Arts Integration is Blooming at Don Bosco: Kindness Rocks, The Memory Project, and more!

 

At Don Bosco Technical Academy a newly funded Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation arts integration grant school this year, the work has begun! Cecilia O'Toole-Frederick, newly appointed Don Bosco Principal, created the first arts integration project inspired by an article she read, "Rutherford hit with rocks that spread kindness," by Marc Lightdale.  "Rutherford, New Jersey is totally Rockin Kindness," Lightdale exclaimed.  Mrs. O'Toole-Frederick has the same vision for the Don Bosco school and grounds.

                                                             Above Credit: LINK
"The kindness rocks movement is based off of the Massachusetts Kindness Rocks movement begun in 2014," Lightdale explained. This project has a website and an interactive Facebook page with over 17,000 participants in several countries. Anyone can join the project for free.  Its stated mission is simple: "to promote random acts of kindness."

Mrs. O'Toole-Frederick knew the students and teachers at the Don Bosco Technical Academy would love this mission, uniting art, science and humanity and combating bullying.  (Paterson Public Schools' new Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying (HIB) Policy can be found here.)

kindness rocks for an outdoor garden space are in the works for the school. Students in art teacher Patti Kaminski's class have already started painting Kindness rocks.


Above: Art Teacher Patti Kaminski

Above: Kindness Rocks painted by students at Don Bosco

In the near future, Don Bosco parent coordinators hope to work with WPU PIRS Robin O'Brien and Triada Samaras to take the students outdoors on a walk to find rocks and discover the Paterson landscape with their parents.  In addition all Don Bosco students can freely communicate with Kindness Rocks participants worldwide via technology making this a truly global arts integration project.

  Above: WPU Professors in Residence/PIR's Triada Samaras (left) and Robin O'Brien (right)

In another interesting project, WPU PIRS Robin O'Brien and Triada Samaras are working together with teachers and students to integrate social studies with art using National History Day as a point of departure. The annual National History Day Contest engages students with historical research and skills development.

This year, the NHD theme is "Conflict and Compromise in History".
"The intentional selection of the theme for NHD is to provide an opportunity for students to push past the antiquated view of history as mere facts and dates and drill down into historical content to develop perspective and understanding." LINK

Above:  Art Pir Triada Samaras meets with Ms Simmen social studies teacher

More than half a million students and 30,000 teachers participate in NHD annually. (LINK)
Ms. Samaras and Ms. O'Brien are working with social studies teacher Ms. Simmen and art teacher Ms. Kaminski on this project along with several students.  Students are busy beginning their historical research for NHD with Ms. Simmens and Ms. O'Brien while students are incorporating the theme of "Conflict and Compromise in History" in art projects with Ms. Kaminski's and Ms. Samaras.

One of these very interesting art projects is the Memory Day project.

"The Memory Project is a charitable nonprofit organization that invites art teachers and their students to create and donate portraits to youth around the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as neglect, abuse, loss of parents, violence, and extreme poverty."  LINK

Ms. Kaminski's students are drawing portraits of students from the Philippines who have sent their photographs to Don Bosco.

 
These students are also learning facts about the Philippines (see fact sheet above) through this program and will soon be writing letters to the Filipino children in their official language, Tagalog.  Ms. Kaminsky has also begun a Donor's Choose page to help defray the costs of her students participating in this project.

Finally, later this year,  on December 8 during a Paterson Professional Development afternoon, Dr. An will co-host a STEAM work shop for Don Bosco teachers with Triada Samaras using Scratch, a free visual programming language developed by MIT Media Lab work for children. STAY TUNED!

Above:  Dr. Heejung An speaks about STEAM goals in a recent meeting