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Incorporating Dance in School Counseling
- 1. INCORPORATING DANCE AS A SCHOOL COUNSELING STRATEGY Paola Reyes • January 2018 B.A. Dance B.A. Latin American Studies M.A. Counseling
- 2. According to the American Dance Therapy Association, Dance Therapy is defined as the psychotherapeutic use of movement to further the emotional, cognitive, physical and social integration of the individual. Dance Therapy
- 4. PHYSICAL
- 6. EMOTIONAL
- 7. MIRROR DANCE ACTIVITY Purpose: To raise awareness of nonverbal communication using dance and movement. Activity Instructions: Choose a partner close to you. 1. Share with them how you feel today. 2. Decide who’s the leader and who’s the follower. 3. On my call, the leader should initiate the movement allowing the follower enough time and space to be able to follow (no sudden movements, don’t make it tricky!) Make sure you’re focused on looking at each other and use only non verbal communication. The leader will continue with the movements until you hear the alarm go off, 4. Switch and have the follower initiate the movement. until you hear the alarm go off. “When I look, I am so exist”- Winnicott
- 8. DANCE PROJECTS Implementing Strategies at all levels K-5th Middle school High School-adults
- 9. CVUSD Park Oaks Outreach Folklorico Program 2011-2013
- 10. FUN FRIDAY DANCE DANCE CLUB MHS FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT SALSA DANCE CLASSES
- 12. DANCE CIRCLES FOR SMALL GROUPS OR CLASSROOM LESSONS
- 13. FACILITATING THE DANCE GROUP APPROACH: ● Follow the ASCA National Mindsets and Behavior Standards ● Safety-spatial awareness. Have students become aware of their space and relation to others. ● Mind-body connection-Use imagery to help students develop body awareness. ● Design the session based on the students’ needs, abilities and level of participation. STRUCTURE Beginning-Warm up isolation movements Middle-main concept of the lesson (Ex: build spatial awareness) End- Cooling down with deep breaths. Reflection Questions: About process and body/movement awareness
- 14. CREATIVE EXPRESSIONS TO MANAGE EMOTIONS
- 15. QUESTIONS? Contact information: Paola Reyes School Counselor Paola.Reyes@venturaedu.org
- 16. REFERENCES/RESOURCES Using Dance Therapy with High School Students: A Strategy for School Counselors: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1072612.pdf Anxiety: https://www.anxiety.org/what-is-dance-movement-therapy Psychology Today. Why Should we dance?: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/meaning-in-motion/201305/why-should-we- dance Psychology today. Creative Arts Therapy and Expressive Arts Therapy: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/arts-and- health/201406/creative-arts-therapy-and-expressive-arts-therapy ASCA School Counselor Magazine; Creative School Counseling https://schoolcounselor.org/asca/media/asca/magazine/archives/septoct2013.pdf Video:ADTA Talks-What is Dance/Movement Therapy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guAkQYcMKxQ&feature=youtu.be Video: Movement therapy helps young kids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1RCZeW2wXE
Editor's Notes
- My name is Paola Reyes, I am currently a school counselor at Elmhurst Elementary in Ventura Unified School District. I have been working in education for about 20 years. I have a B.A. in dance and have danced, performed and choreographed in various dance styles including jazz, modern, improvisation, tap, ballroom, salsa, musicals, and Mexican folklore. Over the years I’ve been working in both education and dance simultaneously. Dance has been an integral part of my life. Personally it has helped me develop a greater sense of self-awareness, confidence, self-expression, ability to work with a diverse group of people. I did not start dancing until I was in high school. I was born in Mexico and at the age of nine I came to live in the U.S. with my family. I had a very low self-esteem, poor self-image, and many times I felt left out besides the fact that I was learning a new language and a new culture, I couldn’t relate with what the majority of the students my age liked. After I started dancing on my own towards the end of my middle school, I lost a lot of weight and began to feel better about myself. I gained enough confidence to advocate to be in a dance class at the high school. Since then, dance has been part of my life and has helped me cope and be able to adapt to many changes and situations and build resilience. Now that I work as a school counselor I have been able to use my experience in dance with my counseling skills to design ways to incorporate dance as a school counseling strategy. So far, I have done a creative dance project to help 5th grade students transition to middle school, direct and teach an outreach folklorico dance program of 30 K-6 EL students, facilitated Dancing Circles and Fun Friday Dances. In this presentation, I will be talking about the dance benefits and how it helps students manage their emotions and the strategies that you can use at all levels in small counseling groups, in the classroom or as an alternative enrichment/lunch program.
