The Bowers article examined a study with the use of Arthur to engage students in building character. By pairing a first grader with a fourth grader and having them watch an interactive Arthur episode it stimulated questions about how to treat other people. It is a method for encouraging socioemotional development. The AIM video described the Arthur interactive socioemotional development curriculum, how teachers can use it in their classroom, and how it benefits older and younger students. It shows how the interactive videos and games encourage discussions about difficult decisions that might hurt someone’s feelings, might result in embarrassing oneself, or might cause someone to get in trouble. It’s designed to help children make better decisions. The program suggests students in younger grades team up with older grade students and watch together, which makes the conversations less intimidating for the younger students. The AIM Project website videos are short stories about different character qualities. They show an Arthur character in a situation where they need to make a decision, with the possible choices and impact of each choice. They focus on qualities like empathy, honesty and forgiveness to teach young viewers the effect of their decisions as a way to support socioemotional development. The NPR podcast about Dora the Explorer discussed how the interactive show developed and became so popular in the US in a time of anti-immigration sentiment (which still exists today). Dora was a cross-cultural problem solver designed in a way to empower Latinx children. She promoted inclusivity but her pan-Latina image lacked a single identity thereby erasing differences between Latin cultures.
I don’t recall lessons in socioemotional development during my K-12 years. I see the challenges teachers have with incorporating socioemotional learning in their curriculum, because of the large class size and work load. It is something that would traditionally be taught in the home. But not all children learn emotional skills at home and there is so much bullying and mistreatment in the school environment, so I understand the need for inclusion of this in classroom learning. I was teased and bullied during elementary and middle school and no teacher or staff did anything about it. My daughter was bullied during middle school and I had several conversations with the principal, but even then the school was very deficient in how they addressed it. Their lack of attention to the problem indicated their lack of understanding and awareness with socioemotional matters.
How should socioemotional learning be incorporated into K-12 classrooms? Is interactive digital media sufficient?
Sylvia's blog 
Hi Sylvia,
I think digital media is a great tool teachers can utilize to help teach lessons on socio-emotional learning in the classroom. However, it should not be the only tool. In person, interactive labs, as well as presentations can and should also be used by teachers in classrooms from K-12. As students get older, the themes and messages may change. Nevertheless, these lessons are equally important to a math lesson, and students should be told from an early age that emotions are something that should be discussed and not ignored.
Best,
Nick
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Hi Sylvia,
When I volunteer at elementary schools during the day, I see teachers incorporating socio-emotional learning in many different ways. One of the main ways is by having class meetings where students have the floor to speak about whatever they would like or answer the question the teacher posed. Even with my job in after school, I have received many trainings on how to incorporate it into my own class.
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Hi Sylvia,
I think that interactive digital media could be a big help for students to develop socio-emotional skills but it can’t do all of the teachings. I work in an elementary school that promotes pro-social interaction, so every time students find themselves in a dilemma with their classmates, they need to address the problem and find a solution that they both agree with. Even though some schools don’t actually implement socioemotional development lessons into their curriculum, it should be a latent part of all schools.
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Hi Sylvia,
When I was in community college I took an anti-bias class where we learned about “persona dolls”. Just like the Arthur game, these dolls purpose was to teach the children about socioemotional topics such as empathy, forgiveness, generosity, honesty, and learning from others. They were told a story and the children were left to come up with a solution to the problem the doll was facing just like the Arthur game. The children would sit around this doll and talk about how they though the doll was feeling and how they could help. I actually performed this activity with my preschool classroom and was surprise as to how much the children had to say and their ideas to help. So, although not a lot of schools are focusing on the importance of socioemotional learning I have hope that this new generation of educators see the huge role it plays in the child life.
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