Project AIM Expands Its Work Bringing Art into the Public School Curriculum
Federal Grant Helps Columbia's CCAP to Move Program 'To the Next Level'
Columbia College Chicago's Center for Community Arts Partnerships (CCAP) has been awarded a 3-year grant totaling $951,000 from United States Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement. The funds, awarded under the 'Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant Program' will continue and expand the work of CCAP's Project AIM (Arts Integration Mentorship) initiative that has been ongoing through a four-year U.S. Department of Education FIPSE (Funds to Improve Post Secondary Education) award.
Columbia's grant is one of 14 new awards made in 2005 to support 'the further development, implementation and expansion of standards-based arts education programs and the integration of arts instruction into the core curriculum' in K-12 education. Awardees include a range of school districts, institutions of higher education and not-for-profits arts organizations in nine states. Out of 128 applications, two grants were awarded in Chicago. The CCAP grant application was ranked number four nationally. 'This level of support for arts education, and particularly arts integration, indicates the growing acknowledgement of the importance of the visual, performing and literary arts in teaching, and in the development of a full human being in our society,' says David Flatley, executive director of CCAP. 'The weight of empirical evidence continues to demonstrate that an arts integrative approach in the classroom has a positive impact across curriculum. Art integration helps to build skill sets ' especially critical thinking and problem solving skills ' that are otherwise left underdeveloped. This impact is even higher among low income and minority students.'
As Columbia continues to evolve into a school of choice for students from across the country, the college's support for CCAP's work in the community grows as an institutional priority. 'Project AIM provides a two-fold benefit for Columbia,' explains Jo Cates, dean of the library and associate vice president for academic research. 'As a major degree-granting arts and media college, we are interested in attracting students whose skill sets enable them to think creatively and make the kinds of interdisciplinary connections that are not always apparent to the casual observer. The diverse young people whose creative and intellectual development are being positively affected by Project AIM's work are exactly the kind of students we seek at Columbia.'
Cates, under whose aegis CCAP conducts its work, also likes the service learning opportunity Project AIM provides. 'Part of the college's founding ethos is civic engagement. The faculty ' and student assistants ' who go into the public schools to work with the children are giving back to the community in a very direct way. It will make them better practitioners, and better people.'
The work of Project AIM matches practicing artists [fourteen of whom are also teachers at Columbia College], with grade 4-12 classroom teachers in underserved areas in Chicago Public Schools. The teaching artists mentor the classroom teachers in the meaningful integration of the arts into their academic curricula. The professional artists and teachers work together to co-create arts-integrated teaching units that promote reading and writing through the arts, emphasizing cross-curricular and interdisciplinary approaches.
'For example, students may increase literacy skills through creating and performing original spoken word pieces or they may come to a deeper understanding of literature through creating original films in response to the themes in their books,' says Cynthia Weiss, director of Project AIM. 'As David has noted, this approach to teaching has been documented to successfully engage students who are not engaged by traditional academic approaches. We are so excited by the results of the work. We've been there on the ground seeing the impact on students, teachers and teaching artists. We know how important it is. We're thrilled to have this acknowledgement and support.'
Pulaski Academy: A Model Project
One of the Chicago schools CCAP's Project AIM has been working with for the past few years is Pulaski Academy, a K-8 neighborhood magnet school in the Bucktown neighborhood. Project AIM is one of several arts partners with whom the school's dedicated principal, Leonor Karl, has forged alliances. As pupils at a designated arts academy, Pulaski students get fine arts, music and dance classes as part of their regular curriculum. In addition, classroom teachers have the opportunity to become part of the arts integration initiative. This predominantly low-income, Latino school draws students from all over the city, and Karl hopes that the strength of the excellent teaching staff and the strong arts programs will also become a draw for neighborhood families in the gentrified Bucktown community.
Project AIM artists are partnered with teachers in grades five through eight in the disciplines of theater, film/video and poetry with the goal of using the arts to improve literacy skills and literacy skills to enhance expression in the arts. 'One of the essential elements of Project AIM's methodology is that we often begin with the written text, so there is a direct and strong link to basic literacy,' explains Weiss. 'Recent research has shown that a key component of reading comprehension is the ability to visualize the description or concept in the text. Arts integration techniques are very effective in strengthening this ability. The arts have a particular power to engage students and bring a passion and joy to learning.'
Through the new Department of Education Model Demonstration and Dissemination grant, Pulaski will become a primary demonstration site for Project AIM. The next phase of work will include documentation; building the capacity of teacher leaders; and creating lesson plans, curricula and teaching models for dissemination nationally. Karl couldn't be more pleased. She believes the combination of programs including arts education, arts integration, after school enrichment programming and a solid curriculum in the basics have worked together to raise literacy levels at the school. Over the past three years the school's performance in the ISAT [Illinois Standards Achievement Test] is up ten points and ITBS [Iowa Test of Basic Skills] scores are up seven points.
