ArtEsteem
Since 1995, AHC’s award-winning art and literacy program has helped develop creative, engaged, and successful
children/youth through building emotional, social, academic and intellectual skills.
ArtEsteem engages students and supports their positive development–body, mind, and heart. Our programs help keep children and youth interested in school through creating individual and collective educational excellence across academic subjects. In addition to art classes for children and youth, ArtEsteem Teaching Artists provide professional development consulting and hands-on training for educators in art curricula–additionally in support of academic subjects (e.g. science and social studies)–to help teachers develop visually engaging and hands-on methods that improve student involvement, comprehension, and critical thinking.
ArtEsteem’s fun and widely applicable art-enrichment classes, that also provide education in emotional literacy and life/social skills, are valuable for kids of all backgrounds. Bridging grassroots and governmental social-improvement efforts, we strive in particular to provide art classes in schools that cannot afford them by linking resources and creatively raising dollars through grants and other fundraising efforts. Being able to offer art classes in under-funded schools is helping remedy the effects of socioeconomic conditions that can block academic and personal achievement.
Participants discover how to self reflect and dream, as well as focus on their tasks and “follow through” by completing their art projects. Our methods guide students to think practically about the world and their abilities to manifest positive and creative outcomes. Classes also build students’ language and math literacy, aesthetic appreciation, and listening and performance skills. Our students learn – through dialogue, reading, and writing – conceptual understandings of social, historical, and cultural topics to engage and inform their minds, and develop the whole child, in expansive ways.
ArtEsteem students are propelled to see themselves differently, internally/personally as well as in relation to the issues of the world, and they are encouraged to experience themselves as active change agents. Participants can become more able to self manage, make positive choices, and exercise awareness and kindness with self and others. ArtEsteem invites participants to feel powerful in helpful, beautiful, and productive ways instead of feeling and acting worthless, powerless, or out of control.
Art Classes for Children and Youth
During and after-school classes combine Attitudinal Healing concepts, art instruction, and classroom-management tools in an art integrated curriculum linked to the State of California Academic Content Standards.
Visual Arts
The Visual Arts class provides a multi-disciplinary curriculum that takes children/youth through a journey of
self-exploration, critical thinking, family and cultural research, societal assessment, and the use of aesthetic tools for skill development and artistic creation. Students learn, but are not limited to, basic drawing, printmaking, and painting techniques.
Cultural Arts
The Cultural Arts class provides students with cognitive learning opportunities through drumming in a cultural and language rich environment. The curriculum incorporates phonics, the twin concepts of rhythm and sound, and cultural codes of conduct from around the world.
Building Healthy Staff
Schools are workplaces too. School teachers, administrators, and other staff can engage in creating healthier adult environments through participating in AHC workshops and retreats. Customized sessions can help develop personal and interpersonal strengths through activities such as learning stress-management techniques, practicing diversity-tolerance tools, and team building/community building through Mindful Drumming.
Stress Management
Attitudinal Healing Principles can be applied to alleviating and managing the everyday stresses that individuals experience in workplaces, organizations, schools, families, and other environments. Sessions and practices can be tailored for children/youth or for specific groups of adults (e.g. parents, nurses, teachers, business co-workers).
Team Building/Community Building
Experiential learning is used to foster skills in communication, cooperation, and compassion. Participants develop understanding and practice methods of healthy self/other awareness, positive self control, and the joys and benefits of working together.
Art Education for Educators
ArtEsteem trains educators in art curricula, as well as in support of academic subjects, showing teachers how to develop visually engaging lessons and methods to enhance educational content and involve students in creative, hands-on ways that improve their comprehension, critical thinking, and achievement.
ArtEsteem develops customized workshops, learning plans, consulting services, and instructional materials to fit a school’s specific arts-education needs. Our experienced visual and performing artists can work alongside teachers in their classrooms to provide
on-the-job training and facilitated practice during real class lessons. ArtEsteem also holds training workshops for teachers several times each year at the AHC center in Oakland. Continuing Education Units are available for some workshop sessions.
ArtEsteem trainings and collaborations provide hands-on opportunities for educators to gain significant professional knowledge in areas like:
• How to implement visual and performing arts curriculum through understanding tools, supplies, mediums, techniques, and methods
• How to integrate visual and performing arts curriculum with academic content areas
• How to integrate the State of California
Visual & Performing Arts Standards into
classroom curriculum
• How to use the Principles of Attitudinal
Healing as tools for classroom management