Tag: Creative Advantage

The Creative Advantage 2017 Winter/Spring Learning Series

Join us for the 2017 Winter/Spring series of free Creative Advantage Art Partner trainings. Open to any interested teaching artist, community organizations, arts advocate, teacher, or arts specialist. Workshops offered at no cost to participants. Online registration required and includes three Washington State Clock hours for teachers.

Workshops in this year’s series include:

Saturday, March 4, 2017, 1 – 4 p.m. Northwest African American Museum 21st Century Training

Saturday, March 18, 2017, 1 – 4 p.m. Southside Commons Advocating for Arts and Social Justice

Saturday, April 29, 2017, 1 – 4 p.m. Youngstown Cultural Art Center Teaching and Learning with LBGTQ Youth

Saturday, May 13, 2017, 1 – 4 p.m. Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute Arts and ELL

The Creative Advantage invests in artists and educators thru ongoing professional learning opportunities that deepen qualities of practice and foster community. This includes an annual Learning Series and Summer Arts Partner Institute.  Emerging to established teaching artists, teachers, administrators, and youth development workers are invited to participate in these trainings presented in partnership with Seattle Art Museum.

 

Photo: Robert Wade

Arts are a strategy to build racial equity

Presented by Randy Engstrom, director Seattle Office of Arts & Culture at NY Community Trust, November 16, 2016

Today we are in the middle of an historic change moment in our country, our cities and our role in the field of the arts. Not since the 1950’s when highways connected and crisscrossed our land have we seen such a massive influx of population in our cities and immigration nationally and internationally. At a time when racial equity and social and environmental justice is being challenged at a national level we affirm our commitment to this work and stand in solidarity with our communities.

Seattle is a progressive utopia, but even here in a bastion of liberalism we have work to do to foster a creative community that benefits all people. Therefore the Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) collectively created a Racial Equity Statement, affirming our commitment to anti-racist work practice and a mechanism to hold us accountable in all the work we do.

Racial equity is the defining issue of our time. How we deal with our past and our shared future will determine not only the health of our field, but of our communities. This is not a unique issue or conversation; every national cultural membership organization is also at the table and defining their commitment to racial equity and goals for the future.

Arts are how we can achieve Racial Equity in our institutions, and in our lives. They hold the power to capture, nourish and move us. They serve as a vehicle for radical social change, and are an effective strategy to address the pressing issues of our time. We believe that we need to center the arts in our strategy, but look beyond our field to affect change structurally, in partnership with the community, City departments, other institutions and jurisdictions, so we can help build racial equity in housing, criminal justice, education, jobs, the environment and more.

We approach equity and justice for all people through the lens of race because we know that across all measures and all of our complex social positions, one’s race is a salient and consistent indicator of life outcomes. For example, lived experience and research have shown that when it comes to jobs, housing, arts education and many other areas, women of color fare worse than white women, LGBTQ folks of color fare worse than LGBTQ white folks, and poor people of color fare worse than poor white people.

Rev. Starsky Wilson has said that we need to address not just funding and philanthropy, but policy as well. Racial Equity policies combined with practice will shape and define the future of local arts agencies and we are already seeing some of those changes. We must ask ourselves:

How will we as local funders be accountable to communities past and present?

How will be accountable to each other as funders and in our field?

Our programs centering racial equity and social justice began in 2004 when the City also adopted the first ever Race and Social Justice Initiative in government. In conjunction with Office for Civil Rights (OCR), ARTS has increased our resources and commitment to centering race in all our work practice. From commissioning racial equity trainings (White Fragility with Robin DiAngelo and Centering People of Color in the Racial Equity Movement by Carmen Morgan), equitable access to arts education in public schools (The Creative Advantage) a shared staff position with OCR, focus groups specifically for artists of color (Artists Up) to a learning cohort for arts organizations to expand their own understanding and commitment to racial equity (Turning Commitment into Action), we have consistently sough to increase our capacity and that of our community.

Creating a racial equity statement is a result of this work and provides a path into our future; holding our office and our field accountable to our community.

