Leah Samuelson, MA in Urban Studies, Arts in Transformation student discusses how she applied her learning from the BuildaBridge Institute 07. 

I started employing some ideas and methods we learned last week [at the BuildaBridge Institute 2007] in teaching the arts program at church yesterday, as well as in talking with my neighbor kids tonight- they worked well! It's exciting to get effective training, even in just one week!

Details

I teach a brief arts/project course at the beginning of kids' church. Our time, space, and resources are limited. We service between 8 and 24 kids per Sunday from ages 2-14.

This last Sunday for the first time we had room access to be able to split the kids into two age groups. I was thinking of the "Creativity and Play" video- it emphasized creating a safe place for exploration and allowing kids freedom to play with materials as a form of self expression. Developmentally, the youngest children's levels of motor control and grasp of abstract concepts were incompatible with working through an artistic process with those 7 and older. We let the younger kids color and play with blocks and instruments, knowing that would be a learning and development time for them.

Being able to concentrate on the older half of the group I tried to utilize two concepts/strategies: youth participation and the power of arts to access and address "soul" issues. We were using colored pencils to polychrome a poster gridded with squares made with low-tack tape. The kids worked in teams to apply the tape in straight lines, finding hands-on mathematical methods for keeping things even. We had a discussion about what color schemes to choose and which color patterns to follow. There were enough squares remaining to allow for phases of coloring using several color suggestions, so we made a plan and did a few short color tests for next week. The kids' increased interest and sense of ownership were obvious.

Working gave us opportunity to talk about the kids' lives, so I opened up a discussion about summer break, and asked what was important to them about summer. We learned of one girl's hatred of bugs(we are in the summer of the 17-year locus) and she recounted the differing bug conditions in the locations of her frequent travels around the midwest. She shared that all her family is very far away and though she has to travel a lot, she doesn't get to see them. One boy didn't have anything to say about summer. Eventually he shared he doesn't enjoy sports but he loves to draw. We discussed briefly the relationship between being healthy and cultivating one's imagination, as well as what the metaphor might be relating us to our project. That was the extent of our conversation. We are building trust and familiarity with each other- creating an environment to which kids will want to return because they know they are heard and will be able to contribute ideas that can manifest in a project. 

Incarnational relationships

A couple of weeks ago my roommate and I hosted a tea party for two young sisters who are our neighbors, because they wanted to use their tea set. The 12 year old girl in their house declined our invitation because we were too unknown. She timed our event and was waiting for her two friends when they returned. Yesterday she asked me when we could have another tea party- a second chance. Sitting on her porch yesterday, I thought about the power of presence and an overarching goal taught at the BuildaBridge Institute: revealing, building, committing to hope. She poured out stories of her troubled home life, her older brother's 8th grade graduation that morning and her younger brother's reading problem. 

The girls have requested a painting session, so I think our next event will be an outdoor table with watercolor supplies- for boys too. Every text we read for this summer semester emphasized the unique, hands-on, metaphoric, alternative-providing, esteem-building, expressive qualities of the arts.

There is a 6'x4' black canvas hanging on my living room wall. It has all the chalk outlines/demarcations copying a quilt from Gee's Bend in Wilcox County, Alabama (of the famous touring quilts recently featured on postage stamps). I was planning on recreating my favorite quilt by gluing on colored paper cut to the exact shapes of the quilt's pattern. This involves a process using an overhead projector, crinkling and wetting the paper pieces, and ironing them flat again. One day at the Institute we brainstormed about how to facilitate for children the leaving of a teacher. If I move from Chicago sometime this year, I will first invite over all my friends, students from kids' church, and neighbors and ask them to create and apply a section of my paper quilt for me to take with me when I leave. I hope my neighbors, and their mother will come.