Art Partners / Community Outreach
Since 1992, Silvermine Arts Center’s Art Partners Program has been providing quality arts education to Stamford and Norwalk public schools. This program has provided free or subsidized professional Teaching Artists to design and execute classes for students in elementary, middle and high schools, either during school, after school, or on the Silvermine Campus.
The distinctiveness of this program resides in the quality of our Teaching Artists and their ability to tailor programming that is both age-appropriate and geared to the developmental needs of the students, assisting them to reach their full potential through joyous self-expression.
Leveling the Playing Field
Connecticut public schools have the largest achievement gap in the United States. To help close this gap our Teaching Artists collaborate with classroom teachers to provide arts-integrated classes, merging art with literacy skills, history, geography, math or science.
The Gates Foundation 2010 study of 21st C. needed skills, found that the most important ones evaluated in new hires are the ability and willingness to learn new skills, critical thinking and problem solving. The next most important are collaboration and teamwork, interpersonal communication and the ability to analyze and synthesize information.
This information validates the fundamental importance of the Art Partners programs that utilize the arts to teach the following skills:
- Critical thinking skills
- Collaboration
- Communication skills
- Imagination
- Self-esteem
Believing that students cannot become what they cannot imagine, these programs empower them to recognize that imagination leads to creativity, which in turn, leads to personal and group innovation.
A few examples of our creative work include:
- An annual 20-foot thematic mural, researched, designed and executed by the entire 5th grade at Silvermine Elementary school each year as a parting gift to their school
- An after-school program for Nathan Hale Middle School that provides an opportunity for drawing, painting and printmaking while exploring proportion and geometry
- Learning cartooning to enhance the science water supply curriculum
- Norwalk Housing Authority youth created a camera out of a shoebox, learning photographic composition and history, as well as the chemical requirements to produce images
We have many more requests than we can fulfill without additional funding. Please consider a gift so that we may continue providing free and subsidized classes for under- resourced local communities.
For more information contact Outreach Education Director, Sophia Gevas at 203 966-9700, ext. 19 or via email.
