Art of Change in Hoy News

Pros Art Studio's, Art of Change Program is in place at five schools and piloting at our first high school. This program is supported by Polk Bros. Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust, and JP Morgan Chase Corporation. Last month Hoy Newspaper profiled students from the Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy and PAS teaching artist, Douglas Grew.











Below is the English version of the article that reporter Jay Dunn shared with us. Read the Spanish version that appeared in Hoy here.

Rather than having to face the uncertainty of a cold winter’s afternoon, students like Karina Cordero at Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy’s “At-Risk After-School Program” are laughing as they learn first-hand the basic principles of physics. In an innovative program that exemplifies the best of what can be done with creative partnerships, hundreds of children at five Little Village area schools are participating in “The Art of Change,” an ambitious residency by professional artists that directly integrates art and science into school curriculum.

Pros Arts Studio, as it is now known, began its long community involvement in 1978 with an Arts-in-Education Residency at St. Procopius, and has as its mission “to enrich individuals, communities and schools by providing lively multi-disciplinary arts programming, with a special focus on making a difference for youth in the Pilsen and Little Village communities.”

“Art of Change” residencies are now in place at Jungman, Finkl, Healy, Walsh and Saucedo Elementary Schools (also in a pilot program at Benito Juarez High School.) The curriculum serves eight classrooms, approximately 240 students, and this is Year 1 of a 5 year “21 Century” Program administrated by Northeastern University [at Saucedo].

Saucedo’s program for Grades 5-8, “Circus Galactica” has to be seen to be believed. After-school classes drily described on paper as “Drama and Circus Arts integration with Earth Science and Astronomy” might not necessarily be fun, but this one is, and the approach for children at-risk is clearly working.

Veteran circus performers Douglas Grew and Paul Lopez bring a trifecta to the table: three keywords to apply that happen to be life lessons as well: “Balance, Focus, Presentation.” Class begins with a teamwork circle, and some confidence building, like delivering “hellos” in a booming voice. Kids use their focus to balance objects, first feathers, then yardsticks, on fingertips, chins, noses. This is only the beginning, of course – at the end of the program, these students will perform what they have learned onstage.

There are balance boards, handkerchiefs to juggle, balls to try next. Everything is energetic, the teachers especially, and in less than an hour’s time, kids have incorporated important lessons about gravity, inertia, and motion dynamics without, perhaps, even realizing they have done so. There are smiles, and some tension that disappears each time a difficult corner is turned. These are formative years, after all, ones in which kids start to realize who they are, and what they are capable of doing. And in this Pros Arts classroom, only one thing is forbidden: saying “I can’t.