- This presentation and the strategies that I’m about to present include many elements of dance therapy. Some of us when we think of dance, we think about going to the club with friends or performing a perfect pirouette or splits. So in order to understand how dance can heal, we need to understand the definition of dance therapy. According to the ADTA, Dance therapy is defined as the psychotherapeutic use of movement to further the emotional, physical and social integration of the individual. Before we continue, I would like to show you a video that demonstrates why dance is important for many. As you can see from the video, dance is more than just moving around to the music for joy or to focus on the technique. It’s about exploring the possibilities that exist within us, it is a connection with ourselves as well as with others. Research indicates that 12-30% of the students in the United States, experience at least moderate behavioral, social, or emotional problems (Juvenon, Le, Kaganoff, Augustine, & Louay, 2004). Also, according to Ventura County Office of Education Kids data, there are about 31.7 % of students in Ventura County that have reported to have feelings of depression. (http://www.kidsdata.org/export/pdf?loc=1635). Adolescents struggle with social, emotional and physical issues and the use of expressive arts can help students communicate those emotions. The opportunity to communicate conflict and emotions nonverbally can benefit students at all levels. “Adolescents who are struggling with feelings of anger and confusion can express themselves in a safe and dynamic form that is more often than not accompanied by music.” (Using Dance Therapy with High School Students: A Strategy for School Counselors, Julia S. Chibbaro, Charleta Reshae Holland, University of West Georgia.) The use of creative dance/movement in the schools can help students of all ages and different abilities to be able to express themselves in a nonverbal manner. Through the use of their breath and a well-structured dance movement improvisation guidance by the instructor. Students are guided towards paying attention to their bodies, tension and release exercises, and exploration of movement. Dance therapy has been shown to be effective in reducing test anxiety in college students and decrease depression and improve vitality.
- DANCE BENEFITS Physical-strong, flexible, agile. Active rather than passive Mental-increases memory, mood, attention Emotional-healing of the mind, awareness of the body, self-expression; anger management.
- DANCE BENEFITS Some of the most obvious dance benefits are the physical ones. It is active, not passive. With continuous practice student increase their energy, posture, flexibility, coordination, and strength. Exposing students to dance helps them become aware of their body and what they’re capable of doing, eventually recognizing their strengths as well as their limitations. It is an integrative practice because includes and accepts people with all different capabilities. The guided breath,movement and imagery use helps them reflect and create a mind-body process
- Mental dance benefits include better memory, mood, and attention as the students exercise their cognitive processes as they’re learning and moving. There are many benefits of dance supported by research. It can provide a safe and positive environment for individuals of different backgrounds and abilities, including those with pre-existing psychological disorder, mental retardation, autism, and other conditions.There has been research indicating that when participants took dance classes their mental health and overall mood improved. It can also help decrease anxiety, overcome trauma.Dance therapy can be a restorative experience. As you can see in this picture, this is the way the brain functions when we dance.
- Some of the Emotional benefits include healing of the mind, awareness of the body, self-expression; anger, character-building. An opportunity to develop creative thinking, discipline, determination-keep going even when things go unplanned. Creates a set of growth mindset and learn to be resilient. As students get the opportunity to create their own movements, patterns and choreography, they learn more about themselves and what they’re able to do. Through this practice students learn how to interact with others, how to think critically as they are working on their own to solve their own problems they face at the moment. Dance allows students to express how their feeling in the present time and how to cope with stressful situations without the need to use words. Younger students are beginning to learn emotional vocabulary, and middle/high school students may not feel as comfortable sharing verbally. Therefore dance movement is a great strategy for them to express themselves in a safe and positive environments. It helps them reflect and apply what they learn in dance sessions to everyday life situations.
- Now that we have learned some of the benefits of dance, I have an activity for all of you to participate in. It’s a low-risk activity that you can use with any of your students. So I will go over the instructions first, then I will have you work with your partner so please listen first. So now that you have experienced doing the mirror dance activity. How did you feel? You can just shout out the answer. Did your feeling changed from the beginning? what do you think made it change? or prevented it from changing? How many of you thought it was easy to lead? How many of you thought it was hard to lead? What about being a follower? Was it easy? Or hard? I have done this type of activity with elementary students for a classroom lesson on self-control. It is a way of embodying empathy, and helping those students that have experienced some sort of trauma without feeling singled-out. In culturally diverse school, a common challenge is the conflict that exists between the students due to their difference. If the students don’t receive the tools to create a safe and supportive school environment, behavior issues can arise tremendously. Through dance, students can learn to respect and embrace each others’ differences. This exercise is particularly efficient to use for students who have experienced trauma. When students experience trauma, many are unable to express their feelings verbally and many times as you may have witnessed it comes out as a impulsive behavior. They may experience dissociation in which they detach from physical and emotional experience. This low-risk activity provides them with the opportunity to do a mind-body connection as a restorative experience and progressively learn what it means to be resilient while developing interpersonal skills.
