Crayons and Clay

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

We work at P.S. 85 in the Bronx, NY, where 96% of our students receive free lunch.  The neighborhood in which we teach is plagued with low socioeconomic situations.  All too often, the conditions of our students' community are so negative that school provides the refuge they need from the stresses they encounter on a daily basis.  We strive to make our classroom community a positive, rigorous, self-motivating, and creative environment. The Performing Arts Class (PAC), created by two teachers roughly 25 years ago, is a special classroom designed to educate and inspire P.S. 85's at-risk children through the arts (music, fine arts, and the performing arts are all integrated into the existing Standards-based curriculum).  Therefore, while we teach all mandated subject areas, we are compelled to add splices of artistic creativity--projects which are modeled by the teachers, but are, ultimately, perfected and created by the students' own individualism and motivation.  An  example of how we have instilled art into the curriculum is by having the students create responses to literature through the fine arts (sculpting, painting, sewing, drawing, book-making, collage, etc.).  This mode of expression encourages them to "think outside the box" and let their artistic expression guide them and support their written and oral responses to lessons. Many of our students have never traveled outside of the Bronx.  They have not heard the sounds of waves on a beach or seen a night sky bursting with stars.  Art is their vacation.  Art allows them to gain an awareness of the world around them.  Exposure to art history and a variety of media allows them to escape the limits of the neighborhood.  Through illustration, painting, sculpting and sewing they are able to tell stories of their lives, either as they live them or dream them to be.  Our students have gained an appreciation for the arts, scored higher on the mandated state exams, and have therefore won their first fight against all odds: they have a chance to go onto the best middle schools in New York city. There have been children in our program who, over the course of one school year, have undergone radical changes in self-esteem and socialization--not to mention academic improvement--because of their access to the arts.  A child who suffers from self-doubt can turn into a confident young adult when given the opportunity to shine in an area that really speaks to him or her, one which has all too often been ignored: art education. As we await the coming school year, we aim to foster an even more creative environment for our students.  Unfortunately, we are not provided with even the most basic of supplies: paper, markers, crayons, paints.  We rely on generous people, like yourselves, to ensure our students' academic and social success.  You remember what it was like to open a box of brightly colored crayons or squeeze clay through your fingertips.  Let the kids in the Bronx experience this as well--it could make a difference in their lives forever.