Connecting to Community

Christine Goodheart

Empire State Partnership Summer

Seminar

July, 2007

Enduring Understanding

Strong and meaningful connections with parents,families, and the community are essential to the sustainability of ESP partnerships. The community has rich resources (financial, human, material,information, etc.) that can benefit the partnership.

(From the ESP Learning Framework, C3)

The Arts Create Community

Whether engaged as audience in a powerful common experience or engaged in creating art with others, the arts open pathways for dialogue. And because the arts deal with central aspects of the human experience, those who participate in arts experiences can come to understand one another in new ways.

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.- Hans Hofmann

To be an artist is to believe in life.- Henry S. Moore

Essential Questions

Now that your primary partnership is established, how can you survey the resources in your neighborhood and draw in additional partners to enhance your work?

How can students make connections to their communities through the arts-in-education partnership you have built?

Family Involvement

Studying Matisse:The Red Studio

Imagine a room that houses objects you cherish or have made…

Studying Matisse: The Swimming Pool

Think of an environment you could create using cut and torn paper…

Activities with Students

• Viewing and discussing slides in the classroom

• Related art making activities

• One or more visits to museum galleries

• Opportunities for students to share their work

• Assessment of student learning

Family Events• Families create a

community mural on the playground

• Students choose works of art and become tour guides for families at the museum

• Students conduct family workshops at the school

• Students work with their families to create displays of work at businesses in their neighborhood

Intergenerational Learning

Helping schools draw upon the rich lives of our communities’ senior adults

Involving Senior Adults in Studying East Indian

DanceStudents and senior citizens in the South Orangetown, NY School District created dances using the movement vocabulary from a form of East Indian Dance based on the theme of love. These were performed in the school and in senior centers in the community.

What are some examples of ways you have involved the

community in the life of your school

through the arts?

Strategies for Connecting to Community

Binders of student work placed in doctors offices

Students conduct workshops for the public at exhibits/performances

• Students review works of art in the school and community paper

Community members and professional artists are invited to exhibit alongside students

Create a student gallery with 2-3 exhibits per year and organize student teams to serve as docents, curators, preparators and public program producers

Strategies for Community Involvement

• Community members participate in making the work alongside students and then host performances/exhibits in community organizations

• Exhibits in businesses and other community organizations with slide show of process

• Exhibit at public library with book display and special events

• Scan work and reproduce for students to sign and distribute

• Display student work on-line; create on-line gallery or portfolios

Identifying Community Partners

Create a map of the neighborhood surrounding your school.

Circle places that could be invited to collaborate in the instructional process

Star places where students could exhibit and perform

Underline places where you might distribute invitations to see student work

Community Involvement Plan

Exhibitions/Events• Shows the process as well as the

products of learning• Engages the viewer actively• Can be displayed/performed both

in the school and in community locations

Community Involvement Plan

Family Involvement • Design at least two activities

related to your arts work that engage families

Community Involvement Plan

Expand Community PartnersIdentify at 2-3 organizations close to your

school

List the ways they might be involved in the instructional process exhibition of work project management funding advocacy efforts

How would we create a community connectedness rubric to use to chart our progress?

A school should be the most beautiful place in every town and village – so beautiful that the punishment for undutiful children should be that they are disbarred from going to school the following day. – Oscar Wilde