AMAM sponsered Kidzhibit promotes childlike creativity

ACT program bonds Obies with young community members

Changing the world. Expanding minds. That's what Obie students have been up to, spending voluntary time in the classroom. The Arts Connected Teaching program (ACT) was formed this year as a way to integrate Oberlin students and art into community schools.

Many of the schools around Lorain county don't have full-time art teachers, and provide limited art classes if they are offered at all. Teachers wanted to incorporate arts-related projects into the curriculum and didn't feel that they had the time or the qualifications to do that.

This coincided with the Community Action Fellowship, a grant to enrich arts in the community which the Gifted and Talented program for Lorain County applied for and recieved.

Karen Moser, Artist-in-Residence in the Theater and Dance Department, was chosen to be the director of the Arts Connected Teaching program, which was founded from the grant. Karen Moser was asked to interview for the position of director and got it, where she acts as a facilitator.

"We try to partner Oberlin students with teachers who are interested in working toward more interdisciplinary approaches toward teaching," Moser said.

"We wanted to deal with middlemen as little as possible," said senior Joey Rizzolo, Fine and Performing Arts Community Action Fellow for the Center and Service and Learning. So participating teachers and students are paired up by Moser and Rizzolo according to their similar interests, and they plan a curriculum from there. Since the program just started in October, there are about 25 students who are active, but more and more are showing interest. There aren't enough teachers to accomodate the student teachers.

"We're sort of figuring it out as we go along," Moser said. "It's sort of taking a life of its own."

Not only do the students benefit from their Oberlin teachers, but the Oberlin students learn as well. "I think it is really important to have some venue for students who want to get a taste of learning as they decide on [their future]," Moser said. She stressed that the report between Oberlin teacher and classroom teacher is a partnership, not a situation where one takes orders from another.

The teachers have been really impressed with the students' creative capability, said Rizzolo, as well as their ability to deal with the kids.

Over Winter Term, first-year Natalie Cohen worked with fourth graders at East Carlisle Elementary. She worked on a project of Mt. Vesuvius where the students made and painted clay tiles and made a mosiac. "Kids don't get that much exposure to art here," said Cohen. She also said that the students related well to her and could relate to her better than the teachers.

Sophomore Michael Tramotola has been doing the program since the beginning. He thought his experience was "amazing." Both teachers and students was very welcoming, he said, and the teachers gave him the freedom to do what he wanted with his art projects. He thought the students appreciated having some "fresh faces" in the classroom.

"The kids were really into it," Tramotola said. He described projects where the students would draw to music and try to draw the music, where they would draw with their feet. They were allowed freedom of expression and took advantage of it. Whie some of the kids thought the projects were "goofy," others really got involved. "We were just trying to get it out of the soul but I think they got into it because we were into it - it's contagious."

He would read stories to the students and have them write poetry through free association or stream of consciousness. "It was one of the best things I've done at Oberlin," Tramotola said.