Social Emotional Learning through Theatre

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected different individuals in different ways, irrespective of their socio-economic backgrounds. However, when we take a deeper dive into the impacts of the pandemic, we find it is actually our children who are the worst affected in terms of their mental and emotional growth. Kids being confined within the four walls of their homes during their peak learning years is definitely going to adversely affect their future in multiple ways. They are being deprived of the chance to develop basic skills such as self-awareness, self-control, creativity and empathy, and interpersonal skills which are important to excel in school, college, and the workplace. This is where the concept of Social Emotional Learning kicks in. People with strong social emotional skills are better at building positive relationships, understanding and expressing their feelings, decision making, and tend to grow into more aware and empathetic individuals overall. There are multiple methods of teaching children these skills at different levels. Sometimes, Social Emotional Learning is incorporated into the syllabus in such a way that students are not even able to identify it. Another slowly emerging and quite efficient way of making children learn these skills is theatre. Theatre is an art that can easily provoke any individual to bring out change, both personally and socially. Theatre involves teamwork, non-verbal communication, and articulation of one's thoughts and feelings, which can help kids to acquire social and emotional skills. It pushes children to get out of their comfort zones and share ideas. It also makes them learn how to work in a team, and interact with each other. They also learn to build and maintain better relationships with friends and family. To summarize, it can be said that Theatre is a powerful tool when it comes to Social Emotional Learning, and it's time that we start incorporating it into our education system. The sooner we do it, the better it'll be.