I’ve been working on a series of projects with my class of seven-year-olds based on the idea of slowly growing our understanding of our identity, and then, as we understand our own identities, expanding outward to see how we are a part of a whole. A predictable result from understanding our own stories and valuing ourselves is that we begin to extend that value to others and see our place and responsibility in a community.
Left: Hayden, portrait of ancestral lands Sweden and England. Right: Santi, portrait with ancestral lands Sweden and Mexico.Left: Santi, grade two, uses an oil pastel to trace his drawing of Sweden. Right: Clara, grade two, will use these printouts to trace her countries of origin over her photograph.
I live in Davis County, Utah. Our school district reports to the Department of Justice (DOJ)—one of the only school districts in the country to do so. This relationship between the Davis County School District and the DOJ is the result of multiple reports of racism in our schools, which the district ignored. This is a long and complicated history, fraught with many unfortunate situations, but we are moving forward with new rules and new resolve.
Even though six of my own children have attended school in this district, I don’t pretend to know or understand every aspect of this. But as a visual artist whose practices often land in the arena of community-based art, I believe art offers us the tools to unravel difficult topics. In Art for Life (see Resources), Anderson and Milbrandt state, “Art is not an end but a means of exploring the students’ own values, meanings, mores, and understandings.”
Understanding Identity
I am interested in using art to have conversations with our youngest children, which could set a foundation for better understanding and kindness and promote more empathy.
Art for Life proposes the following: “If, indeed, we are a product of our heritage and our history as much as of our personal choices, then we have to look to heritage and our history as sources. To find out what we now are, it is useful to start by examining what we have been.”
I’ve been working on a series of projects with my class of seven-year-olds based on the idea of slowly growing our understanding of our identity, and then, as we understand our own identities, expanding outward to see how we are a part of a whole. A predictable result from understanding our own stories and valuing ourselves is that we begin to extend that value to others and see our place and responsibility in a community.
Tracing Our Ancestors
For this project, I took a head and shoulders photo of each student, put their name on the bottom in a transparent font, and printed the photos as 11 x 17" (28 x 43 cm) images.
I contacted parents ahead of time to ask for the names of two countries where the child’s ancestors came from. This simple question sparked a great deal of family conversation.
Most of our group descended from Europe and some of us from Mexico. Many of us came from multiple countries, but for the purposes of this project, I wanted students to focus on two.
For our next class, I printed out shapes to represent the countries of origin. When students arrived, we talked about the idea of “coming from somewhere,” and they were all able to locate their countries of origin on a globe. They used graphite transfer paper to trace the shape of their countries directly on top of their faces in the photos. Then, with brightly colored oil pastels, they traced the countries. We also shared foods from each country the children came from.
Sparking Curiosity
This simple activity sparked many more questions in class and at home. The first being, “If we are all here together in a city in Utah, but our ancestors are from these other countries—how did we get here?” It is critical to understand why our ancestors came here. We need to understand what their journey was like, particularly the difficult parts.
Because this project was designed to spark personal curiosity, it came naturally without any guidance from me. Imagine a classroom where you have students with ancestry in Africa, Afghanistan, Asia, and on and on. All the stories would be different, instructive, and most importantly, promote empathy. It is the first step into understanding our story—understanding our ancestors.
If I learn where I am from and the difficulties my ancestors faced, and then I learn where you are from and the difficulties your ancestors faced, there is a good chance we both develop empathy and are less likely to demean each other. This project achieved that. Yes, materials were used and techniques were learned related to those materials, but the art was found in the inquiry. Great projects do that—they spark natural conversation and curiosity.
Pamela Beach is an MFA student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. P.Beach@Utah.edu
Resources
DOJ and Utah School District
Anderson, T. and Milbrandt, M. K. (2004). Art for Life: Authentic Instruction in Art. McGraw-Hill.
Krensky, B. and Steffen, S. L. (2008). Engaging Classrooms and Communities through Art: The Guide to Designing and Implementing Community-Based Art Education. AltaMira Press.
Art teachers share lessons that students can relate to, fostering a sense of self and community. Young students identify emotions and facial expressions while collaging, elementary students trace their countries of origins and share their findings through self-portrait photo compositions, middle-school students create aquatic themed rug canvases with important ecological messages, high-school students draw alongside Tibetan monks as they create a sand mandala, and more.
