Building Community through Youth Arts Education

Visual Thinking Strategies

Building Community through Youth Arts Education

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a Commonweal program that brings together group conversation about art—facilitated conversations that engage participants to look carefully at works of art, talk about what they observe, back up their ideas with evidence, listen to and consider the views of others, and discuss many possible interpretations. VTS sparks interest in the arts and helps to build community and conflict resolution skills. In this letter, VTS-trained second grade teacher Joe Zimmer shares his experience using VTS in his classroom.

I have the privilege of teaching second grade at Sherman Multicultural Arts School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Last year, my class consisted of 24 second graders who, unfortunately, like the vast majority of our students at Sherman, are considered to be living in poverty. These students face many challenges—inside the classroom and out—that can impede learning. VTS has enriched my students in a very real and documented way through exposure to and discussion of visual art.

Two of my students have made particular progress. These two could not be more different in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. We will call them Mariah and Isaac.

of VTS encourage even the most reluctant student to share their ideas.

Mariah is often misunderstood in terms of her speech and underestimated in terms of her intelligence. Through VTS, Mariah’s speech and understanding are rephrased and reflected back to her by the facilitator, validating her ideas in a more meaningful and authentic way than a nonspecific compliment ever could. By the end of the year, I could always count on Mariah to provide her insight into what was going on in the images we viewed.

In contrast to Mariah, Isaac is an achiever for whom learning comes very easily. He is highly motivated, but shy. He is not the type of person who enjoys being singled out in front of others for his intelligence. As a result, he is hesitant to share in class. A key element of VTS facilitation, though, is for the teacher to remain open and accepting of all comments, not valuing one idea above another. VTS allowed Isaac to share his gifts without being singled out for his outstanding insights or for the detailed and compelling rationale he offered for his opinions. This resulted in an increase in his participation in all subject areas.

In addition to these students, all the other students in my class have shown similar progress in their writing and their willingness and ability to share the reasons behind their opinions, which is a highly valuable skill. To sum up, VTS has become a vital part of my instruction. I am convinced it can work for all students.

Joe Zimmer, Second Grade Teacher

Mariah has autism. Large groups are challenging for her because she can be overwhelmed by an excess of noise or commotion. Therefore, you might assume an activity that includes speaking in front of a large group of peers would be problematic for her; with VTS, however, just the opposite has proven to be true. Key elements

VTS reaches more than a million pre-K, elementary, and middle school students around the world.

This letter is an excerpt from a journal article that you can find on the VTS website: www.vtshome.org.

Visual Thinking Strategies thanks Panta Rhea and Turnaround Arts for their generous funding.

COMMONWEAL December 2018