‘Teaching Artists’ program to be launched at Beaver Falls children's museum

BEAVER FALLS ― A program to teach artists to expand their creative reach will be launched in Beaver County.

Neighborhood North: Museum of Play hopes to nurture the sizable community of artists and creators from Beaver County and create a demand for arts education and “teaching artists” in local schools and youth programs.

Utilizing a $35,000 grant from The Heinz Endowments, the Beaver Falls museum will attract Beaver County practicing artists and students to training events, which will allow artists to recognize that being a “teaching artist” is a viable career path and seek additional training to do so.

Neighborhood North’s program will be an iteration of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Arts Education program, which places certified “teaching artists” in schools, libraries, and other community settings to work alongside educators and students to “explore curriculum content through integrated art strategies,” according to the trust’s Art Education informational video.

Through The Heinz Endowments grant, Neighborhood North will act as an anchor in the county for equipping these artists for a pilot year.

Neighborhood North, the first children’s museum in Beaver County, recognizes that kids learn better when the arts are integrated into school subjects rather than primarily being an independent study or elective course.

“Studies show kids learn better through the arts," said Christine Kroger, executive director of Neighborhood North: Museum of Play.

"Research shows that arts integration practices foster deep learning of core academic content, as well as arts processes, encourage collaboration and creative problem solving, build social-emotional learning, and improve the learning climate, among many other benefits," Kroger said. "Many educators desire this, but time and funding can be barriers, which is why teaching artist residencies can be valuable supplements to schools and community programs."

The arts − from painting and poetry to theater and music and everything in between − provide opportunities for exploration and playfulness, and they give students hands-on experiences that make learning more memorable, creative and fun.

Kroger cites a Kennedy Center report that said, “Arts Integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both."

According to Liz Foster-Shaner, director of arts education at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, “Teaching artists are practicing, professional artists with experience and training in education. They pass along their passion for the arts by developing one-of-a-kind learning experiences and opportunities for creative expression. A residency with a teaching artist exposes students to new art forms and emphasizes the importance of creative risk-taking and critical thinking as they integrate artistic skills and techniques into other curricular areas, such as dance and physics or music and math. Perhaps most importantly, a residency with a teaching artist brings another caring, compassionate, and creative adult into the school and community environment who can support and nurture the dreams and curiosities of young people.”

The trust will partner with Neighborhood North to spearhead the teaching artist program in Beaver County. Artists of all kinds can become certified “teaching artists,” regardless of educational background and experience.

“Our desire is to open up a pathway to the teaching arts for artists here in Beaver County. We recognize that not every artist will be interested or equipped to become a teaching artist, but for those who are, we believe that it will benefit both the artists and the learning community,” Kroger said. “One of the gifted teaching artists we work with is a professional drummer with a degree in biology. Through professional training, he has been able to adapt those skills to the classroom environment to teach syncopation, patterns, rhyming, and math skills through his craft. These types of skills are translated to artists practicing in nearly any discipline.”

Beaver County already has a growing arts collaborative through organizations like The Genesis Collective and the Portobello Cultural Life & Arts Center’s on-ramp project, the Baby Bello. Both organizations work to support and connect creatives and the community throughout the county and will be integral partners in galvanizing this commitment to arts integration in the county’s education system, and beyond.

Kroger said to think of Neighborhood North’s arts-integrated programming as a way to learn about the solar system, chemistry or mathematics but rather than primarily reading from a textbook and memorizing vocabulary, students might use theater or poetry to better understand how the solar system works, or to process math and science equations.

It’s exploratory. And the students won’t get it right the first time, which is the point.

A major component of the learning process is working through the content in real-time.

“Because this type of co-creative process requires students to interact and grapple with material as they question, play, and create with peers, learning can become a really rich experience,” Kroger said. “As learners are engaged through multiple senses and as they must try multiple paths to success, content is more likely to not only be retained but to be connected to other areas later on, enhancing the learning experience.”

Big Beaver Falls school districts committed to Neighborhood North’s “teaching artist” program for a pilot year with the Cultural Trust in 2022-23 with positive outcomes.

The Heinz Endowments, devoted to the mission of helping our region prosper, selected Neighborhood North for this grant opportunity because the institution believes the project “represents an important endeavor in advancing our overall goals," Kroger said. "Our success hinges on the organizations and projects we support, so we strive to be thoughtful about our partners and rigorous about the work we support.”

That grant will help Neighborhood North equip artists who would like to eventually become “teaching artists” in the community. Artists interested in becoming “teaching artists” or learning more about the program can contact Kroger at hello@neighborhoodnorth.com or 724-601-5686 for more information about how to get involved.

“I am excited when I imagine a future Beaver County where a culture of arts integration inspires a pipeline of local teaching artists and allows all students to learn through the arts," Kroger said.

More info on the museum is at at neighborhoodnorth.com.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: ‘Teaching Artists’ program comes to Neighborhood North: Museum of Play