The program began during the the 2010-2011 school year, and was helmed by Denise Valentine, an accomplished Philadelphia storyteller, educator and writer, who partnered with Cliveden House, a local historical mansion in Germantown and the home of seven generations of Chew family members, to bring archival primary source documents to high school students at Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet School.

As Valentine described, “We attempted, through storytelling, to illuminate the individual lives of the enslaved Africans, drawing from African and African American folklore, culture and oral history to fill in what has been lost to distortion and neglect. The hope is to give a sense of the agency and dignity with which they faced the institution of slavery as they struggled to raise their families and build community.”

The lessons married social studies, science and math to examine the many facets of slavery, attempting to “address untruths and misconceptions about slavery.” In this process, Valentine attempted to engage students in a meaningful dialogue about slavery. As she explained, “A lot of questions are raised. There is a wealth of complexities, grey areas to work through. The challenge is not to rush through the process but to take the time to thoroughly address their concerns.”

From these discussions, Valentine taught the students the storytelling practices that empowered these slaves to speak of their experiences, and preserve their history that could so easily be forgotten. By teaching the ways folktales, hand-claps, dance, and call-and-response intersected, Valentine wanted to show “the role of expressive arts…and the struggle for liberation.”

This sense of empowerment was transferred to students, allowing them to “give voice to their innermost thoughts and feelings, and to take pride in and ownership of their stories.” The arts-based component of the project was developed as the students were asked to construct their own interactive storytelling performance based on these early lessons, and the encouraged to draw upon their own stories that arose in the the exploration of these historical documents.

Given the success of the residency at Lankenau High School, and the enthusiastic response from teachers and administration at the school, PAEP hopes to expand the program to other area schools so that students can learn, as Valentine explained, “stories about the enslavement of Africans in Philadelphia, with the exception of recent stories uncovered about the President’s House, are relatively new.”

With these expanded program, we hope to show the powerful impact these practices have had in shaping an underground history of slavery in Philadelphia, led by students through self-driven, collaborative projects that have become a hallmark of PAEP’s commitment to innovation in education.

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While PAEP is sad to see Let Art Freedom Ring give its last bell toll for the summer, we’re excited to highlight another arts-based science and history project, Historical Catalysts, led by Benjamin Volta and Jerry Jackson, in partnership with the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of the Sciences (CPNAS) and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Taking the CPNAS African American History Program website, Volta and Brown selected 19 notable African American scientists and worked with students at Grover Washington Jr. Middle School, who then diligently researched each of these figures, leading to the creation of two distinct project components that molded digital technologies, history, and science in the creation of final products with a bold artistic vision.

Volta and Brown have described that vision succinctly, “We first imagined that each (self) portrait might function as an element on the periodic table. Similar to the way elements combine to form compounds, we imagined a large collaborative artwork that would bond together achievements in art and science.”

This larger work, the Catalyst Collider, uses the idea that these 19 voices, who represent vastly differently scientific fields, may not just bond with each. Volta and Brown imagined how they might crash into each other, creating sparks that generate new ideas, drawing inspiration from the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland.

As they explained, “Contemporary scientists smashing atoms together with the hopes to understand the formation of the universe led us to imagine what it would look like to collide our explorations in art and science.”

The brightly colored composition features the silhouetted seven inch by nine-and-a-half inch self portraits in ways that collide. These individual portraits were made possible by the students at Grover Washington Jr. Middle School using internet databases to find images representing the activities of a variety of scientific fields. In a hands-on process, students printed the images, overlaying them on transparencies to create the colored background that runs through the larger piece and each individual portrait.

This was to show how not only how the various African American scientific voices were connected, but also how their contributions have directly inspired individual students to select each famous scientist. Ebony R. selected George Carruthers because of his contributions to astronomy and her hopes of one day getting involved in the field.

The end result was the construction of an exhibit at the middle school, demonstrating how PAEP is committed, like Volta and Brown, to using arts-based educational models to help envision new ways of educating youth that break down barriers, changing society like the scientists featured in Historical Catalysts did.

With the 2011-2012 school year just beginning, we hope that this project, along with others, will help set the tone for an exciting year of innovation in arts education.

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Today marks the beginning of Labor Day weekend, that infamous, unofficial end to summer. While some of you may be taking a break from frantically filling your car full of water wings, beach towels and buckets for sand castles during your extended weekend at Cape May, many of you might be sticking around Philadelphia or the surrounding areas. If you are, we wanted to let you know that this weekend, ending on Monday, September, 5^th, will be the last chance to see the ingenious student-created bells of Let Art Freedom Ring!

