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 Lincoln School student with puppets
she created in a workshop
directed by Filipino shadow puppeteer Ramon Abad. Spring 2002 |
VALA PROGRAMS PRESCHOOL, ELEMENTARY, AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS CONTRA COSTA AND ALAMEDA COUNTIES Preschool Programs VALA began to conduct programs at several preschools in West Contra Costa in the fall of 2005. VALA artists taught music, yoga, the visual arts, shadow play puppetry, theater and movement to three and four year olds who were largely Hispanic, frequently non-English speakers, from low income often immigrant backgrounds. Our purpose was to use the arts (including yoga) as a means to teach preliteracy and engage these children in English language conversation through oral story telling and reading stories, usually about animals. Artists also taught the children to make letters with their bodies and through making art that they then shaped into letters. VALA regards this work as essential preparation for English language "readiness standards" encountered by these children when they reach Kindergarten. Failure to meet these standards frequently determines the entire course of their educational career. In other words, if they fail in Kindergarten, they often lose the impetus to continue into high school. |
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The preschool project includes teacher/aide and parent training workshops each year. Teachers who frequently have artistic training in their backgrounds, but are overwhelmed by the hours and numbers of children they have to teach, are instructed in ways to incorporate the arts of music, art, and yoga in their weekly teaching. Parents who often turn away from their children in fear or despair, and place them in front of the TV as a last resort, come with their children and participate in ways to do art together as well as how to construct simple musical instruments and even create lyrics to music.
These preschool programs, which occur in El Cerrito, Richmond, and San Pablo are funded by the Trio Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Lowell Berry Foundation, the Open Circle Foundation, and the San Francisco Foundation. |
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Elementary Schools in Richmond
For the past two years, VALA artists have been working in grades one through six at two schools in Richmond. Dancers, poets, writers, a book maker, shadow play puppeteer, painters, artists doing photomontage and collage, and musicians have been teaching six week workshops, one hour per week, in the fall and the spring since 2005. Each artist has been working continuously with a teacher to create programs related to the Open Court Reading literacy curriculum. The various art forms are used to inspire children to write creatively and more effectively. Each artist meets with his/her teacher before each series of classes to plan a tentative curriculum in consonance with the particular Open Court theme, and then meets with VALA's director, Tina Rotenberg, who is both a poet and an artist, to combine the various art forms with innovative ways to teach writing. The spring of 2007 marks the culmination of this two-year pilot program when each teacher will take over and teach the particular art form they have been exposed to, building a six week plan with the assistance and guidance of the artist. VALA's hope is to leave each teacher with sufficient knowledge and confidence to continue the use of the art and creative writing on their own once the artist is no longer present in the classroom. The following foundations and corporations have supported this project: the East Bay Community Foundation, the Bill Graham Foundation, the Hitachi Foundation, Hitachi America, and the Ark Foundation. |
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New Middle School Program
A VALA dancer, two musicians, and a school in Oakland, our first engagement with middle school education since the founding of VALA in 1995. For example, an African-American dancer has been able to successfully teach a combination of Afro-Caribbean dance, a poem by Chilean nobel prize winning poet, and visualizaation that elicited some outstanding poems and dance performances by the kids. Two musicians and a poet are also working at this school. The VanLobenSels/RembeRock foundation funds half this project and the school makes up the rest of the funding. |
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