We've finished our second week of classes at the arts center this week and I finally have some time to sit down and reflect about the past couple of weeks. Our first week of programming introduced me to some of the challenges facing the center, the biggest being the poor enrollment in our visual arts classes. After pouring over books in the MICA library to find some great artists' work to introduce the activity for my first Wednesday night drawing class, I sat alone in the studio for an hour and a half before it became clear that the one student who had registered wasn't coming. It's a much different situation than what I was naively imagining when I wrote many of my lesson plans for this term. My art lessons, especially for teen and adult classes, rely heavily on discussion about our experiences and ideas, which just doesn't work when you have one student. The other visual arts teacher at the center, Jessie, feels the same way about the lessons she's planned. Sitting in the studio alone last Wednesday made me determined to figure out the best way to recruit more students to my classes, and to figure out what type of art class people will actually be interested in taking.
Our poor enrollment in youth classes has to do in part with the gap that exists between schools and the organizations providing after-school programming. It's a problem I became familiar with working in an after-school program at an elementary school in DC, where I heard students talk about their teachers every day, but had little opportunity to interact with them or to connect my activities with what the kids were learning in school. Here at the arts center in Baltimore, the challenges go a little further. We try to serve the West Baltimore neighborhoods directly surrounding the center, but a lot of our students come from other parts of the city or suburbs. It takes a particularly interested parent, with enough time and energy to sign their child up and bring them here, to get kids into our classes.
Jessie and I brainstormed some strategies for outreach. We're setting up a multigenerational advisory group for people in the neighborhood, which will be a discussion group where people can give their input on our classes and events and make suggestions. We're also setting up a separate teen advisory group for teens interested in art, to hear their ideas for classes and workshops. We hope that if they design the classes, they'll be proud of them and invested in them, and will be more likely to sign up for them and tell their friends about them.
I made a flyer for the advisory group, which at no point mentioned the words “advisory group” but explained that we want teens' input on our class planning for next year, to figure out what kind of art and dance they'd like to learn. The big draw will probably be the fact that high school seniors can get service learning credit hours for coming, and there will be snacks. I visited five West Baltimore high schools in the neighborhoods closest to our center this week advocating for the teen advisory group with guidance counselors and art teachers, and have been following up with them via phone and e-mail. Three of the schools I visited were smaller academies, most located in some part of a larger school, and all seemed like positive environments; in one, teachers and students were sitting in a lounge chatting and laughing, and joking in the hallways. The larger high schools I've visited were pretty standard Baltimore City public high schools, probably some of the worst school environments in the country. But at every school so far, all the teachers and staff I've encountered were very receptive to our mission and have said they'll help me get more kids into our classes. It's been a very positive experience so far and I feel confident that I'll be able to increase our enrollment by the end of this term or for our winter workshops.
I'm also doing a demo on papermaking in the fourth grade art class at the elementary school nearest to us this Tuesday. We'll be doing the same activity in my pre-school recycled art class on Monday, so hopefully I'll have all the kinks worked out before doing the activity in a new environment with about five times as many kids. The pre-schoolers have been working diligently on their books the past two weeks. I'll have photos of actual art on here soon.
