of others and collaborating we'll get to that one in a second
but all of those things can help somebody develop a positive concept of themselves
right they can build confidence while they build relationships but we're
right now we're focusing on healthy identity so musical experiences you know i know from my
own experiences as a musician and as a student that when i achieved some skill or i learned
something i felt great and when i did a you know played something and i got some positive feedback
it's just a really good feeling it's a great way to build confidence even though i know for a lot
of us music making can be a little bit scary but the the skilled music educator as a facilitator of
music knows how to do that uh well and keep people feeling good and there's certainly lots of ways
that we can do that we can give people successful experiences well where they will leave um
feeling great about themselves regardless of the fact that sometimes the opposite might may
happen in music lessons uh but that aside you know the vast majority of students in music class
really look forward to it they feel great about it they do all sorts of things in the class
that that actually don't ever get seen in the performances that sometimes get put on you
know throughout the year by the musicians or by the music class i think the real value is what
happens in the class with the moments you know personal relationship building and personal
confidence building that happens every time we meet in the music all right so that's a big
plus something that pretty much automatically happens in music is somebody building you
know a healthful identity of themselves number two managing emotions and of course this
is a big one for all of us especially young people especially where there might be cultural
issues gender issues gender identity issues uh you know new new kid in town issues all sorts
of things come up where we're talking about managing emotions but i want to be clear
that there's lots of opportunities for us to not only express and feel emotions but then also
look at how we can manage them and we're just going to draw a distinction here between managing
which means what do i do with this emotion that i'm having and suppressing an emotion which is
how can i get rid of this emotion how can i not feel it and we don't want to do that we want to
feel acknowledge express and process emotions you know let them happen and music is a great
space to do that because music really contains you know in the scope of music the depth and
breadth of music that we have to work with pretty much covers all of the emotions uh that
we feel you know from deep sadness sorrow to joy and elation and everything in between so
there's all sorts of opportunities as a music therapist we often use songs in a modality
called lyric analysis or lyric discussion so even if it's talking about the meaning of
a song or in something like guided imagery and music we might imagine things draw some artwork
to music it's express get in touch with feelings and emotions and then be able to process them
so mu the music space is a great space to not only express but also to identify emotions
and feelings that we might be having and you can help your students do that and you
can do that for yourself all right another giant area that everyone is looking for really
when they hire an employee or they enter into a relationship of any kind is empathy empathy for
others and empathy is really just another way of saying i see you i get you i understand kind
of what you might be feeling or what might be going on and that of course as many people have
said this it's different from sympathy we don't want to confuse sympathy and empathy sympathy
is just feeling sorry for somebody basically or saying oh that that must suck to be you um that's
different from empathy which is just being able to put yourself in somebody else's position
and relate to them and there are so many ways that we can connect in music that we could connect
for example as a music therapist i might have a client play a certain play an instrument and then
i could match what they're doing match the energy or you know mirror what they're doing and
thereby create an empathetic connection and we actually have a lot of techniques in music
therapy that are called empathetic techniques and they're all music based all of this happens within
the music without talking without people having to explain what they're feeling or think about it
or intellectualize it so again the music space because it's non-verbal a lot of the time it's a
human you know it's a humanity music is a humanity so there's always that human aesthetic element
that just you know goes where words can't go and we can create some really strong relationships
within music for that reason and related to that we're going to talk about and look at
supportive relationships well of course music making involves all sorts of different roles
and responsibilities and relationships whether we're talking about keeping a steady beat holding
a tonality playing simple chord changes singing harmony playing complementary patterns playing
a solo supporting a soloist creating spaces for people filling in spaces that are left by other
people all sorts of relationships that uh it's just it's just never ending and you know basically
any kind of relationship that we have in life whether that's a partnership uh really supportive
relationships where we're really holding somebody up or we're jumping out in front taking chances
all those kinds of relationships can be created and developed and celebrated through
the music experience individually partners small ensembles and entire groups all
right so that is a big one of course in music it is an ensemble it is a symphony uh where people
can be doing different things and unique things yet all playing together all right so music's
right there with you in in terms of developing supportive relationships the last category of
these five is is making responsible and caring decisions and you know that's a big category
basically my understanding at this point and of course we could add to this ad infinite item but
it's essentially you know using your own ethics to make decisions making decisions based on equity
right not necessarily equality like everybody has to have the same thing or do the same thing
but equity like there's a balance you know my opinion matters and your opinion matters so
given that what should we do what do i vote for uh you know having a vote in the process making
decisions based on you know what might be good for someone else you know supporting somebody
who's who's maybe you know feeling a little bit ganged up on for example and taking that
person advocating for that person or their cause for example so making your decisions
um that are like it says responsible uh in other words i have a role in this my choice
here will affect somebody uh it will affect myself it will affect other people therefore what
am i going to do caring decisions what does person x need right now what could i do
for them or what could i do for the group uh putting my own you know my own impulses and
desires in this moment aside what could i do that would be the most caring decision in this
moment things like that and when we play music we make those decisions we might say well
i really want to do this and take a solo but i'm going to take the role of support right
now so somebody else can have that opportunity or i might just let somebody else play
this instrument because i've had it before and they haven't you know so there's all sorts
of opportunities to exercise care and attention for others and for ourselves in the music space so
my personal uh material that i've developed over a series of many years is called music mindfulness
that's something that if you'd like you can listen to it on itunes through the evolve podcast i'm
also doing a series on world drum club on world drum club youtube channel and my take with it is
if we take some of the teachings from mindfulness and music because music already has so much
of this stuff ready to go if we just add in a little bit of mindfulness which is you
know increasing our awareness and attention both in terms of the environment and our
inner environment this relates to emotions and empathy if we can do that um tune in a little
bit more you know to a few things a few points then we're we're just so well positioned to
deliver uh just quality social and emotional learning experiences for students of all ages
and adults and ourselves all right and those we care about so my name is kalani music
educator board certified music therapist if you'd like to learn more or you have any
questions for me you can contact me through my website kalanimusic.com the evolve podcast
is available at kalanidos.com and on itunes the website or the youtube channel is world
drum club feel free to reach out if i can be of any help thanks for listening
and uh i'll see you all in a future video
