– Christina Croce, Teacher, St. Lambert Elementary
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.
Transcript
Christina Croce (teacher):
The project “Tell Me Who You Are” was about the students exploring their past, present and future – to, finally a culminating activity that lead to an art installation in a village in St. Lambert.
Having an artist in the classroom and integrating it into my English class in particular has changed the way I teach English. The impact that it has on students is incredible in that they become more motivated.
You have students who don’t enjoy writing, who don’t enjoy reading, who don’t want to become engaged in English language arts activities. Having an artist in the classroom, suddenly there was this light inside them that lit up because they looked forward to coming to English. Yes, they had to do the reading. Yes, they had to do the writing. But suddenly the reading and writing had meaning because it was attached to something more tangible.
So they weren’t just writing a poem to write a poem. They were writing a poem that was related to their present selves that was then leading to this mailbox. Students would come to the door who would normally not be interested in coming to English class and be like, “Are we working on the project today?” You know, you suddenly saw this like, internal flame, this excitement.
It was really eye opening for me as a teacher because it made me realize that if there’s no meaning behind it, if the students don’t see a purpose in why they’re doing what they’re doing, then the effort they put in it, the details that they’ll add to it will be less than when the artist is not in the classroom – and the quality and the end product is much better.
Transcript
Laura Teasdale (artist):
We took a group of children from three schools to visit a group of seniors from three seniors residencies. The student was paired up with a partner and together they would work on creating their art. When you work side-by-side, it’s much more natural and easy to speak and to get to know each other – the emphasis not only on creating the art together and taking a workshop in art but also their friendship and the growth of their relationship.
It’s incredibly important to link the past and the future and there are so many seniors who need grandchildren, in a way, and so many grandchildren who need grandparents – a need on the part of the kid and a need on the part of the senior to make connections with people outside of their own age and, in this case, it makes people feel beholden to something bigger than themselves and interested in something outside themselves. The past, the history of this person who was a woodcutter or used to be the mayor of the town… all those things spark the kids and, in the same way, the seniors are so energized by the kids and by caring about new people.
I think it hits on a lot of things in the curriculum especially if you do work toward having the kids write biographies of themselves so that they can present them to their partners. You can also have them interview their partners. But especially the principles of citizenship and community-mindedness.
I saw a lot of generosity on the part of the children and on the part of the seniors. By far the most touching thing to watch was the relationships grow. The art was beautiful, they made some beautiful things, but more than that was to see them be able to reach out to each other.
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.
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 among 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.
Transcript
Helen Morency (CLC Coordinator): Being isolated and in a remote area, sometimes the opportunities are not available for our kids, like to experience different things for a longer period of time. So the school board has a database of artists and things that they pick from, and sometimes we don’t even get to pick who comes to our school, they just send someone – and that person is usually only here for like an hour, two hours maximum. With this project, the great thing about it was that they spent six weeks here. It gave the students more of an opportunity to experience things that they would not.
Stacey Christodoulou (artist): What I did was a six-week theatre performance workshop and I helped the kids here do a presentation at the end of the six weeks.
Helen Morency (CLC Coordinator): She taught them how to project their voice in a way so that everyone could understand and hear. She taught them movement, a little bit, about being less self-conscious.
Stacey Christodoulou (artist): One of my goals was to incorporate their history through their personal stories. So what we did is we did some theatre exercises, we talked about performance. The two groups were very different and one had a whole play that they constructed about the history of Chevery and the group had more personal vignettes of their time in Harrington Harbour.
Helen Morency (CLC Coordinator): Angela’s project in 2018 was a haiku book with haikus, photos and drawings created by our students. Multiple grade levels and teachers were involved with both schools. Angela spent one to two classes per week with each group teaching the different forms of Japanese poetry. Our students became very proficient at creating haikus thanks to Angela.
Angela Leuck (artist): I taught primarily Japanese short-form poetry, but some of the other students were quite talented as writers and I was really happy to have met a couple of very exceptional students that I hope I managed to get them a little further along the path toward writing.
Helen Morency (CLC Coordinator): There was a celebration in each school where students and Angela shared what they had created with the community. It was an amazing project that was enjoyed by students, teachers, and I think Angela. Hopefully we will get to continue with this project into year three.
Project initiators reach out to people in their schools and communities to talk about how they see ACE development – who is interested in making things happen? What could we create together? What arts disciplines do we think our students could most benefit from experiencing? How could integrating the arts bring education to life? What community connections could be made? Most important in this stage is creating momentum, building a team and supporters, and developing a vision.
Developing projects collaboratively requires an investment of time and energy, especially between the teacher(s), artist(s), and coordinator. Principals support at this stage to ensure teachers have the planning time needed is crucial. The teachers and artists develop a plan to include students in the project design process. Effort is made to establish great communication and a team approach. The schedule, logistics, and a strategy for creative documenting are put into place.
Let the Art begin! Communication is frequent, students are contributing and taking ownership, relationships are being built, and the project evolves in a dynamic and emergent fashion. Having done the groundwork for co-learning in the Connect & Collaborate phases, the team of artists, teachers, coordinator, students, and community members feel a sense of partnership, growing enthusiasm and investment. Focus on process is as important as the product.
Showtime! Rehearsals, invitations, and finishing touches build up to a celebrational sharing of the ACE project with community members, other school members, and chosen audiences. The ACE project co-learners are honoured and recognized for their art work and efforts. Lessons learned are debriefed and the ACE story is documented and shared.
We’re work with partners to provide capacity development opportunities for artists, community organizers, and educators. If you would like to get involved in ACE development in your community, or as an artist working in communities across the province, please write to us:
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460 Sainte-Catherine West
Suites 706 & 708
Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3B 1A7
Phone: (514)-935-3312
admin@quebec-elan.org
ELAN is an official minority language organization within a country that recognizes two languages as official. ELAN is located in Tiohtiak:ke, the original name for Montreal in Kanien’kéha, the language of the Mohawk—also known as Mooniyang, which is the Anishinaabeg name given to the city by the Algonquin. While we are based in this city, our projects have also taken place in many regions across Quebec.
We acknowledge the colonial origin of English and French in Canada, and recognize that both languages benefit from official status throughout the land. The province that we know as Quebec is an amalgamation of the traditional territories of the Innu and Inuit nations, Algonquian nations, as well as the Mohawk nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kanien’kéha and Anishinaabemowin are but two of the original languages of this province; Atikamekw, Cree, Inuktitut, and Innu-aimun are also among the many Indigenous languages spoken across Quebec as majority languages, all well before French and English.
ELAN acknowledges the important work being done by First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples to revive the traditional languages of these territories, and their advocacy for the official status of Indigenous languages.