Arts Education Is a Community Effort
When the Center for Arts Education (CAE) was taking down a recent exhibit from The Gallery at 180 Maiden Lane, they thought of the Department of Cultural Affairs as a perfect venue to exhibit 60 of the works. The artwork is the creation of students from P.S. 8, The Robert Fulton School, in Brooklyn; the show is entitled Hand in Hand: Our Journey from School to Museum. From the adult world, the project involved three institutions: a school, a museum and an arts organization. It involved three kinds of educators: school teachers, teaching artists, and museum educators. It involved staff development, professional collaboration, and several phases of assessment and evaluation. Here we present the diverse players involved in developing this show, proving that arts education is indeed a community effort.
If you have business at DCA, we hope that you will be as impressed and delighted as the staff at DCA with this exhibit.
The School:
P.S. 8, The Robert Fulton School
P.S. 8, an elementary school serving a culturally diverse student body from Brooklyn Heights to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Atlantic Avenue, sits literally in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. This small school of approximately 400 students also attracts families from Fort Greene, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and DUMBO. For many years, the school community has struggled with the challenges of inner-city life.
In the mid-1990s, the late Principal Irene Gluck and several parents made a clear commitment to arts education. The PTA set aside funding for arts programs, and Mrs. Gluck designated an art studio that today bears a brass plaque dedicated to her memory. In 1996, under the guidance of parent Roxi Marsen, P.S. 8 received a grant from the Center for Arts Education that has transformed and enriched the educational environment at the school.
In partnership with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the school has developed a sequential arts-integrated curriculum for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Guided by Teaching Artist Jennifer Bevill and Museum Educator Dorothea Basile, each grade has chosen a theme connected with social studies or literacy. Some of the themes are community, harbor, identity, and transformation. Out of the themes grow the visual art projects, creative writing, and class trips to the museum, as well as other cultural sites around the city. All areas of study are connected to reinforce learning. The collaboration between classroom teachers, teaching artists, and museum educators has deepened these connections. Current Principal Carole Friedman believes that students learn better with an arts-integrated approach: "Children learn in different ways and the arts help them make sense of the world. Literacy is the key to future success in the world, and for some, the arts are the key to literacy."
P.S. 8 students, parents, and educators appreciate and participate in visual arts, dance, music, puppetry, and performance. From school curriculum to family workshops, the arts generate a spirit of collaboration on every level: the school partners with the museum, teachers partner with artists and museum educators, while parents work closely with teachers. When students work in the art studio, they even have "Art Buddies" with whom to share ideas or offer help and encouragement. As Mrs. Friedman says, "The art studio is the heart of the school."
The Show
Hand in Hand: Our Journey from School to Museum illustrates how P.S. 8 students learn in the classroom, museum, and art studio. Its goal is to reveal not only the product of art-making (the artwork), but also the creative process the students go through on the way to that product. A few windows into this process include student journal entries, sketches, painting plans, photographs of students working, and creative writing such as poetry and legends.
Literacy is an important component of the P.S. 8/Brooklyn Museum of Art program. All P.S. 8 students write and draw in an art journal and use it as a tool for gathering information, brainstorming ideas, documenting their struggles and discoveries, and reflecting on their work. As part of every art unit, students read related literature, ranging from picture books to ancient myths. We teach students that the creative process is identical whether your craft is painting or writing.
A short paragraph at the beginning of each section outlines the theme, media, curriculum connections, and process the students experienced to create their work. Every grade in the school is represented in this show. Each grade used different materials, looked at a different theme, and visited the Brooklyn Museum of Art to study related museum objects. As their art skills layer and build through the grades, the art materials become more challenging and diverse.
Written by Jennifer Bevill and Dorothea Basile.
The Partner School: P.S. 3
Led by a parent from P.S. 8 and a visual art teacher from P.S. 3, administrators from Brooklyn's School District 13 have formed a coalition between the schools to work on sharing experience in art education within the district. In 1997, the two
schools—in partnership with the Brooklyn Museum of Art—were awarded a grant from CAE and Annenberg to bring arts-integrated learning to their schools, and provide a model for other schools in District 13.
The Center for Arts Education
The Center for Arts Education is a not-for-profit organization committed to restoring and sustaining arts education as an essential part of every child's education in the New York City public schools. The Center identifies, funds, and supports exemplary partnerships and programs that demonstrate how the arts contribute to learning and student achievement. The Center is also dedicated to influencing educational and fiscal policies that will ultimately result in the restoration of arts education in all of our city's public schools.
CAE was central in Hand in Hand in providing a grant for arts-integrated curriculum, in overseeing the gallery which exibited the show, and in contributing to staff development in the process.
Staff Development
The Center for Arts Education sponsored a series of workshops, Looking at Student Work, to allow reflection and discussion about how to analyze and better understand art work by school students. P.S. 8 classroom teachers, teaching artists, and the co-coordinators of P.S. 8's Project ARTS, joined other teachers, artists, and administrators for these workshops.
The Parents
The Parent Teacher Association has raised $4,000 in matching funds for art supplies each year. Several parents have been particularly active: Roxi Marsen co-wrote the original Annenberg grant in 1996 and coordinated the arts program until last year. Gean Mathney coordinated the arts program before Marsen and returned to work with the arts program again this year as administrative support. Pam Harris, Susan Steinhardt, and Wendy and Fred Wooden have all actively championed P.S. 8's art program.
