By Ally Lanasa, Staff Writer

(Dec. 3, 2020) Teachers, students and community members have leaned on the arts to create a sense of calm and maintain good mental health during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Tamara Mills

Tamara Mills, coordinator of instruction at Worcester County Public Schools, provided the Worcester County Board of Education an overview of how elementary and middle school art teachers revised the curriculum to include social emotional learning components, resources and activities at its meeting on Nov. 17.

Mills told the board that a study of covid-19 and the arts was conducted at the University College of London by Dr. Daisy Fancourt.

The study involved 72,000 adults. Mills added that there’s not as much research in children at this time.

“It was conducted weekly since March,” she said. “Seventeen percent of white participants within this study reported feelings of loneliness/depression.”

Twenty-three percent of participants from Black, Asian and Middle Eastern descent reported feelings of loneliness and depression.

The study found that 30 minutes or more of arts activities daily led to lower rates of depression and anxiety.

“They were small things from creative writing, listening to music, playing music, creating artwork and crafts,” Mills said.

Mills participated in a summer workshop of fine arts coordinators called SEL (social and emotional learning) through the arts hosted by the Maryland State Department of Education to develop a state guide.

“This has been shared across the country now, as some groundbreaking work related to connecting CASEL standards, which are the social emotional learning standards, with the standards in the different art forms,” Mills said.

The guide provides a statement of support for social emotional learning and the arts, research on developing social emotional learning competencies, a framework for professional learning to build social emotional learning in children and examples for teachers to plan lessons. The

MAP COURTESY WORCESTER COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Tamara Mills, coordinator of instruction for Worcester County Public Schools, informed the Worcester County Board of Education on Nov. 17 that she participated in a summer workshop of fine arts coordinators called SEL (social and emotional learning) through the Arts hosted by the Maryland State Department of Education to develop a state guide. It provides crosswalks that show how the professional learning art standards and the CASEL standards for social emotional learning correlate.

guide also addresses all artforms: visual, music, theatre, dance and media.

“We did a couple of different crosswalks in this document to show how the professional learning art standards and the CASEL standards line up, and then the art standards within each individual art form can align directly with each individual SEL standard,” Mills said. “It was a very strategic

process of how we get here from here to here with our kids. How do we move our children in the direction of allowing art to really help them mentally?”

Then, Mills became involved in a Worcester County Public Schools social emotional learning through the arts workshop with Melissa Reid at Buckingham Elementary School, Cindy Sullivan at Snow Hill Elementary School and Heather Shockley at Snow Hill Middle School.

The educators evaluated the Understanding by Design (UbD) units in the elementary and middle school visual art curriculum.

Now, learning activities reflect the social emotional learning standards to have an impact on students’ mental health.

As students are engaged in distance learning until Jan. 4, they use iPad technology for arts education and social emotional learning.

“I am really proud of the way our teachers are trying to use technology and thankful for your support for that technology because we’ve been able to really think outside the box and use new programs,” Mills told the board of education.

Educators currently incorporate programs, such as QuaverMusic, SmartMusic, Sight Reading Factory and GarageBand, in music lessons.

For more information about the Maryland State Department of Education social emotional learning arts guide, visit https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b62f7232487fd03344fb77d/t/5ee6f77cc7d20c58c2b24901/1592194950685/SEL+Through+the+Arts+FINAL+COPY.pdf.