Student Council’s Student Arts Committee recently announced the creation of the Arts Education Program, through which committee members and other interested University student volunteers will teach Albemarle County elementary and middle school students about art.
This effort, Committee Chair Jenny Smith said, seeks to supplement both art education and education on a broader level.
“The arts are enriching to education generally,” Smith said. “When kids are creating their own piece of art, it gets kids interested in something that is educational but it adds to and diversifies their education.”
The topics that University students will teach through the program include art history, the work of specific artists, and the various themes, styles and techniques that exist in the artistic community, Smith said.
Committee members have divided into groups and created lesson plans based on one of the topics, Smith said.
“We have a wide group of interests within our committee,” Smith said, “Our members are knowledgeable in art history and art administration. We’re putting together a very substantive program and then bringing it to local public school system.”
Committee volunteers will visit local Charlottesville schools once every three weeks and will rotate to different schools throughout the semester, Smith said.
“I think it really exemplifies the Committee’s proactive effort to reach out to the local community,” Council President Matt Schrimper said.
The program also will allow committee members to give presentations to young Charlottesville students in after-school programs, such as the Boys & Girls Club of America, Smith said.
“We’re looking to work with volunteer after-school programs and also in regular classrooms,” Smith said, “We’re trying to get kids to become interested in art and taking what they’ve learned and supplementing it with their regular education.”
Andy Johnson, coordinator of Fine Arts and Gifted Education for Albemarle County Public Schools, said he thinks the program could be beneficial to students if it is planned appropriately.
“I really do think art is an area of emphasis for the county; it’s an area that helps foster problem-solving and creative thinking,” Johnson said, “but it depends on how it’s done and how it’s worked into the curriculum with the teachers.”
Johnson recommended that committee members work with the Albemarle County Framework for Quality Learning, a handbook on teaching in the classroom Albemarle teachers use, to ensure their lesson plans for the art presentations are as beneficial as possible for students.
“It would be helpful that anything they came in with was somehow connected to the framework,” Johnson said. “We’ve had mentoring programs in the past and I think I’ve seen those things work pretty well.” The Arts Education Program will hold its first art presentation with the Boys & Girls Club of Charlottesville/Albemarle Nov. 20.
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