DCA Parents-as-Arts-Partners Grant
For the past five years, P.S. 8 has received Parents as Arts Partners grants from the DCA, which have funded Family Days at the school, at their partner school, P.S. 3, and at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The families and staff have held treasure hunts at the museum, participated in African Dance (led by choreographer 'Dele Husbands), and created art projects ranging from funny hats, to animals from the Peaceable Kingdom, to "transformation" masks.
The Teaching Artists
Jennifer Bevill
Lead teaching artist and program co-coordinator, Jennifer has been teaching art at P.S. 8 for 6 years. This is her first year as co-coordinator. She holds a BFA from Parsons School of Design and an MA from Teachers College. After several years as an illustrator for magazines and newspapers, Jennifer now works in collage and mixed-media in her Brooklyn studio near the Gowanus Canal.
Ed Rath
A painter and parent of two P.S. 8 students, Ed lives and works in DUMBO. Ed began volunteering in his children's classrooms at P.S. 8 more than 10 years ago. When this work led to grants through The Brooklyn Historical Society, The Rotunda Gallery in downtown Brooklyn, and the Annenberg, he began working with other classes as well. Ed holds a BFA from Minneapolis College of Art & Design, and an MFA from Yale University School of Art. He has taught drawing at Parsons School of Design, and painting at Drew University.
Roberto Rossi
Brooklyn-based puppeteer and drama specialist Roberto Rossi has been teaching at P.S. 8 for 3 years. Roberto works with teacher Dianne Galashaw to shape P.S. 8's annual Dance Festival. He also works with several grades on drama productions through P.S. 8's Project Arts money.
Jenny Monick
A contemporary artist with a concentration in work on paper, photography, and sculpture, Jenny has been showing her work since 1997 in various group shows in galleries and museums. She will have her second one-person show in the fall at Kent Gallery in SoHo. She graduated from Barnard College in 1989 with a degree in Anthropology/Comparative Religion, traveled the world, then settled down for art. This is Jenny's second year teaching art at P.S. 8.
The Teachers
Teachers of course played a central role, partnering with Artists and Museum Educators. A few of these partners from P.S. 8 were Ann Latimore, Sarah Leaman, Roberta Reichback, and Heather Ziehl.
The Brooklyn Museum of Art
The Brooklyn Museum of Art (BMA), as a close cultural partner to P.S. 8, paired the school with two Museum Educators.
The Museum Educators
Museum Educators specialize in teaching in and through the arts using museum collections.
Dorothea Basile
Dorothea Basile, lead museum educator and program co-coordinator, has worked at the Brooklyn Museum of Art for 14 years. She has specialized in museum-school collaborations and creating arts-integrated curricula. In 1995, along with Amanda Lauricella, she conducted a NYFA-funded assessment of the visual arts program at P.S. 8. Dorothea has been a member of the P.S. 3/P.S. 8 partnership management team since she helped write their original grant.
Hana Elwell
Hana Elwell joined the P.S. 3/P.S. 8 Annenberg partnership when she was an intern at the Museum in 1999. Assisting BMA educator Susan McCullough, she participated in all aspects of the program. Building upon her experiences at P.S. 3, she joined the P.S. 8 team in the fall of 2000.
The Program Evaluator
Stephen Yaffe
Stephen Yaffe is a professional evaluator working with several Annenberg partnerships. He previously worked with Dorothea Basille in the Long Island City High School and P.S. 1 Partnership.
Evaluation
During the first year of the project, program staff "self-assessed" by working with one of the project's original partners, the Art and Design Education Department at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. When CAE recommended using an outside evaluator, they brought in Stephen Yaffe.
Assessment
P.S. 8 was invited to participate in a nationwide research study funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to develop methods of assessing student learning through the arts. Another evaluator, Bethany Rogers from the Center for Children and Technology, is working with Teaching Artist Jennifer Bevill and second grade teachers Sarah Leaman and Roberta Reichbach on a model of assessment involving murals.
Percent for Art Program Receives Awards
The Percent for Art Program received three awards from the New York City Art Commission for Excellence in Design at its annual ceremony held this year on April 26th at the American Museum of Natural History. Each year the Art Commission honors outstanding city projects in public art, architecture, and design. The Percent for Art projects receiving awards this year include:
Michael Cummings for four quilts for the Administration for Children's Services Center on the Bellevue Hospital Campus in Manhattan. The quilts feature a cat, flowers, musicians, and fish.
Elizabeth Turk for her storm sewer covers on Seguine Avenue on Staten Island depicting flora and fauna that are native to the area.
James Carpenter for a light wall on the addition to the Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens.
DCA Staff News
DCA is pleased to welcome two new staff members:
Rondi Silva, a visual artist, is the new Program Assistant in the Percent for Art Program where she will also serve as the primary contact for the Artist Certification program.
Dawn Brown-Martinez, forever with a friendly smile, is the new Assistant to the Counsel.
Also of note, Timothy Thayer, formerly the Director of the Institutions unit, has been promoted to Assistant Commissioner where he will oversee DCA's role in the 34 cultural institutions. Congratulations, Tim.
The information contained in the above article is current as of its June 2001 publication date. Please be advised that this information may be out of date.
