Donkeys: Practical Partners in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) at Equine Affair

Name: Donkeys: Practical Partners in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) at Equine Affair
Start: 2024-11-09T15:00:00-05:00
Location: Eastern States Exposition

Schedule

Sat Nov 09 2024 at 03:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Eastern States Exposition | West Springfield, MA

Donkeys: Practical Partners in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) 🫏💛🫏💛
When:
Saturday November 9th, 3:00-4:00pm
Where:
Demo Ring (Mallory North)
This presentation offers SEL practitioners a new framework for understanding how donkeys can be an asset in supporting students in reaching their therapeutic and educational goals and objectives. Donkey’s innate behavioral and biological characteristics make them ideal participants in programs focused on trauma-informed support. The methodology of teaching donkeys a new task is comparable, and in many cases identical, to teaching SEL skills in wellness programs. Therefore, SEL programs can incorporate donkey training activities in lessons to mirror the learning process for human participants.

For example, a challenging donkey or student behavior can be understood as a strategy the individual learned to survive instead of evaluated as good or bad. This approach encourages a safe space for people to self-reflect on aspects of themselves that may feel scary, vulnerable, and difficult to access in traditional learning or therapeutic environments. Students may be able to see themselves reflected in their donkey partner in a compassionate, empathetic and non judgmental way. They are encouraged to develop community and camaraderie with donkeys in the learning process,rather than feeling isolated, confused or stuck in maladaptive patterns or habits of behaving or relating to others. Within this partnership, students are empowered to practice new behaviors relating to interacting and sharing space with others in a safe supportive setting.