'Through planning and collaboration with the artists, classroom teachers are able to provide their students with a richer, more interactive and engaging way to learn,' says Karl. 'The teachers grow professionally by adding to their knowledge base in the fine arts as they plan and collaborate with the Project AIM artist co-teacher. Pulaski students gain knowledge in a more engaging manner, have opportunities for kinesthetic learning while developing their creativity. Project AIM makes everyone a winner.'
Filmmaker Suree Towfighnia brought her insight and dedication to the fourth grade classroom at Pulaski last year. Students took the idea of 'Who am I? Where am I from?' and created monologues and then edited them into 28 one-minute films. This year she will expand the work with the same group (who are now in fifth grade), taking their basic film making skills and adding research and writing to create several films on the theme of 'What Concerns Face Fifth Graders?' She will add a second fifth-grade class to her teaching artist schedule, working with bilingual students on basic film making skills, as they reprise the 'Who Am I'' theme. Towfighnia feels that her work as a Project AIM teaching artist has enhanced her growth as an artist and a teacher. She is particularly impressed with her young students. 'Elementary students are fearless and not afraid to try,' she says. 'Their creativity encourages me; their intelligence amazes me; their curiosity inspires me. Project AIM gives me hope for the future.'
Theater artist Tony Sancho has been working with Project AIM for four years and this year marks his third as a teaching artist at Pulaski. Initially, he worked with 5th and 6th graders to fuse theater arts with social studies research on Native American tribes. Groups of students created short plays based on their findings. Last year, Tony added a classroom, working with three groups of middle schoolers. They used Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book to work on public performance skills that helped students get over their fears of speaking in front of others. This year, teachers and students will address the questions: What is acting? What is theater? What is ensemble? They will use text, studying theatrical monologues to arrive at answers to their questions, ending the term with a final performance. 'As a practitioner of my art form, the work that I do in the classroom helps to keep me sharp and to look deeper at what it is I do,' says Sancho. 'I don't believe in the saying, 'Those that can, do; those that can't, teach.' I believe to teach your art form is to know your art form. I couldn't teach this if I wasn't actively involved in my profession. I'd feel like a liar. My classroom work has made me a better artist.'
For the past two years teaching artist and poet Jenn Morea has worked with fourth graders at Sabin Magnet School, introducing students to a series of poetic elements and forms. Beginning in January, she will join the team at Pulaski. Morea believes that her work with Project AIM has contributed to her own growth as a teacher and artist. 'It wasn't until I began working with Project AIM that I realized my teaching practice and my writing practice could be in close relationship with one another, and this recognition has in turn enhanced both practices,' she says. 'The experience has guided me in forming an approach to teaching, learning and the creative process that encompasses celebrating possibilities, making connections and pursuing an on-going reflective practice.'
In addition to Pulaski Academy, Project AIM and their cadre of artist mentors will be working with classroom teachers at Chicago's Jenner Academy for the Arts and Thurgood Marshall Middle School.
Work Expands Into Evanston
They will also expand the project, for the first time, into the northern suburbs, working at Evanston's Martin Luther King Jr. Lab School and Dr. Bessie Rhodes Magnet School. 'Evanston schools have a strong commitment to integration and diversity,' says Weiss. 'The schools in this partnership place a high value on the importance of arts in education. 'Evanston is a city ' with a patchwork of neighborhoods that reflect the challenges and problems of any urban environment in America today. That means economic and educational inequities that our work can help address, making changes from the ground up. Opening doors and expanding teachers' and students' visions in order to change lives ' one life at a time.'
'King Lab School is absolutely delighted to be working in partnership with Columbia College's Project AIM,' says Anne Lefkowitz, lead arts coordinator at the Evanston school. 'As a K-8 magnet school with a fine arts emphasis, we are anxious to take every opportunity to deepen and enhance our students' exposure to a wide variety of Arts disciplines. Through Project Aim, we anticipate exposing our entire fifth grade to the activity of Book Making, with Artist-In-Residence, Leah Mayers. This activity, which will involve Creative Writing, Illustration, and Bookbinding, will provide interdisciplinary enrichment across many curricular areas. 'We look forward to a gala culminating event, named in memory of one of our late, great King Lab teachers, at the end of the school year. This showcase of our fifth graders' original books will be called 'The Barbara Friedberg Children's Book Fair.' We are profoundly grateful to Columbia College for giving us this meaningful and educationally valid way of honoring the memory of Ms. Friedberg, a passionate advocate of children's literature, who passed away on August 14th.'
Rhodes School Principal Pat Mitchell is excited about two of her classrooms working on arts integration. 'Our school has integrated fine arts into the curriculum since the school's inception 11 years ago,' she says. 'With the Project AIM participation, we can concentrate on our literacy goals in an environment of creativity.'
With an unflagging belief in the efficacy of their methods, the educators at CCAP are moving forward with renewed optimism, as arts integration becomes better understood and increasingly accepted as a successful pedagogy. 'Arts integration continues to hold sway among educators looking for powerful new methods for engaging children,' says Flatley. 'The federal government, as well as private and corporate foundations, has identified this as an area worthy of support and study as we move into the second half of this decade. I am confident that CCAP's learning in this field will contribute significantly to the national dialogue that emerges as the cumulative evidence of increased engagement and achievement takes hold.'
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