AND

Ceramics by Stoddert students, 2011

Portraits from 2011 Spring Arts Show

Presentation Outline

• The PAST• The PRESENT–Who–How–What–Why

• The FUTUREBand practice at Garrison, 2011

The PASTA brief history lesson:• In the 1970s, an engaged and active group of DCPS

parents saw a dilution of arts instruction due to small school sizes and the inability to justify dedicated arts teachers.

• Fearing a wholesale loss of arts instruction for their children, they decided to THINK DIFFERENTLY!

• Therefore, they pooled their individual schools’ resources to develop one specialized center for arts teaching that children from all the participating schools could benefit from.

• This aggregation of funds allowed for more robust, multi-disciplinary instruction than could happen if each school went it alone!

• Hence, Fillmore Arts Center was born!

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Faulkner

The PRESENTWhat You Get for Your Arts Budget at Fillmore:• Multiple teachers who are practicing artists and

specialists in their particular discipline: dance, music, ceramics, painting, drawing, digital arts, drama, and creative writing.

• Facilities designed for use as art spaces: dance floors, kilns, a black box theatre, digital arts lab, and more.

• Opportunities for your children to perform publicly and display their work around the city

• Exposure to and instruction from visiting artists • Access to arts enrichment experiences and field trips• Planning time allocated to regular classroom teachers

while their students attend arts classes

“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.”

Emerson

The (alternative) PRESENTWhat You Could Get For Your Arts Budget at

Your Participating School:

• One part-time Art teacher and one part-time Music teacher• Limited supplies and no dedicated space

“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.”

Emerson

Spring Dance Performance, 2011

The WHO• The Players– Fillmore Arts Center– Friends of Fillmore– Your Home School– DCPS

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Shakespeare

Shakespeare Performance by Key & Hyde students, 2011

Fillmore Arts CenterNot your average DC public school:• Founded in 1974• Has two locations, Fillmore East and Fillmore West, which

serve over 3,000 students per year• Provides dedicated arts instruction centers with specialized

teachers and facilities• Teaches a range of arts: dance, drama, music, visual and

digital arts • Has won multiple awards over the years and is considered a

nationally recognized innovator in arts education• Hosts artists-in-residence, who share their knowledge and

techniques in the arts with our children• Acts as a community cultural anchor through after-school

and summer camp programs, individual instruction in musical instruments, and community performances and events

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Shakespeare

Friends of Fillmore (FOF)• FOF is a non-profit organization that functions like Fillmore’s

PTA• The group hopes to streamline communications and build a

cohesive “look and feel” for Fillmore notices and updates this year

• Throughout the school year, FOF works to raise money to support the activities of Fillmore Arts Center

• FOF fundraising dollars and contributions go to pay for:– ALL art supplies used throughout the school year and

instruments for the classrooms– Artist-in-Residence grants– After-school enrichment programs and summer camp

scholarships• FOF organizes hospitality for Fillmore’s “Be an Artist” night,

open houses, and performance events• For information on the Friends of Fillmore go to

www.friendsoffillmore.org

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Shakespeare

Friends of Fillmore (FOF)Your support makes everything possible, so

get involved!• STAY IN TOUCH: go to the Friends website and add your

email to our mailing list• JOIN the Friends of Fillmore board and use your time and

talent for a great cause (We look to have at least 2 reps from each school every year!)

• PROMOTE Fillmore’s activities within your school and amongst your wider community

• ATTEND Fillmore events• DONATE funds to the Friends of Fillmore• VOLUNTEER in the Fillmore Arts Center office or

classrooms• ADVOCATE for Fillmore• FIND a community sponsor to host an activity that supports

Fillmore (dining nights or something else?)• CHANGE to wind power and that provides a $25 donation to

FOF (visit www.cleancurrents.com to sign up)

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Shakespeare

The HOW

Fillmore Arts Center

Participating School

Friends of Fillmore

DCPS

• Serves as a shared resource for participating schools, providing multi-disciplinary arts education on campus at the participating school or on-site at Fillmore

• Provides school reps to attend the Friends of Fillmore Meetings

• Contributes a per student fee (part of its arts budget) to the Fillmore program

• Provides busing so children and teachers can move between campuses

• Provides space, maintenance, and some additional salaries

THE RESULT:

Because DCPS provides busing and additional funding and FOF provides art supplies and additional financial support, the Fillmore program provides more than double the arts education resources that a Participating School could fund by itself!!

• Serves as Fillmore’s “PTA”• Conducts fundraising on behalf of Fillmore Arts Center• Raised funds provide art supplies and instruments,

enrichment content like artists in residence and field trips, and after-school & summer camp scholarships

“Bit by bit… putting it together”

Sondheim

The WHAT“Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

Plato

DO YOU HOPE FOR YOUR CHILDREN TO BE…• Civic-minded people who engage in their local communities?• Creative problem-solvers who employ critical thinking skills to

generate multiple solutions?• Flexible thinkers who can work across disciplines, appreciate

diversity, and thrive in cooperative, collaborative settings?• High-achieving and actively involved students who work

responsibly and have confidence and self-esteem?• Expressive communicators who read and write more AND

more skillfully?• Strong observers who can visualize abstract concepts?• Empathetic, considerate people who value others and

themselves and can tolerate divergent viewpoints?• Creators of beauty and joy who have less stress and are more

physically coordinated?Then, have them learn and participate in the arts!

The WHYTHE RESEARCH IS IN…• Find details on all these claims in this report:

Critical Evidence: How the Arts Benefit Student Achievement (2006) published by the Arts Education Partnership

• You can find a link to the report on the FOF site at www.friendsoffillmore.org/documents/

EXAMPLES FROM THE STUDIES• …children, ages 9 and 10, were trained to look closely at works of art and reason

about what they saw. The results showed that children’s ability to draw inferences about artwork transferred to their reasoning about images in science. In both cases, the critical skill is that of looking closely and reasoning about what is seen.

• As a “warm-up” writing exercise, second and third grade students used poetry, games, movement and improvisation to act out their story ideas, which contributed to their improved performance.

• [teens in] dance classes twice weekly for 10 weeks, … reported significant gains in confidence, tolerance and persistence related to the dance experience.

• An analysis conducted of multiple studies confirms the finding that students who take music classes in high school are more likely to score higher on standardized mathematics tests such as the SAT.

“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.”

John Dewey

The FUTURE

From Report by The Institute for the Future (IFTF), Summer 2011

“The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.”

Lincoln

• Sense-making• Design

Mindset• Novel &

Adaptive Thinking

• Social Intelligence

• Virtual Collaboration

Sound like things you get from working with the arts?

CONTACTS• Contact Fillmore’s Principal, Katherine

Latterner if you:– want to address child-specific or classroom-specific

Fillmore issues; even better, contact your child’s FILLMORE teacher(s) directly

– Email: katherine.latterner@dc.gov – Phone: 202-729-3795 (direct); 202-729-3794 (office)

• Contact your FOF School Rep who serves on the FOF Board, if you want to share ideas or concerns related to your home school.

• Contact FOF Board Chair, Kelly Richmond, if you want to join the FOF Board or have suggestions for how we can improve.– Email: FACBoardChair@gmail.com