Recap: The Creative Advantage Arts Partner Summer Institute

The Creative Advantage kicked off the 2016-17 school year with its third annual Summer Institute in partnership with Seattle Art Museum. Over 100 teaching artists, administrators, classroom teachers, and youth development workers gathered for a day of learning, community building, and practice.  Sessions were facilitated by local artists, instructors, and national partners with topics ranging from Healing Justice in Arts Education (inspired by the work of Shawn Ginwright), The Entrepreneurial Teaching Artist, to Trauma-Informed Practice.  Participants also had opportunities to creatively engage and reflect by art discipline.

The morning plenary centered the role of racial equity and social justice in curriculum and approach. This included a deeply moving poem on structural barriers within education by Carlynn Newsome the 2016 Youth Speaks Seattle grand slam champion, followed by music and a story from Shontina Vernon, a mentor teaching artist with 4Culture’s Creative Justice program. Robyne Walker Murphy, Cultural Access Program Director at Cool Culture in Brooklyn, gave a stirring keynote entitled, “Empower, Create Connect: A Framework for Liberatory Education.”

The institute put front and center the values of practitioners working for creativity and justice in education, calling for narratives that position student voice and perspective as fundamental to high quality teaching and learning.

Next up: The Creative Advantage Professional Learning Series, beginning in January 2017.  For more information, sign up here.

Photo Jenny Crooks.

EMP Museum at Garfield High School

I wanted to share with you EMP Museum’s experience at Garfield HS as a Creative Advantage provider the past two years. This story is a testimony to all of your (Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture) diligent years of work/advocacy for arts education resulting in The Creative Advantage, creating real impact for students and teachers. – Bonnie Showers, Curator, Education + Interpretive Services, Experience Music Project

EMP Museum, as a Creative Advantage provider, has had an exciting first two years at Garfield HS following our August 2014 Garfield HS All-Staff Arts in STEM  Professional Development training held at EMP and led by five of our professional teaching artists, funded by The Creative Advantage.

The result of that first Arts in STEM PD has led to excitement at Garfield about teaching through the arts in all subject areas.  As the first year of staff participants reported:  that 2014 all-staff training was the springboard, supporting development of a shared language and enthusiasm among teaching staff and administration.  They experienced multiple learning styles effectively addressed through the arts, and the enthusiastic creative learning that emerged.

In the last two years, supported by The Creative Advantage funding at Garfield, EMP has provided 22 five to 10-day arts-integrated residencies in multiple topics from geometry/paper engineering and sculpture, voice over for engineering students, graphic novel and visual narrative for language arts, wire sculpture for biology students, Theatre Skills and Performance for English language learners (ELL), video-making for Japanese language classes, to RHINO software and 3-D printing for ceramics students. Over 600 students and 10 teaching and library staff have participated in these arts integrated projects.

Teachers noted in residency evaluations higher student engagement, enthusiasm, success and increase in confidence. (We have evaluations from all participating staff and teaching artists for these projects, and a set of 2015-16 student-centered pre and post evaluations focused on tracking 21st Century skills, arts skills, and subject area target goals. 100% of participating teachers reported that their arts integrated objectives were met or significantly exceeded in all projects)

EMP has now been requested to provide a follow up Garfield HS ALL-staff PD  focused on STEM in Arts on August 30, 2016.

This training is 100% supported by Mr. Howard principal at Garfield HS. We are delighted,  as this request represents an evolution in thought: learning skills to teach through the arts is a priority.

I am so appreciative of Bonnie Hungate-Hawk, Garfield’s tireless arts team lead, with Janet Woodward, a dynamo of an arts librarian, and the team of participating teachers: 2014-15: Heather Snookal, Ian Sample, Nicolas Fell, Gwen Johnston; 2015-16: Alan Kahn, Rachel Eells, Mary Hopkins, Thomas Townsend, Janet Woodward, Michele Flett.

It has been a rich two years and we are looking forward in 2016-17 to supporting Garfield’s growth as an arts integrated rich learning environment, as one of our Outreach Partner Schools.