- As I mentioned before, some of the projects that I have worked on have included a Creative Dance Project” for 5th graders, Hispanic Heritage Month celebration-Foreign language department, Outreach Ballet Folklorico Program, “Dancing with the T.O. Stars”, Fun Friday Dance during lunch, and Dance Circles. Each school has different needs and resources so it is important to consider several factors such as the number of students you will be working with and the use of space. Finding the right space for dance can be tricky because even though anyone can dance pretty much anywhere, you got to think about how the space can be a distraction or a potential hazard. Dancing in the classroom crowded in the carpet area can be a limitation and may cause more behavior problems so setting up the space beforehand will help prevent other problems. The cafeteria or the stage could be a good place depending on the capacity of the place and number of and age of the students you’re teaching. If it’s a large class of about 22 elementary students, you can set it up with some room dividers for half the room. You want space but not so much space specially if it’s the first time participating in the activity. You want to be able to control/manage your class. The places where I have taught previous movement classes have been on the stage, an unoccupied room with all the furniture moved out of the way, cafeteria and the blacktop. If there’s no other room blacktop is the last resource due to the reason that students may not be able to do some movement on the floor travel such as rolling, kneeling, or dragging.
- After school enrichment program at a local school. It was a class offered as part of the Outreach Program for 30 EL students K-6th every wednesday 1 hour prior to their academic tutoring time. The idea was to offer EL students an opportunity to participate in a dance class which included basic warm up, isolation/movement exploration and technical dance in the form of ballet and Mexican folklore dance. 1st year students were mostly shy and were beginning to start feeling comfortable moving their bodies. The majority of students had not participated in previous extracurricular activities. Because of their lack of exposure, it was challenging at first. I needed to provide specific movement to follow so I thought basic warm up isolation exercises that they could memorize and repeat at every class. Parents were expected to volunteer to help out ordering the costumes, shoes, taking pictures and other needs. 2nd year students began to feel more confident and proud to learn more about their culture through dancing, it was a way for them to express themselves and a higher sense of belonging. They also had the opportunity to present to their audience in English and Spanish a little history fact of each dance they performed. On the third year, the students were ready for a new challenge because they had already learn most of the typical songs, so I added a new component. I encourage them to create their own dances. With some of my guidance, they got to choose their own age-appropriate song and performed for their parents, family and teachers. The students confidence level, enthusiasm, teamwork, creativity and ability to pay more attention increased throughout this process. They were consistent and parents were great supporters. This type of program not only helped the students grow social-emotionally but it also helped them have a better connection with their culture, and encouraged parents to become more involved in their education. It was an outreach strategy that even though it was hard work, it was well supported and attended. As a counselor, this would be a little more challenging to do given the demands of our job. However if you ever find out of someone who’s willing to do these type of classes, the best you could do is offer support and help them connect with the right people to make something like this happen. Help students to get access to experience this type of activity.
- Fun Friday, Dance Club and The MHS foreign language department salsa classes are some of the other projects that I have done to incorporate dance with counseling at different levels. All of these dance projects are more social/recreational because they are only offered for a limited amount of time. For example, I incorporated the Fun Friday Dance at Will Rogers Elementary because we had a lot of students who did not liked playing the typical playground games and were getting in trouble or felt isolated. Every friday I would play music during their lunch times and we would play dance games or played popular songs that the students liked. We used props such as scarfs, ribbons and parachute. Some of the games included having the students forming a circle and follow the leader or just cheer for the solo, duo or trio that goes in the center of the circle. I played songs like “Macarena”, “Cha cha slide” and taught other songs that I had choreographed before. Fun friday dance could work at any level, but you may see more participation at the elementary level. It doesn’t only help the students feel good about themselves, but it’s a very good way to build your relationship with the students as well. For middle school-adults You can do the same songs or recruit/hire a staff member or a parent who knows salsa, swing or ballroom. For example my husband who is also a school counselor and happens to be right here used to work at the high school and he got recruited by the Foreign language department to teach salsa classes. (As some of you that knows us Homero and I met dancing while we were in college, I was the choreographer and he was my salsa partner.) While he worked at the high school he recruited me to teach a whole day with him at his school to teach about 5 classes of about 800 students. Students really enjoyed it and were more willing to give it a try because they had that personal connection with Homero. We did have a couple of students sitting down, but the majority were moving and grooving. We tried to set the tone to be fun, easy and relaxed. We divided the boys on one side in front of the girls. We taught them “leader” and “follower” steps. After they learned the basic steps we partnered up and rotated everybody in a circle. Students got to experience dancing/talking to others who they usually wouldn’t talk to, express their individual movements, learn a new culture through latin rhythms and count in Spanish to keep the beat and say some salsa dance terms out loud. We taught the classes for Hispanic Heritage month but it can be done for any occasion such as multicultural day. What made it particularly special was for the students to see their counselor in a different way and build a deeper connection with him.
