Katie Jahner and Professor Daniel Barney, Department of Visual Arts
The purpose of this ORCA project was to give students in a local low-income elementary school the opportunity to experience a quality and interdisciplinary art education program for six weeks. Through the McKay School of Education, I was able to organize my elementary school student teaching at Provost Elementary as their sole art teacher. ORCA grant funds were used to purchase art materials that were donated to the school at the conclusion of the project.
Provost Elementary was chosen for this project based on a demonstrated need for art education. There is currently not an art specialist in the school, or funding for art materials. Additionally, Provost Elementary is a Title One School with about 62% of children qualifying for free or reduced lunch. Because of the socio-economic demographic of the students, many families are not able to send their children to art camps or enroll their children in additional out of school art lessons. These factors combined with supportive faculty, staff, and administration made Provost the perfect place for this project.
To provide quality art instruction to as many students as possible, I individually coordinated with ten different teachers in order to work with ten different classes during the six-week period. During the experience, I taught six of the ten classes for at least one hour, twice a week. The first week was spent observing each teacher to gain an understanding of individual classroom management procedures, expectations, and student capabilities. The following weeks were devoted to developing and teaching individually created lesson plans.
Weekly planning meetings between each teacher and myself allowed for planning and adjusting lessons for the specific needs of students. Art projects focused on introducing students to contemporary and historic artists and practices, as well as investigating the historical relevance of a variety of artworks and art making techniques. By striving to create an interdisciplinary art curriculum, art activities were integrated with other topics to support principles taught in social studies, history, writing, reading, and math. Projects included both class-wide collaborative works, as well as individual projects in a variety of mediums. Artwork was documented through photography and video and displayed in the school and on individual classroom websites throughout the project.
A variety of lessons created for this project were documented and shared in a student teaching seminar with both fellow art education students and instructors. Currently I am compiling all the lesson plans into a ‘library’ that teachers will be able to use for re-teaching art lessons to their future classes.
The overall response to the entire Provost Elementary project was extremely positive from both teachers and students. Student assessments regularly showed an increase in knowledge of both art history and production skills. Many students left feedback at the end of the unit that included things like “…art is one of my favorite topics! I want to take it when I get to college”, “I learned a lot of things about art and now I want to grow up to be and artists…you inspired me”, “I also loved learning about all the different types of arts, like bio art, earth art, installation art, and lots more. Some things you taught me I never knew about art”. By their actions in the hallway and their reactions when the Art Cart was wheeled into their classrooms, students regularly showed interest and enthusiasm for art.
The effect of this project on Provost teachers was greater than initially anticipated. Teacher comments about the project included positive feedback such as:
“Mrs. Jahner…carefully designed each of her lessons to connect with the state core learning requirements for each grade level. For example, children made mobiles with geometric shapes, drew three-dimensional objects with charcoal, and found every type of line within beautiful art prints. They made clay pots to connect to history. Other students created three-dimensional famous Americans. Students studied art history and created their own art manifestos and invented art forms…Because our specialist money has been cut at the school, we had lost our art teacher. Katie leaves us with new materials, lesson plans, and her example. Art will be a more important part of classrooms at our school in the future.”
Personally, this project strengthened me as an educator and as an artist by providing a unique opportunity to work with a special group of students and teachers. The challenges I faced in creating a quality art curriculum that aligned with state standards in other subject areas helped me to stretch creatively and find new solutions in potentially restricting situations. I learned valuable lessons about time management, classroom management, and materials budgets. Getting to know the students better and watching them grow and progress over the weeks we spent together brought my joy and excitement for future teaching opportunities. My experience at Brigham Young University has been enriched and expanded through the privilege of conducting the Provost Elementary Project.