Multi-generational Arts Education Program

Sankofa Academy in North Oakland (2009)

VALA (Visual Arts/Language Arts) provides programs with a focus on combining creative writing with the arts. For this program, Teaching Artists worked with and mentored high school student interns while instructing 3rd through 5th graders at Sankofa Academy. Internships were offered to teenagers interested in and talented with the spoken word, dance, animation, comic illustration, music and video production, and poetry. The elementary school students benefited from the example of their close contemporaries, and this multi-generational teaching model positively impacted teaching and learning on all levels. The elementary school children could focus on someone who looked like them, who was helping to teach a class. The high school student was offered a mentorship with distinguished and experienced artists in an art medium that corresponded to their own interests. Helping an adult teacher improved their self-esteem, and gave them a sense of their own abilities, intelligence, and talent, while introducing the younger students to the gift of making and creating art.