004: Leveraging the SEL and the Arts to Affect Change in Ourselves, Students, and Society with Amanda Koonlaba

EPISODE 004 HIGHLIGHTS:

• “The arts are the key to change. Arts are not fluff; arts are the fuel.”
• Teaching human beings above teaching our content. The arts help create whole human beings.
• Highlighting the best of each student through arts integration and the five SEL competencies
• Using art and illustrations as a form of self-expression, developing student self-confidence and self-efficacy, exploring identity, exploring social issues, and challenging stereotypes and biases.

EPISODE 004 RESOURCES:

• Connect with Amanda: Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM, Curriculum Vitae, Party in the Art Room website, Blog, Courses, Lesson Collections
• The Art of Norman Rockwell
• Vincent Van Gogh Art
• Research from the Arts Commission on how integrating SEL and the arts have influenced Mississippi schools 

EPISODE 004 TRANSCRIPT:

Krista (00:00): Welcome everyone. To addition five of SEL in ed five. Yes. We're working along and we are with an extra special guest today because she is also an ASCD emerging leader. We have Dr. Amanda Koonlaba with us. She is an educator and artist with experience in both the visual arts and regular education courses. Her career is driven by the power of the arts to reach all learners. And for all of you who are watching and listening, I am so excited that I get a chance to see Amanda live because she and I have been talking on social media and I know that she has such a deep love and passion for integrating social emotional learning into the arts. So thank you, Amanda, for being here with us today.

Amanda Koonlaba (01:58): Thank you so much for having me.

Craig (02:02): Amanda would love to just kind of start off with, you know, this ES this passion you have and you know, you do so many amazing things for so many, uh, young people and the adults around them and would love to just kind of learn a little bit more about how that looks for you. How do SEL and the work that you do serve you today?

Amanda Koonlaba (02:34): Well, that's a big question. So I started my career teaching like first grade I taught third grade, just regular classroom, self, not self-contained, but we didn't change classes or anything like that. So I had the same group of kids all day long, all year long. And I worked at schools though that were partners with our estates' art commission. So I had this like background in the arts from the get-go from when I did my student teaching, I was always expected and learning about how to teach that way. About six years into teaching, I got an offer to go to another school across town to be the art teacher. So I was teaching first grade and they, these principals asked me to come over there because they wanted me, they wanted me to kind of lead an arts integration initiative with them.

Amand