We've all heard the stories: irate customers, out-of-control airplane passengers, violent school board meetings. After two years of Zooming, our social interaction skills have atrophied. This is also being seen in classrooms and on schoolyards across the country, where teachers are reporting bullying and other disruptive, unkind behavior. "Kids have lost their social skills," one Bay Area middle school teacher told our School Programs team.
Realizing the unique capacity of art to promote self-reflection, forge connections, and teach empathy, our School Programs team mobilized to include more Social Emotional Learning (SEL) content in school tours, which resumed on-site at the museum in March.
"We started incorporating more SEL tools over the past year and half in our virtual school programs and are now including them in on-site museum tours," says Manager of School and Teacher Programs Margaret Yee. "Two years of Zoom school is a lifetime for kids and we saw that many didn't know how to interact with one another. We realized that we needed to help them learn how to be together in a supported way and to teach tools that lead to peaceful conflict resolution."
A subcommittee of museum staff and docents consulted with the museum's Teacher Advisory Council to develop ways to address the five competencies of SEL: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Based on the teachers’ feedback, the subcommittee adapted best practices for the context of museum education.
"Connection, not just content, is the goal," says Art Education Assistant Pamela Low. "We are giving docents and storytellers tools so they can connect with students while sharing their love of art."
In the Brushpainting: Nature in Art tour, docents are now asking open-ended questions about the natural world, climate change, and environmental justice. Students today care deeply about these issues and eliciting their thoughts, through close looking at artworks, allows them to reflect on their own feelings and beliefs. It leads to conversations that promote interpersonal skills. It also forges connections with classmates, the docent, and even artists in ways that are meaningful to them.
The Ancient China tour has also been revamped. When looking at the Ming dynasty Seated Thousand-Armed Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin), the bodhisattva of compassion, students are asked what acts of compassion they think Guanyin might perform. On a worksheet, each student draws or writes an act of kindness for each of the bodhisattva's many arms. Sharing out their results spreads compassion throughout the gallery.
Our storytelling tours are also building in more time for reflection: each tour now ends with questions that promote empathy. In the Tricksters! tour, for instance, storytellers ask, "What was the trickster's impact on others? How would you have handled the conflict in the story? If you were in the story, how would you have helped someone else?" These questions provoke discussion about empathy and responsible decision-making, core social and emotional skills.
The middle school teacher quoted above is enthusiastic about this new approach. "I love the new activities … now more than ever, we really need to teach kindness, beauty, art, nature, love, and peace."
Learn more about school tours at education.asianart.org/school-programs.
Major support for the Asian Art Museum’s school programs and resources is provided by the Dhanam Foundation and The William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation Education and Research Fund. Additional support is provided by Doris and Stephen Chun and Daphne and Stuart Wells.