Fostering Healing and Resilience in the Classroom

After 12 years of classroom practice, ARCK can say with absolute certainty that every student has different needs. As pillars of education and community, schools have a responsibility to care for and support students in the best possible way. One such need that often goes unaddressed in many schools is the presence of trauma in children’s lives. In the US, it’s estimated that over two-thirds of children reported at least one traumatic event by the time they were 16 years old. This is an overwhelming number and highlights the importance of implementing trauma-informed teaching in schools.

What exactly is trauma-informed teaching? As educators become trauma-informed, they are able to implement strategies into the curriculum to better fit students’ needs that arise as a result of trauma. Understanding that students may have experienced traumatic events and that these things can impact behavior and learning helps educators create a safe, equitable, and supportive classroom environment.

This is especially important when you consider that schools can also be a source of trauma. Students’ diverse identities and cultural backgrounds have a significant impact on their life experiences, and a lack of representation in the curriculum can be traumatic for some. Activities that frame racism as a thing of the past while ignoring its prevalence in present times can be harmful for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color) students. Additionally, separating students based on perceived academic ability or success can be traumatic for first-generation or low-income students who lack the same academic resources as their peers. And while these incidents may happen unintentionally, this makes it all the more important for teachers to proactively learn how to be trauma-informed.

“...because student success shouldn’t depend on luck (e.g., the good fortune to be assigned to a teacher with a knack for meeting mental health needs), the entire faculty should learn some essential skills in this area. We all need to know how to interact positively and effectively with struggling students so they can feel safe and connected to their classrooms and schools.”

Dr. Jessica Minahan, Behavior Analyst and Special Educator

So, what are some ways that teachers can implement trauma-informed methods? Well, for starters, shifting their mindset makes a huge difference. When students express difficulties in the classroom, it can be helpful to ask yourself, “What may have happened to them, and how have they learned to adapt?” This reframes the situation and allows teachers to understand where the behavior may be originating from and what actions to take to best support the student. More broadly, this support should also manifest as a strong relationship between the student and teacher. Finding structure and compassion in an adult figure at school can help trauma-exposed students build trust and security.

One tool that can be useful in the classroom is a mood meter, providing students with words, colors, or illustrations that help identify their complex emotions. This also allows the teacher to gauge the collective emotional climate of the classroom.

Source: Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

A mood meter chart, like the one above, can increase literacy. For non-native and native English speakers alike, this tool, can be used to expand vocabulary and give students insight into the nuance of feelings. Teachers could ask students to write a sentence using a word that expresses their current mood and build on that with a creative activity where students act out a short story with other words from the chart that relate to their mood.

Student-teacher interactions also have an impact on student success and classroom dynamics. Emotionally-supportive teachers have been shown to increase positive peer-to-peer relationships, and when given more autonomy in the classroom, students are able to engage deeper and develop strong interpersonal skills. Building relationships with students and respecting them as complex individuals who experience difficult emotions just as adults do, supports them in all aspects of their life. Interaction strategies such as nonverbal and verbal relationship-building, use of humor, de-escalating responses, and gentle communication are valuable tools for teachers, and are ways of providing accommodations for the needs of every student.

We have compiled a few key points to incorporate trauma-informed teaching below.

• Work on building strong relationships between child and caregiver.

• Provide students with tools to self-regulate and to feel safe and connected to their classrooms and schools.

• When students act out, teachers should ask themselves: “What happened to them and how did they learn to adapt?”

• Provide students with developmentally-appropriate opportunities to exercise autonomy in their day-to-day activities.

• Model healthy emotional skills, relationships, responses to conflict, and motivation,. Students will emulate trusted adults.

• Consider multiple forms of accommodations: nonverbal/verbal interactions, tone of voice, proximity, humor, de-escalating responses, and gentle constructive feedback.

By Isabella Chung

Arts Integration in Schools

As an education nonprofit, ARCK focuses on providing access to the arts to students in under-resourced public schools. We use a framework grounded in arts integration, which is exactly what it sounds like! The arts and creative skills are intentionally blended into STEM and literacy lessons, providing students with a well-rounded set of skills. Access to art education is important because the arts can increase student attendance, motivation, engagement, and, in some cases, even test scores. For Boston Public Schools that lack access to the arts, ARCK is able to bring high-quality creative resources, and through ARCK’s Creativity Catalyst framework, students feel empowered to try out new ideas and ways of thinking both in and out of the classroom.

ARCK’s founder, Sara Mraish-Demeter, explains that:

"ARCK harnesses art's power to close gaps in creativity and opportunity, unlocking children's full potential through equity. Beyond academics, we prioritize safe, inclusive classrooms where students and educators flourish across all subjects. Now, more than ever, we must teach Adaptability, Responsibility, Collaboration, and Kindness to address global challenges. It's urgent to reimagine education, dismantling structural racism for a better, safer world."

