Hearts and Minds Without Fear
MODEL IN ACTION

A Child’s Soulforce
Imagination is the door to curiosity
Curiosity is the door to empathy
Empathy is the door to compassion
Compassion is the door to hope
Hope is the door to possibility
Possibility is the door to invention
Invention is the door to making meaning in our lives.
(Clark, 2009)

REVIEW OF HEARTS & MINDS WITHOUT FEAR
"With this groundbreaking work, Barbara Clark and Joss French sound the clarion call for integrating creativity, mindfulness, and compassion…Acknowledging the climate of uncertainty and fear that create barriers to the return of the arts and aesthetics as keys to the paradigm shift needed to reclaim and rebuild schools as affirming places for all children. The power of this work is in the authenticity of the author’s lived experience as teacher educators [and as artists]. Their metaphor of KIVA (Kindness, Innovation, Voice, and Action), describing a sacred space of learning, and aesthetic studio environment designed by the teacher, elevates our notion of what is possible in practice when we remember that, in the words of the authors: “our hearts and minds are in need of play, hope, voice, change, unmasking, inner-awareness, freedom and love.” May the seeds that they introduce become the seeds of change (Reck, 2014, p. xii). (Brianne L. Reck is the Executive Director, of the Center of PAInT)

Enter The KIVA

Figure 1: KIVA Model: Kindness, Innovation, Voice and Action (Clark & French, p. 6, 2014)

Dear Readers: All of the arts & aesthetics program models listed below proved to be transformative to all the children, teachers, families, artists and community members involved. The Hearts & Minds Without Fear paradigm is playful, fluid, innovative and never static. A diverse number of schools, grade levels and community organizations experienced profound possibility of what could be. Hearts and Minds Without Fear (Clark & French, 2014) presents the KIVA paradigm (see figure 1) in which the seeds of PLAY, HOPE, IMAGINATIVE VOICE, CHANGE, UNMASKING, INNER AWARENESS, FREEDOM & LOVE are inherent in the everchanging perspectives the children and teachers shared as a result of experiencing the arts & aesthetics mediums of expression. Children who refused to write were instantly writing. Children that were shy and quiet performed on stage to their school community. Teachers that felt stagnant were once again imaginative in their methods. Communities that suffered from bullying now embraced compassion action. The SEED OF LOVE was revealed in action, within daily work and relationships, as trust and awareness for one another deepened. Clark & French are presently working internationally in Ireland (see In Ireland Tab) and continue to promote compassion, envisioning possibility, and celebrating the joy of the creative life through arts and aesthetics. If your school, community, church or business organization is interested in these ideas please contact us at clarkb@ccsu.edu or frenchjaj@ccsu.edu.

HEARTS & MINDS WITHOUT FEAR MENU
The Seed of Play Is Integral in All Models

 

Professional Development Workshops to Promote ZEAL for Teaching

The following workshops are designed to promote ZEAL within teachers—to rekindle the fire within. Each workshop will utilize authentic aesthetic methods with teachers through hands-on experiences exploring specific skills and methods that can be applied within classrooms, curriculum and school communities. It is a goal of each workshop to nurture the love of learning and teaching and to ignite the creative force within teachers. The following list of professional development workshops may be adapted to your district goals, school mission statement, school goals and teacher goals. Drs. Clark and French have presented a variety of staff development workshops to faculty and administrators in the Newtown, Avon, New Britain & Hartford Public School Systems of Connecticut.

Zeal

·        Common Core Standards and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Unit Design

This workshop will present strategies to plan cutting edge interdisciplinary units of design supported by the Common Core Standards. Teachers will work in teams and complete a unit outline by the end of the workshop. Authentic performance tasks, journals, scrapbooks and other unique forms of authentic assessment will be presented.  Differentiation strategies will be explored that celebrate children’s interests and promote critical and reflective thinking skills.

·       Creative Classroom Community Commons
Dr. French’s research in ecojustice over the past eight years will inspire teachers to address collective social and ecological issues that impact our daily lives, communities and world. Working in cooperative teams, teachers’ views and beliefs will be unlocked to investigate ecologically and socially sustainable teaching practices that will drive transformational instructional decisions and curriculum initiatives. Workshop experiences will impact teachers’ ideas, sense of identity and imaginations as resilient, creative and compassionate teacher leaders for ecological and social change. By the end of the workshop, teachers will have the tools and strategies needed to create an authentic creative commons for their own classroom, school and community.

 

Enthusiasm

·        Aesthetic Education and Writing: Celebrating Children’s Creativity

This workshop will guide teachers to learn a variety of aesthetic methods that reveal and celebrate children’s voices in their writing. What they know... what they think about... and what they wonder about.

By the end of the workshop teams of teachers will retell a story using a variety of expressive arts including puppets, music, visual art and drama. Teachers will be able to identify aesthetic entry points for performance assessment and differentiation within language arts lesson plan design.

 

Aesthetic

·        Making the Invisible Visible: Civic Agency in Our Communities

Where do we come from?

What are we?

Where are we going?

Based on these questions, this workshop will present a variety of aesthetic education methods such as storytelling, masks, literature, theatre and great works of art, highlighting how social and eco-justice themes may be explored in unit design promoting civic agency for our children.

 

Love

·        Echoes from a Child's Soul: Awakening the Moral Imagination of Children

 Based on Dr. Clark’s research over the past 22 years teachers and administrators will explore the moral imagination of children. The workshop will be designed to celebrate the expressive, aesthetic and transformative strategies that reveal and celebrate children’s perceptions of their life.

 

·        Compassionate Community of Teacher Leaders

This workshop will present the aesthetic of storytelling as a lens to explore diversity and cultural relevancy in the classroom and school community. The power of storytelling creates a space for the sacred and imaginative realm within children’s hearts and minds. The power of storytelling runs through apresentation of Robert Cole’s research and experiences meeting Ruby Bridges. Cole’s relationship with Ruby and her family during the 1960s desegregation movement in New Orleans will be presented and discussed.

 

Clark, B.A. & French, J.J. (2012). ZEAL: A revolution for education, unmasking teacher identity through aesthetic education, imagination and transformational practice. Critical Questions in Education. 3(1).

 

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