The program, in its second year, has grown to become one of our most celebrated examples of how we can teach democratic history and civic responsibility through collaborative arts-based education. In a partnership with the National Liberty Museum and National Constitution Center, where most of our bells are still on display, we shown that one of our nation’s most enduring symbols—the Liberty Bell—can be transformed into creative visions of what democracy can be in this country.

Over the past few months, we’ve celebrated a launch party on June 29^th, in large part due to the generous support of RAW Sushi & Sake Lounge and CBS3 Studios, without whom key parts o this program would not be possible.But most importantly, we’ve gotten a chance to hear from the artist mentors whose creative drive, mentoring spirit, and past experiences, have made our work in local elementary and middle schools successful.

How can we forget Marie Elcin, who recognized in her experience with Let Art Freedom Ring that, “Sometimes kids just need a different way to learn and express their understanding, and learning through art-making offers them that chance”? Or Kimberly Niemela, who, in using sun symbols as a metaphor for a brighter future, commented that, “Let Art Freedom Ring has affirmed that freedom and fairness, through arts education, are core values of a more just, civil society.”

While Let Art Freedom Ring is one of the many arts-education programs across the country, here at PAEP we believe it’s one of the most innovative of these programs and one that we hope can continue for many years to come.

So if you’re not packing up the car to catch the last rays of sunshine along the Jersey Shore, consider taking all family members out to the National Constitution Center or National Liberty Museum to celebrate the visions of democracy and justice that have been affirmed through an arts-based educational model in our schools. Without your support of Let Art Freedom Ring, we could not be doing what we do.

Even if you’ll be gone for the last summer hurrah, remember that in just taking a few minutes to vote for your favorite bell you can help to Let Art Freedom Ring!

The resulting art, which is currently on display at the Esther Klein Gallery at the Science  Center through September 30th, affirms our belief that creative expression can intersect with science, technology, engineering and math in a way that enhances learning.

STEAM was conceived at the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year at Grover Washington Middle School, under the Volta and Jackson’s shared belief that the fusion of arts and science education “leads students to think critically, develop their own creative voice, and work together as a collective. The artwork that we create is an expression of this collaborative method.”

Nowhere is this more apparently than in the first STEAM component: Polygon Blooms. Jackson and Volta began by educating students on the the importance of coordinate geometry, asking them to locate specific posts in Philadelphia that they had lived and visited. They then worked collaboratively to construct 3D models created by connecting the dots of these places. The end result was what local artist Gerald Brown called, “a brilliant metaphor to address the complexities of adolescence.”

But Polygon Blooms would not be Volta and Jackson’s last project. For the 2010-2011 school year, they once again collaborated to separate new projects.

Multiple Earths was the largest scale of these projects. Completed at Grover Washington Middle School, it fused global climate change education, at the cultural programs at The National Academy of the Sciences in Washington, D.C., with the creation of a series of brilliantly colored, spinning globes that Volta hopes will, “function as a visual mantra for climate awareness as well as a catalyst for the collective potential of creative transformation.”

Oxygen was a large, vibrant map that whimsically traced one of our most precious natural gasses as it fearlessly circumnavigating the globe. Built into this project was education on jet streams, ocean currents, flight paths and how to combat the exponential rise in the production of carbon dioxide.

Finally, Volta teamed up with classroom teachers at Solis-Cohen Elementary and Morton Elementary to construct Universe X Universe, which used a series of dodecahedron, or 12-sided, sculptures that in various colors, patterns and configurations sought to answer one of our age-old scientific questions: what does the origin of the universe look like?

Over the coming 2011-2012 school year we will be partnering with Next Fab Studio at the Science Center and that there will be a reception for STEAM on Sept 21st from 5 – 7:30 pm.  At this reception visiting youth will be able to construct and take home their own dodecahedron sculpture.

In describing all of these projects, Jackson explained, “The art that was created is the visual evidence of their learning and how the students’ thought critically about how science affects the world we live in.” While none of the projects began with a specific formula in mind, often ending up in a place that was unexpected, Volta emphasized this movement and ingenuity is what makes arts-based educational models so valuable, even in the most unexpected collaborations.

