During the last week in June I took a Collaborative Curriculum Design class through Alameda County’s Alliance for Arts Leadership. The instructor was Trena Noval, a digital media artist and arts education professor at California College of the Arts. The attached image is from my maps- and journeys-themed process journal, which is a starting point for my upcoming fourth-grade curriculum.

After a year of teaching, I find being a student a rewarding and comforting experience. I have become fully aware of my own cravings for structure, community, and discussion. As a part of the class Trena asked us to write reflections and develop personal and professional learning goals. This task feels HUGELY empowering and reminds me of the importance of my own reflection.

Also in the class is Caren Andrews, a talented, compassionate and inspiring visual arts teacher at the San Francisco Friends School who uses a process journal between herself and her co-teacher to encourage reflection and discussion. It hangs in the art studio, and they go back and forth writing to each other! I look forward to utilizing this tool with my inspiring team of arts professionals.

On one of the days we had the opportunity to hear a lecture by Anne Thulson, an arts teacher out of Colorado who recently presented at the 2010 NAEA Annual Conference, which took place in Baltimore and focused on Art Education and Social Justice. Thulson laid out her teaching theory, based on Paulo Freire and Marcel Duchamp, and then showed us a few projects that grew out of her pedagogy. I found myself taking furious notes and experiencing a powerful affirmation of my former artist-teacher self.

When I first started teaching in middle and high school classrooms in New York City, I had no idea what I was doing. So I approached it like an artist. I asked myself dozens of questions. I asked the students dozens of questions. I brought in provocative, contemporary work and asked the students what they saw and what they thought. We explored our surroundings, participated in active research and then transformed our research into final pieces—powerful, political, public pieces. But when I moved to California and started teaching in elementary schools I allowed many people around me to shape the way I teach, perhaps because I was intimidated by the students’ ages and abilities. I convinced myself that I was finally beginning to learn to “teach.” I didn’t approach it with the same intuition; instead, I used already-constructed curricula to lead the way. Thulson’s presentation today was a reminder that my former artist-teacher self had all the right intuitions about how to build an engaging, culturally relevant, provocative curriculum. Now I just need to reclaim that process and adapt it for my younger students.

Goals for my own teaching practice:

How can I build a K-5 art curriculum that teaches equality and respect for cultural and racial diversity?

How I can create a structured, yet flexible, curriculum that is transparent to classroom teachers, administrators, and students?

How can I help to build an arts-learning community in my school district that is focused on diversity and equity?

How can I incorporate advocacy for students of color into my own studio practice?

How can I encourage understanding and support for a contemporary art curriculum that challenges traditional concepts of art?

Hopes and Dreams for my Students:

How can I grow into a strong, capable, confident person who owns my own voice and helps to construct cultural knowledge?

How can I be ready and equipped to deal with the structural racism that confronts my past, present, and future?

How can I become a critical thinker and form my own opinions about important local and global issues? How can I address these issues through various modes of communication?

How can I bring comfort to myself and to those around me? How can I help to heal my community?

Brooke Toczylowski is a full-time Visual Arts Specialist with Youth in Arts. She teaches K-5 in the Sausalito Marin City School District.

Quick video from Friday, July 2, at Youth in Arts Global stage at the Marin County Fair. Chaskinakuy brought their museum-quality collection of regional instruments from the high mountain regions of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, northern Chile and Argentina, Suzanne Joyal demonstrated the art of Italian Street Painting and Samuka de Bahia closed out the night with samba, bossa nova and capoeira. All these artists are available through Youth in Arts for Assembly Performances and Artists in Schools residencies.

The Global Stage also featured Native American flautist Albert Tenaya and the Filipino-Americans of Marin. Throughout the Fair, Youth in Arts is welcoming professional and community artists from throughout Marin who will share their art and traditions. Stop by and visit 1:30-8:15 through Monday, July 5. For a schedule, click here…

Youth in Arts is hosting the Global Stage at the Marin County Fair from July 1-5, presenting 25 different performances and cultural presentations.

On Thursday, July 1, we kicked things off with Ballet Folklorico Netzahualcoyotl, followed by Native American dance by Eddie Madril and company, a bilingual spoken English and ASL storytelling presentation by Jalena Lee and Pat Sirianni, our own `Til Dawn youth a cappella, and African drumming and dance by Ken Doumbia and Jija.

Check out a few quick highlights:

Stop by the Global Stage from 1:30-8:30 as the Fair continues. A schedule of featured performers for each day is here. For tickets and all the information you need to enjoy the Fair, visit the 2010 Marin County Fair site.

The 17th Annual Youth in Arts Italian Street Painting Festival is complete and the streets have already been repaved. We are extremely grateful to all the street painters, performers, volunteers and sponsors who donated their time so generously to make the event possible and raise funds for Youth in Arts programs for children.

This year we had everything from a pizza dough tossing contest to a wedding proposal via street painting (congrats, Sam and Shannon!) Not to mention so much incredible artwork to contemplate and celebrate!

We’ll be posting photos from our photo team as soon as they come in. Meanwhile, we invite you to post your own snaps here. Or send us a link to your web gallery (just make sure you correctly identify the event as the Youth in Arts Italian Street Painting Festival on your site).

Here’s some incredible time lapse photography by street painter Rikki Dy-Liacco and teammates.

Enjoy–and thanks again for all your support!

Visual Arts Specialists Brooke Toczylowski and Ascha Drake have been guest blogging at From Studio to Classroom, an arts education resource out of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Check out their posts on integration with science and on collographed self-portraits.

With the Festival only two weeks away, the Youth in Arts staff and our amazing crew of volunteers are hard at work, day and night.

Are you planning to come to the Festival? Jump on over to our Bella Terra 2010 pages and get all the information you need to plan a visit–directions, entertainment schedules and special previews of some of the art work that will be created over the weekend.

Are you one of our amazing artists? Check out our Who’s Painting page and make sure we have your weblink up, so visitors can see your year-round work. And artists and performers can all grab the Festival 2010 button for your own sites and blogs, to help get folks there to see you in action!

If you’re planning to volunteer, you should be registered by now, but if you haven’t quite got around to it, access our online form right away or contact yia so we can help you get signed up.

It’s going to be a great Festival weekend–we’re looking forward to chalking up another one and can’t wait to see you there!