COAHSI’s Arts-in-Education Program
COAHSI’s Arts-in-Education Program offers grants and technical assistance to public, private, and parochial schools; cultural organizations that are interested in AIE partnerships, and teaching artists. COAHSI works to increase arts in education in our community. If you would like to discuss how you can become involved in arts in education, e-mail COAHSI’s Arts-in-Education Director or call (718) 447-3329.
What
is Arts-in Education?
The Arts Are Central to Both Teaching and Learning
Arts-in-education supports the belief that the arts are central to both
teaching and learning. It’s less about what students learn and more
about how they learn it. Whether it’s using computers in a music
harmony class or creating a mural that examines the interrelationship
between different ecological systems, arts-centered experiences provide
students with different ways to look at learning from more engaged points
of view. Currently, the core activity of COAHSI’s arts-in-education
program is the re-granting of funds for projects/programs that introduce,
increase or improve access to the arts for young people by providing ways
they can encounter more arts-centered experiences in their learning lives. Below: The Richmond Choral Society's Youth Chorus.
Above: The mural at the Ambrose Channel Lighthouse created by students of Seaview Academy High School, with guidance from art teacher Noreen Cameron. The mural idea was submitted to the Where-to-Turn organization and was subsequently chosen to be part of their anti-graffiti program. The project, sponsored by The Borough President's Office, Keyspan, SI Bank and Trust Foundation, the Staten Island Board of Realtors and P.S. 56, was coordinated by COAHSI, with the Staten Island Historical Society.
The New York State
Council on the Arts: ABC Grants
In FY 02/03, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA)
spearheaded efforts to provide local support for widespread participation
in arts-in-education through its Local Capacity Building (LCB) Initiative.
Known as ABC (Arts Bring Change) Grants at COAHSI, these state-funded grants offer support for the development of partnerships between schools and artist-teachers and/or cultural organizations that focus on the interdisciplinary or integrated study of the arts and non-arts subjects and comply with the NYS Learning Standards. Through partnership, school staff and the arts organization work together to define educational goals and needs and collaboratively develop a program. Such collaboration is more likely to result in arts programs of greater educational value. Through these collaborations, compliance with the NYC Department of Education’s Blueprints for Teaching and Learning are also served by providing opportunities for schools to work with community and cultural resources to enrich school-based curricula and promote team teaching.
ABC Grants can also serve as “gateway grants” for schools with little or no arts education or grant experience to learn, grow and sustain their partnership programs through an on-going project refinement process that also provides access to higher levels of NYSCA funding to do so. As of 2008, there are four schools on Staten Island that have succeeded in attaining Empire State Partnership status through this process: PS 13, PS 16, PS 60 and Curtis High School.
Staten Island Foundation:
GAINS Program
By the second year of COAHSI’s arts-in-education program, COAHSI
discovered that the ABC Grants offered only a partial solution to a vast
landscape of arts learning, since the interpretation of what arts-in-education
is provokes wide-ranging debate even among its practitioners. COAHSI needed
to develop a more inclusive program to create greater access into the
arts education field for as many stakeholders as possible. Through the
early vision and support of The
Staten Island Foundation, COAHSI was able to establish the Growing
Arts in Neighborhood Schools (GAINS)
Program to invite broader arts-in-education dialogue, visibility
and practices to keep more young people engaged in learning and provide
an instroduction through which schools might attain more sustainable levels
of funding.
The projects/programs generated by both the NYSCA and The Staten Island Foundation grants not only increase the presence but also reinforce the crucial role the arts play in the lives and personal development of not only the direct participants of these projects/programs but in the lives of all Staten Islanders. In many cases, entire schools become energized and outside communities become welcomed participants (see the Sept/Oct 2007 COAHSI newsletter) by forging new relationships through resource sharing and the arts.
Why
is Arts-in-Education So Important? >
Effective Arts in Education Partnerships (download
pdf)
Grants for Arts-in-Education >
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COAHSI
is a conduit for funding of