Literacy and Cultural Connections
- At risk youth
- Arts & culture
- Cultural preservation
- Intercultural relations
- Education
- Tolerance
- Poverty alleviation
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?
Emilie
Shumway
Changing Worlds
, IL, Chicago
, IL, Chicago
Resource Officer.
Public (tuition-free)
More than 5 years
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Operating for more than 5 years
Changing Worlds is arts nonprofit with a mission to improve student learning, affirm identity and enhance cross-cultural understanding.
LCC uses the power of personal stories to foster creative thinking, build positive social interaction and enhance cultural awareness.
The proposed program is an outgrowth of the organization's research-driven, three-year Literacy and Cultural Connections in-school program. In 2008, a longitudinal study was launched at three schools to measure the program’s impact on students' academic and social development. After three years of consecutive program participation, data revealed that CW students consistently demonstrated higher proficiency gains in arts learning, academic achievement and self and cultural awareness than their counterparts did. Just as important, the study also found that students’ interest in other cultures and development of empathetic behaviors increased, as did their appreciation for their own and others’ cultures. Since its inception the program has reached over 5,000 youth in the Chicagoland area, the program aims to build on this success and replicate it regionally.
We expect the program to develop students on both an academic and a social emotional scale. Academically, we expect to see an improvement in reading and writing, along with – given past experience – improvement in academic test scores overall. Socially and emotionally, we expect to see students who are more aware of the struggles and challenges of others and that use the power of personal stories to be more inclusive and empathetic of others leading to less violent behaviors, more inclusive communities and a greater interest in their own and others’ cultures. By the end of the third year, we expect to see schools, youth and communities changed.
We envision new schools engaging youth and teachers in culturally responsive and arts-infused practices for over 10,000 youth.
Students will have begun to conduct interviews and explore other collaborative activities, developing socially.
Half of classrooms will have begun work on a final work of art or performance to be shown in an exhibition or culminating event.
80% of teaching artists and classroom teachers will indicate an effective and successful partnership guided by CW program staff.
Schools will have been transformed into arts-infused learning hubs, with a blueprint for crafting arts and culture curricula.
80% of students will demonstrate a greater ability to recognize individual & group similarities (using Illinois SEL Standards).
95% of students will demonstrate their learning through an art production or performance to be presented at a school-wide event.
75% of randomly surveyed teachers will indicate they have learned or applied new strategies into their classrooms due to LCC.
According to photographer Kay Berkson, Changing Worlds' founder, "The seed of this project was a comment by a Native American mother as I photographed her child. She spoke of seeing people from many countries at her daughter’s school. 'I look at them and I wonder, ‘where did they come from; what’s their story?’ but I never know. No one talks about it.' Remembering her words, I thought about immigrant and refugee families I knew who wanted to share their stories, and about the personal connections and respect I felt as a result of that sharing. I believe that for both adults and children, sharing histories, acknowledging differences, and discovering commonalities benefit the tellers, the learners, and the larger community. In today’s political climate where anti-immigrant sentiment is widespread, anti-immigrant policies are sanctioned on local and national levels, and where ethnic tensions and hate violence are on the rise, these efforts are needed more than ever."
Whenever possible, Changing Worlds partners with social service organizations that already maintain a presence at the schools with which we work. Examples include America SCORES, Children’s Home and Aid Society, and SGA Youth and Family Services. These partnerships enable us to ensure that students’ unique personal needs are also being met.
The program will be guided with help and coordination from our Director of Programs, who has experience playing multiple roles in the school system, from classroom teacher to principal. Oversight for the program will be provided by Changing Worlds’ Executive Director. Finally, our teaching artists are a talented group, all professional artists in their fields and with an average of 10 years’ teaching experience.