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Last Issue:
Tuesday,
December
18
2007
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Art Project Creates Community Bond
By Monette Austin Bailey
Published on 12-Jun-07
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Students work on the mural panels during their weekly sessions at the Center for Educational Partnership in Riverdale.
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The completed work and its creators.
Photos by Sonia Keiner Flynn
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Five almost floor-to-ceiling panels wait in a room of the university-supported Center for Educational Partnership in Riverdale. They represent not only hours of hard work, but also the beautiful results of collaboration and cultural understanding.
An initiative of The Engaged University (EU), the center is home to, among other community-university collaborations, a mural project involving William Wirt Middle School and Maryland. Twelve middle schoolers, five university students, a Wirt art teacher and a professional muralist created the panels, which feature a large image of the school's mascot, a wildcat, and flags from several countries. The completed piece will hang at the school.
"A mural is a great way to involve a large number of people," says Genevieve Villamora, when asked why she and co-coordinator Sonia Keiner Flynn chose this medium as a project for their after-school group. "The last two summers we had a mural class where we observed patterns of success. We wanted to see how an after-school project would work."
The center, located in an old school building owned by the university, hosts after school and summer programs. Students have a chance, among other skill-building activities, to work in an organic community garden, learn to repair bikes and sharpen computer skills. Art courses are always a popular option.
"Arts in general are very much a part of our framework," adds Flynn, who coordinates afterschool and summer learning programs for Wirt and Nicholas Orem Middle School students at the center in cooperation with the Maryland Multicultural Youth Center. "There is lots of research that shows that the arts improves academic achievement, and it's even more effective with students from low-income backgrounds."
The Center for Educational Partnership hopes to offer the two low-performing schools more opportunities for students and an opportunity for university students to become engaged in the community.
"[It] offered me a fun and fulfilling way to donate my time, efforts and artistic abilities to reach out to local kids that need&. activities to use their extra time in a proactive manner," says Andrew Correces, a freshman business major, who heard about the opportunity through the University Honors listserv.
Flynn says that to her and Villamora's delight, the university students almost immediately formed a bond that translated into a creative, energetic team.
"I was so proud of all the children and my fellow UM students," says Angela Annecchina, a freshman secondary art education student. "We worked hard and it clearly paid off. I kept telling the children that they would come back to William Wirt Middle School, look at the mural and will be able to say, 'Look what I did!' That sense of pride is something every child deserves."
Working with Curtis Cunnigham, the Wirt art teacher, Maryland students learned about the middle school' history and some principles of multicultural education. They talked about how their own upbringings and assumptions impact the students. It was important, too, that the college students didn't come into the project thinking that they had all the answers.
"They did weekly reflections and sent them to us," says Flynn. These observations allowed her and Villamora to see what the Maryland students were getting out of the experience. It was also an opportunity to teach.
"We could see if stereotypes were being reinforced or students were making a bad connection," says Villamora. And there were lots of conversations. "Sometimes blanket statements became opportunities for teaching moments," says Flynn. "It gave us a chance to have them think about what they were saying."
"It was an incredibly thoughtful group, open to being challenged," adds Villamora.
Funded this year by the Maryland State Arts Council, they hope that a second round of funding will allow them to continue the program next school year. At least two of the Maryland students want to return. The middle school students, some who had come into the project with special needs, said "some of the most incredible and moving things" about how the process positively affected them, says Flynn.
In the meantime, Flynn and Villamora are gearing up for the Free Minds Collective Summer Enrichment Program, in which 100 students will participate in classes such as Caribbean folk dancing, capoeira and Latin American resistance movements being held at the center and at Wirt.
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