And the impact of arts education can be seen in both the students and teachers at ARCK’s partner schools. Around 87% of ARCK students made academic connections to their creative work during ARCK’s classes, with 100% of classroom teachers confirming that ARCK’s curriculum promoted social emotional growth, student voice, and social action. 

Another core component of ARCK’s arts integration is the inclusion and representation of diverse cultures, exposing students to new traditions they otherwise might not have learned about. A previous study found that ninth-graders who received cultural education in school had an overall GPA increase of 0.39 points, showing just one of many benefits that this type of education can provide.

Recently, our teaching artists introduced students to Suminagashi, the ancient art of Japanese marbling. This method of art involves placing ink on a small piece of paper in a water-filled container and using it to create beautiful marbled paper with colorful patterns.

ARCK team members workshop the Suminagashi lesson at DLAB before sharing it with students

During this activity, ARCK educators raised questions about how water, ink, and paper work together and create resulting patterns. Why does the ink float instead of sinking to the bottom? What are the properties of each liquid (ink and water) that make this possible? How is this style of art different from applying paint directly to paper? Students were also expected to work collaboratively; this involved patience and collaboration, two valuable interpersonal skills that were necessary for the activity to be successful. There was also an element of mindfulness as students chose specific colors to make unique patterns and watched in quiet awe as the patterns swirled around the pan.

Another example of ARCK’s arts integration is a successful mentorship writing program designed by first and fifth graders. Students representing some of the youngest and oldest members of the K–5 school organized their own art-infused penpal campaign. Fifth graders bestowed wisdom based on their 5 years of experience, and first graders gave the older students, who would be entering middle school, advice on what was helpful for them when starting somewhere new. This developed students’ literacy skills and gave them the chance to be creative with their envelope, stamp, and letter designs. This tied in nicely with a lesson about the postal system, providing them with valuable real-world knowledge, like how to write an address on an envelope, what a stamp is used for, and how to format a letter. Students were able to use their voices to support each other. They practiced empathy, built connections, and felt empowered to use their own experiences to help another person.

Fifth-grade student’s letter to a first-grade student

ARCK is passionate about arts integration because of what it can do for students and the interdisciplinary benefits that are incredibly valuable for equitable education. As an ARCK teaching artist puts it, “It makes me happy to see students’ creativity, see them shine, and help them feel confident in their work.”

By Isabella Chung

Culturally and Globally Responsive Teaching Practices

There is perhaps no building more central to Boston’s identity than Fenway Park. Home to the Boston Red Sox since 1912, Fenway is a cultural landmark in the city and a vastly popular destination for tourists and residents alike. Visit any travel website and you’ll find Fenway as one of the top tourist destinations in the city, and more than 2.6 million people attended Red Sox home games in the 2022 season alone. Fenway is practically synonymous with Boston itself, and, understandably, it holds a deep significance to the city’s residents. The importance of Fenway to the Boston community cannot be overstated, and each year, ARCK partners with the Red Sox to provide students with the incredible opportunity to display their artwork at Fenway through our annual Miles of Murals event.

A part of our Building Bridges program, Miles of Murals connects young people and their communities through equity-based public art projects. This year, we will be adding to our previous Miles of Murals installations with a mural unveiling on a building across the street from Fenway Park on May 19th. In the weeks prior to the event, ARCK students at Gardner Pilot Academy will work with BIPOC artist Sandra Tomb and ARCK Teaching Artist Ny Wallace, to design and present public artwork culminating with the unveiling of the mural entitled “Together Through Art.”

While the opportunity to display artwork at Fenway would be exciting to any student, it holds a particular significance to ARCK’s young learners. Of the 700+ students ARCK serves annually, 91% are people of color, 89% are high-needs, and 79% are economically disadvantaged. Our students come from communities impacted by the stronghold of systemic inequities, and unfortunately, they are not often represented in the public works in and around the city. As such, Miles of Murals provides an important opportunity for the voices of BIPOC youth to be amplified in the greater Boston community. It also represents one of the core facets of ARCK’s Creativity Catalyst curriculum: Culturally & Globally Responsive Teaching (CGRT). 

In order to meet the needs of our diverse learners, ARCK’s Creativity Catalyst curriculum is centered around three teaching values: CGRT, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and Trauma Informed Practices (TIP). These practices seek to ensure that our students have access to a curriculum that is responsive to their needs as we work to dismantle the barriers that under-resourced students of color face in the traditional classroom. Prior to COVID-19, Black and Brown Boston Public Schools (BPS) students demonstrated significant gaps in testing performance relative to their white peers. These gaps were only exacerbated during the pandemic; BPS students, the majority of whom are BIPOC, suffered disproportionate academic losses relative to the average student in Massachusetts. This unfinished learning affects students well beyond the classroom, leading to significant decreases in lifetime earnings according to various reports. In order to disrupt the systemic racism that is pervasive in public education, we must rethink the way we approach educating BIPOC students, and CGRT is key to this work.

