Arts Impacting Achievement

by Matt Dealy

As part of the documentation piece of the Arts Impacting Achievement project, we had the opportunity to observe and document each session of two separate arts integrated units in the spring semester of 2006. Due to other commitments and the time requirements of documenting every session of a unit, this was not something that we were able to do in the past. The AIA project was originally set up for staff members to visit ongoing units throughout the grant life in order to provide support to artists and teachers when needed, but never was there the chance to have a staff member follow an entire unit from beginning to end. We had always been interested in the idea and the possibilities, but until now, never had the time or capacity. The AIA staffs’ growing interest in having a documenter follow an entire unit was largely influenced by the ideas presented by the Reggio approach to early childhood education and the role of an atelierista in the classroom. Within Reggio, an atelierista often works closely with the classroom teacher documenting and listening to the children to allow for emergent curriculum.

The AIA staff decided to document two classroom units from the beginning to end. One was a unit with our professional dance artists, Rosemary Doolas, and a kindergarten teacher at Chase Elementary, Kim Anderson, and the other was a unit with Margy Stover, one of our visual artists, and Beverly Allebach, a fifth/sixth grade teacher at Chopin Elementary. We chose these units for several reasons. A couple of the reasons were simply logistical, and some were based on ensuring we had variety between the two units we were going to follow: different schools, grades, art forms. We were also interested in following these particular units because, in both cases, the teacher and artist had worked together before in prior AIA units. The unit with Rosemary and Kim was actually a follow-up to a unit done the previous semester with the same students. We believed that both of these units presented an ideal situation that “created a shared environment where children and teachers [could] mix together for the purpose of developing meaningful relationships and thoughtful conversations” (Damian 2005). We were also intrigued with both Kim and Bev’s teaching processes and their use of the classroom space.

Damian, Betsy. "The Kindergarten Art Studio, Breaking the Barriers for Learning through Creative Collaboration." Democracy & Education 15, 3-4 (2005): 98-100.