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"The school field trip has a long history in American public education. For decades, students have piled into yellow buses to visit a variety of cultural institutions, including art, natural history, and science museums, as well as theaters, zoos, and historical sites. Schools gladly endured the expense and disruption of providing field trips because they saw these experiences as central to their educational mission: schools exist not only to provide economically useful skills in numeracy and literacy, but also to produce civilized young men and women who would appreciate the arts and culture. More-advantaged families may take their children to these cultural institutions outside of school hours, but less-advantaged students are less likely to have these experiences if schools do not provide them. With field trips, public schools viewed themselves as the great equalizer in terms of access to our cultural heritage."

Rutgers University professor Maurice Elias serves as director of the Social-Emotional Learning Lab and coordinator of the Expert Advisory Group to the NJ Coalition for Bullying Awareness and Prevention. He is also academic director of Rutgers' Civic Engagement and Service Education Partnerships program. [Dr. Elias discusses the history and trends in Social and Emotional Learning and Character Development in this video.)

"StoryCorpsU (SCU) is a year-long, cross-disciplinary (language arts, media, history), youth development program designed for 9th and 10th graders to help students develop: Self and social awareness-social and emotional learning competencies; Academic skills-speaking, listening, and analytical and critical thinking; and Strengthened school relationships."