This July, the UA Center for Children & Youth carried out its annual ARTeacher Fellowship Summer Institute. In attendance were educators from a variety of subjects and schools from Northwest Arkansas. Through workshops and presentations, the educators received hands-on experience for utilizing visual, performing, and media arts in the secondary classroom.
The event occurred initially at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, AR and concluded at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR. The Center for Children & Youth is an endowed program in the College of Health and Education at the University of Arkansas organized the Summer Institute, in partnership with Crystal Bridges and the Walton Arts Center. The ARTeacher Fellowship is a three-year application-based Fellowship program for secondary-level teachers of English, foreign language, science, and social studies focused on producing experts and professional advocates in the area of arts integration. Sessions are led by veteran classroom teachers as well as nationally recognized facilitators from across the country.
The first two days of this year’s ARTeacher Fellowship Summer Institute were led by Randy Barron, Arts Integration Consultant and Kennedy Center Teaching Artist in Washington, D.C., and focused on building connections between curricular content, theatre, and movement. .
Said Barron, “Working with the ARTeacher Fellowship program has been a highlight of my work since its inception, and it was a privilege to return this year. The new and returning Fellows coalesced seamlessly into an ensemble of teacher-learners during their first two days.”
The final two days saw sessions led by Sally Ball, Manager of School Programs and Gallery Teaching at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which focused on how visual and analytical thinking can be applied in the classroom.
Ball celebrated the Summer Institute, saying, “The ARTeacher Fellows are a group of inspired and inspiring educators, with whom it is always a great pleasure to interact.This remarkable program, like none other, which teaches educators how to truly integrate the arts into core classroom curricula, is making a real impact in classrooms across Northwest Arkansas.”
In addition to these comprehensive activities, the educators themselves also took time to reflect and lead one another in a variety of multimodal activities that enhanced the shared sense of spirit and collaboration. Said third-year Fellow Anna Beaulieu (Fayetteville HS), “This experience is especially rewarding right before the school year begins because it inspires new ideas and challenges me in so many ways.”
The 2021 Summer Institute was a success in its promotion of collaboration, creativity, and artistic approaches to the curriculum. As Hung Pham, Director of the Center for Children and Youth and chief organizer of the Summer Institute said, “This was a great way to bring our Fellows together in person, reset for the upcoming school year, and strategize on best practices for arts integration. While the educators got a lot out of it, the ultimate beneficiary is, of course, the students of these participating teachers.”