NSCAD project helps underprivileged students think creatively

Fourth-year NSCAD student travels to South Africa to make a change in the classroom.

President David B Smith and Emma May. Photo: Jacob Mailman

In his role as NSCAD University president, David B. Smith has developed an international research program that he hopes will change the way we think of art in the education system.

The research program, launched in January 2011, is called the Arts in Schools Initiative. The program involves a group of 360 Grade 9 students that are being observed over a four-year period, until graduation.

NSCAD has combined both financial and student resources with Stellenbosh University in Western Cape, South Africa for this project. Smith credits the program's first year of success to the generous donation made from a single private donor in Toronto. She has contributed approximately $200,000 so far and plans to continue in the future.

One student from NSCAD, one student from Stellenbosch University and one local artist from Cape Town are "working together as a team to develop creative interventions within the existing school curriculum," Smith says.

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Student working on their first project. Photo: Kirby Stenger

He hopes the research results from the program will reveal how the visual arts can be used in the classroom to help students better understand subjects such as math and science.

For example, the students built animal models from cardboard and paper mache. They first measured and cut out a variety of geometrical shapes from cardboard. They then thought of designs for building their models. The result: students had learned mathematics by a hands-on creative approach.

"They are visual arts projects that have been designed using the existing curriculum outside of the arts... and are designed to allow students to develop critical and creative thinking skills," Smith explained.

Recent NSCAD graduate Emma May was selected out of approximately 20 applications to be the first student to contribute to the Arts in Schools Initiative program. She was in Cape Town for a three-month period and says she is ready to go back again.

"It completely changed my outlook on life. I came back and I was kind of culture shocked, and I was kind of depressed... because I did so much everyday there, that coming back and sucked into my little world was really hard." May said.

May emphasizes that the program is about the importance of humanitarian efforts and changing the education outcomes for students learning in an impoverished school system.

"I was only there three months and we did four projects altogether. The fact that they finished that many in that amount of time shows that this program is working. Because they are not interested in their other classes," she says.

Smith plans to publish the research collected over the four-year study. He believes this project could represent something much bigger in the future.

"The goal is this becomes part of a large, more comprehensive study that can be funded through a foundation that has the types of resources to examine this type of thing..." Smith says.

By the end of October, Smith will be interviewing and deciding which student will be chosen next to contribute to the project. May hopes that students who posses a love for teaching will have applied for the upcoming semester in January 2012.

"I think David took a bit of a chance on picking me, because on paper I didn't really have a lot of experience. But I think the biggest thing is that the person is going to put everything they have into what they do there," May says.

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