- Creative Dance Project-Graduate program project to explain the habits of a systems thinker in a creative way, my partner who is also now a school counselor at Fillmore unified Sonia Barajas and I came up with this creative dance project. We designed a six week program to help 5th grade students to increase self-esteem, reduce anxiety and ease the transition to middle school. The idea of this project is to offer the opportunity to the students to express themselves and facilitate their process of feeling comfortable in their own bodies (self-knowledge, self-acceptance), be challenged to think out-of-the box (problem solving), work with others (interpersonal interaction/communication) inhibit stereotypes all in a safe and inviting environment. “A Walk in the Park” Understanding your environment” “I love me” (self-knowledge & Self-acceptance) “Discover the Hero in You” (Discover your inner strengths) “Move On” (Work in groups to create your own choreography “Persevere” (Review choreography in groups) “Just Do it” (Showcase for the group) *Students can have the opportunity to perform during culmination ceremony. This type of activity works great with any kind of SEL curriculum that you may have in your school. This one in particular aligns very well with “The Leader in Me”.
- Last but not list. Another dance strategy used in counseling was the use of dance circles. Dance circles for small counseling groups or classroom lessons can be beneficial to help students with issues of impulse-control, self-regulation, inattention, and overall classroom dynamics. The small counseling groups would benefit students with same issues in addition to but not limited to low self-esteem, social skills, grief, trauma and other socio-emotional struggles. I have prepared a Dance Movement Activities handout that are based on my experience and training in modern and improvisation dance styles. As you see on this slide, the improvisation tips can be used as a guide to help students find their own movement. The Dance circles that I have done for the classrooms have been for a period of three sessions, 30 minutes long for TK-2nd grade. However, you can extend to 40 minutes to receive full benefits. The handouts offer more detailed description of activities you can use for either the small group or classroom lessons. I will also send you a lesson plan prepared from last year that includes the specific ASCA mindsets & behavior standards and full description of a 3 session class ready for you to use. LESSON: file:///C:/Users/homer/Downloads/Instructional%20Activity%20DanceCirclesK-5th.doc%20(1).pdf ACTIVITIES: file:///C:/Users/homer/Downloads/Dance%20Movement%20Activities%20for%20Classroom%20Lessons.pdf
- In terms of facilitating the dance group. It is important to take in consideration the ASCA national mindsets in behavior because that’s what we know best. Sticking to our best practices will help us reach our objective as we’re working with the students. Most areas such as learning strategies, self-management and social skills can be fulfilled when we incorporate dance as a counseling strategy. As counselors, we know that it is important to set the stage of our lesson by providing a positive and nurturing environment where all students of different needs/abilities are welcome. As you progress through the sessions allow the students to observe each other and complement each other's’ work. Many times students are not used to complement each other or do it in a superficial way. By giving them the opportunity to give each other positive feedback, students are learning to respect each other and build interpersonal/relationship skills. In terms of the structure just as with any dance choreography there should be a beginning, middle and end. Incorporate basic warm up isolation movements such as neck, shoulders, arms, etc. Build progressively from the basic knowledge of isolations and warm up exercises to walking, running, skipping. Include concepts of spatial awareness, musicality, coordination, balance, and notice of the breath. Eventually, the goal is for students to develop controlled movements that are intentional yet unplanned. Use imagery to provide students with an idea of how movements can look like. The students themselves can come up with “terms” to explore body awareness, and it reinforces the idea that you value their ideas, building their self confidence.
- Just as with dance, there are many creative ways to help students manage their emotions and integrate approaches to foster self-awareness, emotional growth and interpersonal skills. You can include creative drawings in any of your sessions to have students draw what they feel. I have worked with students in the class and in small groups to create art that describes their feelings. In the handout that I mentioned before there’s activity number 7 called “Shapes and Colors” is an example of how to integrate both dance and art in counseling. Shapes and colors. Have students draw some lines, shapes and designs on a big piece of paper. Make sure to let students know to make it intentional but not planned. Let them use a variety of colors to represent emotions. Once completed have students find some space to interpret their pictures into a dance. They can follow the same pattern and intent to create the same lines and shapes with their movements across the floor. ACTIVITIES: file:///C:/Users/homer/Downloads/Dance%20Movement%20Activities%20for%20Classroom%20Lessons.pdf In conclusion, any type of creative expressions that the student identifies with can greatly benefit the students and help them through their healing process to accomplish academic success. If you have experience in any of these in particular, I highly encourage you use it as an strategy in your counseling practice. Students will not only learn coping skills from what you teach them, but they will also perceive your passion and believe even more in the practice that heals.
- Any questions, at any particular point, whether is now or later, feel free to reach me. I can help you brainstorm ideas that may work for individual case/school needs’ or if you know of any contacts/resources that you are already using, we can share with VCSCA.