Photograph by Jacquline Ramseyer
It's a Breeze: Third graders Ronnie Najera, left, and Christopher Casarez portray wind in their interpretation of the story "Brave Irene."
WG Elementary students get hands-on art lessons
Artists help children through alternative learning techniques in the classroom
By Kate Carter
Local artists are taking field trips to Willow Glen this school year, but it's not all fun and games. Lacking a full-time art program of its own, Willow Glen Elementary School is one of 15 schools in the county that are contracting with ArtPath, a local artists-in- schools program based at San Jose State University.
The program sends trained artists into classrooms to teach students drama, dance, storytelling and visual arts in conjunction with other topics they are learning in class.
"Teachers will have another way of introducing material," says program director Donna Thompson. "And the children have an experience with a practicing artist. It's a holistic way of learning."
Students in all grade levels at Willow Glen Elementary will receive five weeks of instruction by an ArtPath artist, two classes a week. Teachers in each grade level work together to choose the type of fine art their students will learn and the curricula that will accompany the art instruction.
Last week, Willow Glen's 120 third-graders finished their five-week dancing experience with a performance for parents of a story about a girl who learns to be brave to help her sick mother.
The children learned from dancer Juliet Ferreira how to express concepts, such as courage and obstacles through body movements, said third-grade teacher Tammy Fenn.
"It's not just dancing," she says. "It encompasses the whole educational process. The children are designing the process."
And that is the whole point, says Thompson. By learning about the arts, students gain a whole new way of learning, in general. "Everyone learns in a multitude of ways," she says. "With the arts, there's not one way to the solution but a variety of directions one can take. It needs to be part of the educational experience."
Willow Glen Elementary Principal Anita Sunseri says that the school site council, comprised of school parents, faculty and staff, set aside some of the $80,000 the school received from the state for an arts program last year.
"We haven't been able to afford an arts program or fine arts program at the school because it was too expensive," she says.
A full-time arts teacher could cost the school as much as $40,000 she said, which is money the school doesn't have. But parents really wanted their children to receive professional arts instruction, Sunseri said.
After looking at several arts programs, Sunseri says, the school chose ArtPath because it offered the most in exchange for the $8,500 the school pays.
Thompson says that the money they charge the schools covers the cost of the instruction, but the program also receives money from the California Arts Council and San Jose's Office of Cultural Affairs, in addition to facilities at SJSU.
The program began in 1991 through the Office of Cultural Affairs in response to the lack of arts education in many public schools, Thompson says. She says she's hopeful that arts may return full time to schools, but until then her program provides students with an important experience they might not otherwise have.
And the teachers agree with her.
"We are loving it as teachers," Fenn says. "We're trying to figure out a way to pay for it next year."
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
