The ACE Concept
By supporting Artists, Community organizers, and Educators to connect and develop projects with and for members of their community, the ACE approach creates innovative opportunities for lifelong learning, developing skills and connections that contribute to personal and community vitality for everyone involved.
Arts
Artists are at the heart of this initiative. Artists enliven our communities. The experiences they facilitate can create rich exchanges, expand awareness and learning, and contribute to well-being individually and collectively.
Quebec’s English-speaking artists are diverse – they include professionals in craft, dance, folk, literary, media, music, storytelling, theatre and visual art disciplines. Many Quebec artists have developed the skills in facilitation needed to engage students and adults in opportunities to learn not only about their artistic practice, but also to learn in and through the arts.
Community
By connecting and collaborating with community organizers and representatives, ACE projects provide community members with access to arts experiences through:
Creating art with community members by developing opportunities to experience the arts with others, creating together with students and/or other community members within or outside school time; and/or
Creating art for community members to develop awareness of the arts and potentially of themes related to community and/or global needs/issues by developing art installations, performances, vernissages, etc.
Education
Educators make learning more engaging by bringing the curriculum to life in dynamic and meaningful ways when they bring artists into their schools and classrooms.
When artists work with students, educators have opportunities to see their students differently, noticing strengths that are highlighted as the creative process enables students to be innovative, imaginative, even courageous. Having an artist in the classroom has been shown to increase student motivation and improve individual and class behavior, positively impacting relationships between teachers and students and amongst students. By collaborating with artists to design and facilitate learning experiences through the arts, teachers provide students with opportunities to develop their competencies and connect with subject matter in ways that can be evaluated.
“Having an artist in the classroom, suddenly there was a light inside them that lit up because they looked forward to coming to English – their reading and writing had meaning.”
– Christina Croce, Teacher, St. Lambert Elementary
