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Cultural Organizations and Teaching Artists | module 2

Get Arts Powered with Cultural Organization and Teaching Artists

Arts Powered Partnerships are student and adult learning enriched by partnerships with arts organizations, teaching artists, and the resources of entire communities. Building a strong partnership is key to developing a culture of learning, creating imaginative curricula, and fostering vital outcomes - in short an Arts Powered School, and can be obtained through six major strategies: 

   Humanities Teacher Lisa Reitmeier with Fannie Lou students showing off their Macbeth shields
strategy 1 l FIND A GOOD MATCH
strategy 2 l IDENTIFY CONNECTIONS BETWEEN ARTS AND ACADEMICS
strategy 3 l IDENTIFY A POINT PERSON
strategy 4 l MAKE TIME FOR THE PARTNERSHIP
strategy 5 l BUILD CONTINUITY
strategy 6 l EXTEND THE EXPERIENCE


PLUS, Tips for Finding an Arts Powered Partnership 
 

strategy 1 l Find a Good Match 

Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School and The Studio Museum in Harlem
 
Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School
Students with their Macbeth Coat of Arms
Outside of Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


On the outside, the building hardly stands out from a long row of warehouses and auto parts suppliers, and the expressway shoots by just 50 feet from the heavy metal front door. Across the river in New Jersey, you can see smoke when they burn tires. But behind that door is Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, the final grades of a K–12 set of schools in the South Bronx designed to create an educational pathway for the students, who live in extremely challenging circumstances.
 
The school is named for a famous civil rights leader whose life is played out in a giant mural across one exterior wall. While Fannie Lou Hamer herself fought for voting rights, here the ongoing struggle is for the right to a high quality high school education that includes immersion in the arts. Inside these walls, students who may never have had the chance to work with scissors and paint learn to think of themselves as creators and authors.
 
Fannie Lou Hamer High School is located in the South Bronx, one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the United States, and many of its entering students have had virtually no exposure to the arts. Yet the New York City Department of Education has praised the school for its imaginative curricula and strong teacher-student relationships. How did it achieve its successes? In large part through an Arts Powered Partnership for LearnFannie Lou Hamer mural on back wall of school buildinging. In Arts Powered Schools, student and adult learning is enriched by partnerships with teaching artists, arts organizations, and the resources of entire communities.

Nearly 10 years ago, the school partnered with the Studio Museum in Harlem to integrate the arts into the 9th and 10th grade humanities (literature and social studies) curriculum. A team of teachers and a teaching artist affiliated with the museuStudio Museum in Harlem at 144 W125th Street, NYCm worked together (with input from school and museum administrators) to create projects that would give students an enhanced understanding of the academic subject matter, art-making skills, and, according to principal Nancy Mann, “another entry point for literacy.” The curricula enriches student learning in the humanities through:
 
  • Interdisciplinary study
   • Staff development
   • Museum visits
   • Out-of-school and summer learning opportunities
 

And even though funding has wavered and the humanities teaching staff has completely turned over in the intervening years, the partnership is still going strong.  Click to continue ►  ►  ►