Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SPRINGDALE, Ark. (AP) — An entire side of a building on Springdale's Tyson Middle School campus has been transformed into a work of art: A 100-foot-long mural depicts silhouettes of 54 people, all in different poses, on what appears to be a tropical island.
The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (http://bit.ly/1UF6Jhc ) reports that the Shadow of a Journey, the work of about 90 seventh-graders last fall, is a tribute to the people of the Marshall Islands, many of whom have moved to Springdale. It also represents an effort to raise awareness of how rising sea levels affect those living on the islands.
The mural resulted from art teacher Lori West's involvement in the Arkansas Declaration of Learning program this past year.
West is one of 28 teachers and school librarians who were selected to participate in the program in which educators develop lesson plans around historic art pieces and objects from national and state partners. The program is being piloted in Arkansas.
Those art pieces and other objects come from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock and the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State in Washington.
Each institution chose five pieces from its collection. Teachers had to use at least one of the pieces from each institution as part of their lesson plans.
Crystal Bridges hosted a three-day meeting last summer for the participants to receive lesson-planning tips and training on how to "read" the historic art and objects.
Zev Slurzberg, school and community programs manager at Crystal Bridges, said the program is going "wonderfully." It has reached more than 1,700 students through the participating teachers.
"Amazingly, what's going on is students are excited," Slurzberg said. "Students are excited about civic engagement, students are excited about objects, and students are excited about history. And that's really one of the major goals of this project, is to make students excited."
West witnessed that emotion as her seventh-graders worked for three months on the mural.
They figured out how to create larger-than-life figures by casting their shadows on paper. They cut out those figures and used magnets to attach them to the metal siding of the building, then traced them and filled in the shapes with black paint.
West noted that two Declaration of Learning pieces played prominent roles in inspiring their work: Our Town, a painting by Kerry James Marshall at Crystal Bridges; and an anti-slavery medallion from the State Department's collection.
The medallion, a symbol of the anti-slavery movement in the 18th century, features an African man in chains, kneeling and holding up his hands. He is perched on a small patch of earth that resembles an island -- perhaps to symbolize the instability of his environment, West said.
A similar effect is included in the students' mural, with the figures standing on uneven land. Some figures at each end of the mural are reaching out as if beckoning for help, West noted.
The students "realized art can be used to create awareness," she said. "They realize a lot more about the fragility of this world."
Holly Howard, chairman of Bentonville High School's English department, is also in the Declaration of Learning program.
Howard's 11th-graders took self-guided audio tours at Crystal Bridges last fall. Students used that experience to help create audio tours about Declaration of Learning objects Howard had chosen, including War News from Mexico, a painting by Richard Caton Woodville at Crystal Bridges.
The students' podcasts analyzed the objects, their relationship to U.S. literature and their correlation to the responsibilities of U.S. citizens.
"My focus has always been to make sure my kids are empathetic," Howard said. "Bringing in these objects was a great way to go beyond the literature. I found the connection between history and the literature we read."
Other Northwest Arkansas educators in the program include Ashley Long, a librarian at Siloam Springs Middle School; Melanie Nations, history and language arts teacher at Prairie Grove Middle School; and Lisa Turner, history and language arts teacher at Sonora Middle School in Springdale.
The Northwest Arkansas group gathers about once a month to discuss what they're doing, Howard said.
"I've had nothing but positive experiences with the program," she said. "Everyone has been supportive."
All 28 educators involved in the first year will reconvene in November to share their work.
Applications are being accepted through Friday for the second year of the program.
The program drew 110 applications last year. Slurzberg hopes there will be more this year.
The program is open to teachers and school librarians in grades seven through 12 throughout Arkansas. More than half of last year's applications came from Benton and Washington counties. Slurzberg believes Crystal Bridges has something to do with that.
"We've done a wonderful job showing teachers and students the relevance of the museum," he said.
The way the program encourages teachers to craft their own lessons around the historic objects is a great thing, he said.
"We think of this as a partnership and a collaboration between the museums and the teachers," Slurzberg said. "We know the objects. These teachers know their classes, they know their daily routines. They know how to use (the objects) in a way I wouldn't always think of."
Officials want to finish the second year of the pilot in Arkansas before expanding Declaration of Learning to other states, Slurzberg said.
"Year one was great, but like anything else, there are things to learn and things to grow from. They want to finish year two before they really roll it out," he said.
___
Information from: Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, http://www.nwaonline.com
An AP Member Exchange shared by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
