Service Learning

One of my highlights of teaching at HOPAC has been the Service Learning emphasis, where a group of my students (grades 6-8) and I work with a local school and do art activities with them. For several weeks we've gone out to their school and brought simple arts & crafts activities for them to do (which they've LOVED) and these past couple of weeks we've had them come to our school where they've been able to paint. The school these students go to have nothing but the *very, very* bare minimum of supplies, so the opportunity even just to use crayons or colored pencils is an incredible one for them. Most if not all of them have never painted in their lives (and don't know when they'll be able to in the future) so it has been such a privilege giving these opportunities to these children.

The classes we've worked with have about 70+ students in them (in one small classroom); we split the class in half each week and only work with half a class at a time. Because of the number of students in the classes and the lack of teaching supplies or resources, most learning in these schools takes place by rote memorization so the opportunity for creativity is very limited. Because of this, the children had a very difficult time expressing themselves creatively when we first started working with them.

The first couple of weeks we came to the school, we brought construction paper, crayons, and colored pencils. We had them write/draw their name and then decorate it however they wished. It took quite a while for the students to even get started and was very difficult for them to "draw freely" as they weren't quite sure what to do with the creative space. By the end of these days, a few of the students were opening up and drawing freely while most of them were copying pictures that our students were drawing.

Over the next couple weeks, we brought supplies for the kids to make greeting cards. Construction paper, markers, cut-out shapes we'd prepared in advance, gluesticks, and stickers. During these days the students warmed up more quickly, and many were very freely drawing all sorts of pictures. Some were still copying pictures our kids drew, but they were much more comfortable with it and filled their pages up in every corner with pictures. They LOVED the stickers and could not get enough of them! Here are some pics from those days:

These past couple of weeks, the students have come to our school. This time we've had them paint (again, probably the first time in any of their lives to do so), and we gave them very little guidance... instead just telling them they could paint whatever they wished. They painted so freely and loved every second of it!! Their creativity came forth so quickly; it was beautiful to see. It has been such a blessing to watch them creatively open up over these past few months. To give these children the opportunity to express themselves creatively, and the space and encouragement to do so.... what a blessing it has been. Some of these students are clearly very artistically talented, so giving them one of their very first opportunities to express or realize that talent has been really wonderful.

Here are some pictures of them at our school:

(look at that portrait and that car; such talent!)

(there's my classroom, by the way!) :)

(our students playing a game with them after they painted)