Arts Learning
ACHF Arts Education
800 youth will develop understanding of theater, poetry and puppetry as an art form. They will experience and have hands-on active learning in the arts. 100 adults and family members will view the artwork by the youth in showcases presented at each school. This Arts Learning project will be evaluated before and after residencies with reflective conversations and written evaluations from artists, teachers and participants to assess learning. Evaluations will identify 1) what students learned through arts learning residencies; 2) what value the residencies have for teachers, artists, and students; 3) impact on student access to quality arts learning experiences.
This project successfully served the intended community outlined in our proposal. The schools included in this project are attended by youth who qualify for free and reduced lunch at an average rate of 85% and almost half are enrolled in English Language Learning programs. These residencies with professional artists were designed to accommodate English language learners by offering a multi-modal approach to literacy by using less verbal art forms of puppetry, performance, and bookmaking to reinforce lessons in creative writing, language, and poetry. The feedback gathered from “talk-alouds” during program evaluation affirmed that students and teachers alike benefited from the engaging style of learning made possible by East Side Arts Council artists in residence. Phalen Lake Hmong Studies Elementary, Hope Community Academy Hmong Magnet School, Academia Cesar Chavez, and Highwood Hills Academy are vibrantly diverse schools and the artists hired for this program reflected that diversity. Marie Olofsdotter’s experience as an immigrant to the United States is one that is shared by many students at both Phalen Lake and Hope Community Academy, which are attended in great numbers by students who come from predominantly Hmong and Karen immigrant and refugee families. The diverse, mostly Latinx youth at Cesar Chavez were able to see Latinx experiences reflected back at them through a performance of Teatro del Pueblo’s The Adventures of Juan. Malia Burkhart, an artist who is multi-racial and draws from that experience to help youth explore complicated concepts around identity in arts educational settings, was requested specifically for a residency by the staff at Highwood Hills, which is attended by mostly East African youth. Access is at the core of every East Side Arts Council program. For this reason, each school selected for this project is, like all East Side Arts Council program sites, ADA compliant. Classes were free for youth to attend and all artists worked with school staff to adjust as necessary to meet the specific needs of each classroom. It was particularly helpful that artists were able to meet with teachers and each site before their residencies in order to gain the necessary information about the students they would be teaching so they were better equipped to prepare. Artists and teachers checked in throughout the residency to ensure all access needs were being adequately met. According to extensive program evaluation and feedback, this project was very successful and we would not change anything about the way it was delivered if we are given the opportunity to offer it again. East Side Arts Council is grateful to Metropolitan Regional Arts Council for funding this important and well-needed program. Qualitative: 100% of teachers indicated they would like this program to be offered next year. 100% of teachers indicated their students have increased their interest in literacy, writing, and storytelling as a result of this project. Quantitative: 1,000 youth benefited from this project, which is even more youth than originally estimated in our proposal due to the addition of a 4th program site.
Other, local or private