Here at PAEP, we hope you’ll get the opportunity over the upcoming month to celebrate the cutting edge of arts-education, at the same time supporting the students and arts who came together to find a way to create a STEAM, an effortless melding of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics.

With the unofficial end of summer less than two weeks away, we wanted to offer you the next artist-mentor profile for Let Art Freedom Ring ©. This time we have Rubens Ghenov, a local artist best-known for this multimedia art installations, who teamed up with students at McCloskey Elementary to create their bell, which they called, “The Framework of Liberty.”

We sat down with Ghenov to discuss how he and his students developed their abstract representation of the Liberty Bell and what he learned in the process about arts-based education.

How did you get involved with the project? Ben Volta, one of my friends, worked on another bell and encouraged me to get involved.

You were working with the youngest students out of any artist mentor. What challenges did this pose? I knew I needed to be more hands, so there was a lot of back and forth. I asked a lot of questions to the kids, had them draw out ideas concerning liberty and how they would envision a new Liberty Bell that would be specific to the way they see freedom. I took their ideas and made a sketch from it. I then brought it to class and then had them make their own little models out of balsa wood sticks.

What happened next in the process? The students were then asked to bring images from home that they connoted with freedom and they “inscribed” them with carbon paper on 1 x 2 inch pieces of wood they previously primed. I took their models and, in fusing them with my sketches, assembled the structure.

What’s in the middle of the bell? A clapper which the students made and I assembled for them toward the end of the process. [A clapper, for those unfamiliar, is the striking instrument of the bell that generates the noise.]

What moment stands out most for you in the process? At the end, we made a sound piece together where the student spoke, in unison, the names that they associated with freedom. It was meant to mimic the sound of a bell.

Finally, what do you think is most valuable about arts-based educational models for children? Children are important, period. Art is one of the first languages we, as humans,  learn to communicate with. To keep this thread ongoing is beyond an important aspect in these children’s lives. At the same time, to make art TODAY with kids also means to demonstrate its importance in keeping this type of communication viable to people. School at times can be a daunting activity and completely detached from life; art helps to bridge that gap.

Stay tuned for upcoming interviews and other projects PAEP is working on. In the meantime, don’t forget to vote for your favorite bell. There are only two weeks left to Let Art Freedom Ring ©!

We sat down with Benjamin Volta to explain the project and understand how valuable this arts education model can be for students.

How did you become involved with Let Art Freedom Ring ©? Since November 2010 Jerry and I had been working with this select group of students on a Long Term Residency project called Historical Catalysts with PAEP creating a project for the National Academy of the Sciences in Washington DC. Let Art Freedom Ring © was a culmination of these efforts.

How did you develop the contact for the bell? It began simply enough with asking the students to talk about, “What is Liberty? and “What is the opposite of Liberty?” Students mapped drawings that began to visualize this contrast.

What current event also influenced the early creation of the project? The same week we started the project controversial Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained by government officials at Beijing airport without known cause. After watching a PBS documentary on Ai Weiei and learning about his ongoing fight for civil liberties and human rights in China the students were able to rally against the injustice of his arrest.

And what conclusion did the study of Ai Weiwei lead you to? That liberty is not something that should be defined by political borders, but should be accessible to all people across the globe.

Did you conceive of using globes in your initial plan for the project? No, but we we were using globes for a Long Term Residency with Jerry’s Science 8^th grade students and our classroom studio was filled with over 20 globes that were already being painted, drilled and hacked into sculptures that address climate change. These are currently being exhibited at the Esther Klein Gallery at the Science Center in West Philadelphia. However, as our conversation veered towards an international representation of liberty it began to make perfect sense to use globes.

How hands-on were you with the creation of the globes? It was up to the students to figure out how to build the structure. They first built a small model using foam spheres and wooden dowels. They then had to replicate this model with globes and thick 3” cardboard tubes.

Was there a particularly memorable moment that stands out for you? It came when the students drilled 3” holes into globes that had been collecting dust for over 30 years. This was not very pleasant but we all laughed about it and it really had a transformative effect of bringing the students together.

What do you hope that Let Art Freedom Ring © demonstrates most powerfully? Wecompleted our sculpture on June 17th and Ai Weiwei had been held in detention for 75 days. Thousands of artists and human rights activists had called for his release. We hoped that by joining this international expression our sculpture would help imagine a 21-century cartography where creativity and critical voice are strong foundations for all peoples.

