"Learning through arts", is a life skills programme which is conducted by Arts Sparks Foundation. ArtSparks Foundation is an educational nonprofit that works to support the development of 21st-century learning and life skills in children using the medium of visual art & design. ArtSparks believes that a great education should equip children with skills to handle life’s complexities—skills such as problem-solving, flexible thinking, reasoning, positive risk-taking, attention to detail, perseverance, collaboration, and so much more. It believes that creativity, in particular, is an important 21st-century skill for the future with far-reaching benefits. And, visual art & design provide rich and diverse opportunities to facilitate such meaningful learning. ArtSparks also supports the professional development of classroom teachers, encouraging them to reflect on their teaching practice, and explore new ways to enrich their students learning.
CRY (Child Rights and You) collaborates with ArtSparks every year in order to bring this programme to the students and this collaboration has been going strong for the last three years.
This year I had the opportunity to learn from ArtSparks and execute their pedagogy through CRY. The programme requires the volunteers to undergo training for two days. The complete programme goes on for a period of 10 weeks and the training is preferably conducted two weeks before the commencement of the programme in the respective schools.
CRY Bengaluru has been divided into 4 areas called as Public Action Group (PAG) namely Jeevan Bheema Nagar, Koramangala, Madiwala and Yeshwantpur. I worked with the Jeevan Bheema Nagar PAG for this programme.
The programme, in itself, was a rigorous one and the training for it was equally challenging. In the course of two days, we were introduced to the curriculum. The session was conducted by Nisha Nair (Founder and Executive Director, ArtSparks) and Muankimi (Programme coordinator, ArtSparks). Both of them were great! We went through the curriculum session by session, doing all the activities by ourselves. From time to time, Nisha would give us important pieces of information regarding our attitude towards kids and also the purpose of the course and how it should be understood. The whole idea was to overcome our fear of thinking and doing something unconventional. We were expected to go against our structured construct of doing things and trust me, it wasn’t easy.
The activity that was decided for this programme was to explore paper and the ways in which it could be used along with identifying problems and imagining a suitable solution with a rationale. The solutions were then to be visually expressed through a collage. The final output of the 10 sessions would be a 5ft collage which depicts the ideal community that the students had imagined. The sessions were conducted with the students of class 7th and 6th. A total of enrolled students were 35+ but the regulars would fall around 20. I was joined by Rhea, who was one of the volunteers from CRY who had undertaken the training.
When we took the programme to the kids, it had its own added problems. Even though we knew what was to be done, even though we had everything written down on paper and in our hands, it was hard. It was hard to explain what we knew. It was hard to make kids be interested in us and what we wanted to tell them. Also, the school had primarily Kannada speaking children. I hadn’t anticipated how difficult it might be for me to even talk to those kids, lest feel a part of their lives. But in the end (as in, the end of every session), seeing all those kids trying, trying hard and yet enjoying the process, made me came back every week for the next 9 weeks.
After each session we would write our feedback for each session, reflecting on our observations and challenges. This was a part which I felt was really helpful throughout the programme. It would make us stop for a while, think what went well and continue with that behaviour or realise the challenge and change what needed to be changed.
We were supposed to conduct an exhibition at the end of the programme. Unfortunately, due to unavoidable circumstances, we were not able to host the exhibition just after the programme. It took us a month and a half to finalise a date and till then the 7th standard students had graduated from the school and left to pursue their next phase of education in another school.
We conducted the exhibition on 1st June 2019. We came to the school (with other volunteers from ArtSparks as well). We set up the class, putting up all the artefacts in place and we waited for an audience to pour in. That, for sure, didn’t happen. A couple of parents came in. Some of the teachers dropped by. But what made me feel a lot better was that students brought in their friends to show what they had done.
Was the outcome of the programme super perfect? Hell, no! Was the experience super enriching? Defs, yes! I would definitely do it all over again and if you wish to give it a shot, Contact CRY or ArtSparks for further details.
