Walk into a classroom at a school in Brooklyn and you might see a peculiar sight: students gathered around a screen, dancing together. Every so often the music will pause and a voice will suggest an emotion such as “happy,” “sad” or “tired.” The music will resume and the students will try to act out the emotion that has been given.

This is one of the exercises provided by Move This World, a Manhattan startup that creates social emotional learning (SEL) programs for underserved school districts. SEL is a research-backed approach to helping children and adults healthily understand, express and manage their emotions. At the beginning and end of every school day, students and teachers engage in short exercises hosted on Move This World’s online platform that build self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship- and decision-making skills.

Move This World says schools that use the program see a decrease in suspensions, absenteeism and incident reports.

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