Stay tuned for more updates on the Let Art Freedom Ring © project and don’t forget to check out how Benjamin and others are partnering with us to make arts-based educational models an integral part of learning in public schools.

With just over a month left to vote for your favorite student-created interpretation of the Liberty Bell in our Let Art Freedom Ring © program, we wanted to give you the third interview with artist mentor Brian Elstein, who worked with Morton Elementary to create a bell titled, “We The People.” In sitting down with Elstein, PAEP got an intimate look into how the bell was constructed and why arts-based educational models are particularly valuable for Philadelphia-area communities.

How did you get involved with the project? I lived and taught English in the Northern Japanese prefecture of Aomori from 2005 until 2009. Aomori is known for the Nebuta festival where immense three-dimensional forms hand built from wire and rice paper and lit from within are paraded through the streets. When I told Pearl Schaeffer the Chief Executive Officer of the PAEP about my background and experience with Nebuta she insisted that I get involved in the Let Art Freedom Ring © project.

How did your experiences in Japan influence the physical creation of the bell? It was directly involved with my work at Nebuta. Students began by creating their own two-dimensional bell designs in wire and paper. They decorated their bells using sumi ink, melted wax, and Japanese paper dye. Once the students worked through the process on their individual designs they formed small groups and began to create the base, and the wire armatures for the bell and yoke.

What do the various elements of the bell represent? The figures on the bell were selected by the students to represent what they felt were some of America’s most influential historical figures and symbols of Liberty. On the yoke students studied and reworked what they felt were some of the most important parts of the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence to create their own Declaration told from the students’ the point of view.

Why did you decide to light up the sculpture? The entire sculpture is lit from within to serve as a beacon of hope and a symbol of American Liberty. It also helps intensify many of the images that these students created on the bell itself.

Why is Let Art Freedom Ring © (and other arts-based models of education) so important for students? This project allowed students to apply their study of American history and the important documents on which our country was built into a visual context that not only has helped them to better grasp the meaning behind their studies but also initiated a dialogue with fellow students who were constantly asking questions about the history the bell represented.

What other valuable skills do you think the students learned from this project? This was a larger and more intense project then most of these students had ever been involved in.  The fact that they were able, through hard work and dedication, finish and do such a wonderful job on it taught them a valuable lesson in the fruits of perseverance.

Stay tuned next week when we introduce Lisa Volta who worked with St. Gabriel Elementary School. In the meantime, don’t forget to vote for your favorite bell!

Since we skipped last week, we wanted to highlight a second artist mentor—Kimberly Niemela of COSACOSA Art-At-Large—who worked with Andrew Jackson Elementary School to construct their bell, which is titled “Suns of Liberty.” PAEP sat down with Niemela to get a look into what made the Jackson Elementary bell possible.

How did you get involved with the project? COSACOSA has partnered with PAEP on numerous projects and artist residencies over the last decade, including working for five years on Arts Bridges, PAEP’s project teaching literacy through the arts. 2011 is our second year working on Let Art Freedom Ring ©!

Let Art Freedom Ring © emphasizes teaching about democracy. How did you include in your work with students? Students studied our nation’s founding documents and reviewed the lives of citizen leaders throughout our history. Afterward, they debated and voted on fifty essential characteristics of engaged citizenship. Each student then designed a sun symbol to represent their favorite trait.

Explain the symbolism behind the top of the bell. Bell is topped not by a yoke, but by a rising sun, as was carved into the back of George Washington’s presidential chair. The sun has 13 gold-tipped rays in red and white, representing the stripes of the American flag and the original thirteen colonies.

What stood out most about working with this Jackson Elementary? This year, our Bell design truly took its content from the unique cultural experiences of the Jackson students and their families, many of whom are first and second generation Americans. Our group discussions of the qualities of good citizenship selected by the class engendered the spirit of unity and intercultural collaboration we would hope to find in all our communities.

What do hope is one of the enduring legacies of Let Art Freedom Ring ©? At Jackson, with over twenty different nationalities represented in the student population, the sun is the perfect symbol for each person’s power to make positive change and for all of our individual strengths united to radiate Liberty throughout the world. Let Art Freedom Ring © has affirmed that freedom and fairness, through arts education, are core values of a more just, civil society.

Stay tuned next week for the third interview, this time featuring Brian Elstein of Morton Elementary School. In the meantime, don’t forget to vote for your favorite bell!