I would like to thank each of you for all your advocacy and support for arts learning opportunities for these students. When I saw the smiles of success and confidence on the ELL students faces last night at their Family Night performance, it was clear: The Creative Advantage has made it possible to reach these students, and these arts opportunities are making all the difference in their lives.

Best, Bonnie

Photos from ELL Family Night, theatre residencies in Mary Hopkins classes taught by Karen Harp Reed.

 

NEWS RELEASE

NEWS RELEASE
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE MAYOR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact:          Jason Kelly, Mayor’s Office Press Secretary, 206.684.8379
Erika Lindsay, Arts & Culture, 206.684.4337
Stacy Howard, Seattle Public Schools, 206.465.5404

 

City of Seattle, Seattle Public Schools deepen engagement,
improve access to arts education
The Creative Advantage program reaching 23 schools

SEATTLE (April 29, 2016) – The City of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools today announced the year two progress of their joint Creative Advantage arts education initiative. Arts integration and 21st Century Skill-development deepened in the Central Arts Pathway, and the South-Southwest Arts Pathway developed a long-term arts vision and plan for schools in the region.

The Creative Advantage is a unique public-private partnership between the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS), Seattle Public Schools (SPS), The Seattle Foundation, and community arts partners. It is reinvesting in Seattle’s students and our community’s economic and creative future by intentionally and collaboratively addressing inequities in access to the arts and restoring arts education to all Seattle classrooms.

“We must invest in our students, and arts education is integral to their ability to problem solve, collaborate, think outside of the box and persevere,” said Mayor Ed Murray. “We are approaching our education system holistically from pre-K through 12th grade, utilizing the city’s rich cultural organizations to help empower our youth and close the opportunity gap in the arts.”

“We know students learn best when their education engages their heads, their hearts and their minds,” said Dr. Larry Nyland, Seattle Public Schools superintendent. “The Creative Advantage is a shining example of the district, the City and the community collaborating to give all students access to a well-rounded education.”

Arts are recognized as a core academic subject by the State of Washington and are included in the current Seattle Public Schools Strategic Plan. In alignment with these state and district policies, the goal of the Creative Advantage is to address the systemic barriers to student access to arts and ensure that every student has arts integrated into their education, starting in kindergarten. The long term goal is that all Seattle students will have access to a continuum of arts learning opportunities.

In March 2013, The Creative Advantage began implementation in the Central Arts Pathway, all schools that feed into and out of Washington Middle School. In 2014-15, The Creative Advantage began planning in the South-Southwest pathway, all schools that feed into and out of Denny International Middle School.

Highlights from the Creative Advantage Year Two Evaluation report include:

  • Developed a regional arts plan for South-Southwest Pathway schools.
  • Created a professional development series and annual institute for teaching artist and teachers with arts partner Seattle Art Museum.
  • In 2015-16, all K-5 students have access to music instruction in the Central Arts Pathway.
  • Increased the number of arts instructional minutes at the elementary level in the Central Arts Pathway by 200 percent from 2013 to 2015.
  • 26 residencies at 12 schools increasing student learning from teaching artists and arts organizations.
  • 34 percent increase from 2014 in student demonstration of 21st Century Learning Skills in Central Arts Pathway classrooms.
  • Increased partnerships with community organizations leading to culturally-responsive teaching and learning in Central Arts Pathway schools.

SPS and ARTS will continue to deepen integrated arts learning and close the access gap in the two Creative Advantage Arts Pathways, which includes 23 schools.

There is a Creative Advantage Advisory Group comprised of school staff, program leaders and community members to hold the program accountable and provide feedback. The City has prioritized this program through new staff capacity and an investment of $1.5 million in the program to date.

The School District has invested $1.75 million in increased staffing, supplies and professional development, while there has been increased capacity through fundraising from grants, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Laird Norton Family Foundation and the Clowes Fund, foundations and individuals to date.

To read the full report, click here: http://www.creativeadvantageseattle.org/go-deeper/

 

The Creative Advantage can be found online at www.CreativeAdvantageSeattle.org, at facebook.com/TheCreativeAdvantage and on twitter @SeattleArtsEd.