Things Left Behind: Integrating Social Emotional Learning into the Classroom

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is receiving increased focus in schools due to the pandemic. Participants in this free film screening and workshop for K-12 educators will learn about lessons based in the humanities that encourage reflection, empathy, and an understanding of others. Participants will be given access to Linda Hoaglund’s film, Things Left Behind, to view prior to the program. Things Left Behind confronts the tragedy of Hiroshima through the photographs of renowned Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako. Viewers travel with Ishiuchi to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial archive as she selects artifacts to photograph for her exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, Canada. Notably, this was the first major international art exhibition devoted to the atomic bomb. Ishiuchi’s large-scale images of clothing and objects left by those who perished in the explosion take the historical event and distill it to human proportions, enabling viewers to focus on a single person and the impact of their loss. Viewers experience the exhibition through the creation of the photos, the installation, display in Vancouver, and the attendee's reaction to the photographs.  
We welcome K-12 educators of all disciplines to join Dean David Kenley of Dakota State University and author of Teaching About Asia in a Time of Pandemic and educators Kachina Leigh and Michele Weaver who have co-taught at Muhlenberg High School in Laureldale, PA and currently teach art and psychology, respectively, to discuss how to bring this film into the classroom. Filmmaker Linda Hoaglund will also be joining us to discuss the making of Things Left Behind and answer questions. All participants will be given a copy of the film as well as have access to a series of lessons appropriate to teachers of art, history, and literature as well as ideas on how to bring this film into other courses of study.  
Links to the film online will also be sent to registered participants two weeks in advance, and you will be asked to watch the film prior to the workshop. Participants in the January 29 workshop will receive a complimentary DVD of the film after the workshop.