ARCK’s CGRT aligns with Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices (C.L.S.P.), a recent effort in education to draw upon students’ cultural knowledge and experiences to facilitate academic learning. As former BPS assistant superintendent, Dr. Colin Rose and colleague Dr. Hayden Frederick-Clarke explain:

Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices (C.L.S.P.) draw upon, infuse and evoke students’ existing schema, experiences, funds of knowledge, and perspectives to optimally facilitate learning. C.L.S.P. also intentionally seek racial and cultural equity and pluralism in order to deliberately tailor district-wide norms, policies and practices to affirm the identities of and expand opportunities for historically marginalized students. C.L.S.P. heavily relies upon the scholarship and research of its preceding models, namely culturally relevant, culturally responsive and culturally sustaining pedagogies.

Miles of Murals exemplifies the use of CGRT in ARCK’s teaching practices. In a previous iteration of the event entitled “Walls that Speak,” 8th graders from two BPS schools worked together to produce a mural that was unveiled by Dr. Chang, former BPS superintendent. This project was integrated into their humanity classes as they learned about autobiographies and symbolism, and the mural was painted in response to students’ writing and depicted the daily struggles of living with racism. By framing the lessons around the students’ cultural backgrounds, teachers gave students an opportunity to more authentically connect with the material, ultimately enhancing the learning experience. One student, for example, read her autobiography aloud at the unveiling, detailing the account of her mother who left one morning and never returned, only to learn later that she had been deported.

These types of projects help students reckon with community and personal histories, helping them heal from and process past trauma. Just as importantly, they deepen students’ academic learning as lessons are based on the students’ lived experiences. CGRT is crucial to addressing the opportunity gaps present between Black and Brown students and their white peers, and ARCK’s innovative curriculum places these practices at the forefront, helping teachers better serve students in each and every lesson.

By Olivia Player

SEL Day

SEL Day - March 10th, 2023

In late February, ARCK Lead Teaching Artist Maria Palkon asked her students to create an island for the class to live on together. The project was typical of ARCK’s Creativity Catalyst curricular framework, integrating creative arts skills such as sketching, drafting, and design-thinking with a real-world problem – in this case, city planning and design. But perhaps most importantly, it highlighted a facet of education that has quietly been lost in the wake of COVID-19: social-emotional learning (SEL).

Fundamental to ARCK’s innovative Creativity Catalyst framework is social-emotional learning (SEL). Coined in the 1960s by scientists at the Yale School of Medicine, SEL is a key aspect of all student learning. According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL):

SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.

As Maria’s students prepared their island community together, they had to consider important questions related to SEL. How do we satisfy our individual needs while also caring for the whole? How do we handle disagreements? What happens when things don’t go the way we wanted?

For most adults, the answers to these questions seem obvious, but for students who were in school during the pandemic, these questions can prove daunting. When schools were forced online in March 2020, students were suddenly isolated from their peers. Students could no longer make friends, navigate conflict, or develop personal identity. This loss of connection, belonging, and purpose occurred during a vitally important formative period, and it had a disastrous effect on student mental health. According to the CDC, more than a third of high school students reported experiencing poor mental health in 2021, and 44% reported feeling sad or hopeless throughout the year. This affects all areas of student life; mental health plays a key role in both quality of life and student academic outcomes such as grade point average and school attendance.

Despite mounting evidence in support of the explicit teaching of social-emotional skills, most schools and educators are unequipped to support students as they seek to repair the damage done by the pandemic. This is where ARCK plays a crucial role. ARCK’s Creativity Catalyst framework seeks to ensure that students develop SEL skills in conjunction with their academic learning. Our curriculum educates the whole student, integrating social-emotional skills such as self-awareness, identity, and community with day-to-day classroom activities, and the arts are a perfect vehicle for teaching these skills.

The skills Maria’s students learned as they designed their island home are invaluable to their success in the classroom and beyond, and they are more necessary now than ever before. As we seek to repair the unfinished learning caused by the pandemic, we mustn’t forget the importance of social-emotional skills. Since its inception in 2012, ARCK has maintained a consistent record of success in both social and academic learning. In fact, 99% of our partner teachers reported that students showed social-emotional growth due to ARCK’s innovative programming. Social-emotional learning is crucial for students as they seek to repair the harm done by the pandemic, and ARCK is excited to continue working to improve both social and academic outcomes for all of our students.

2022 Recap Post

Happy New Year! As we move into 2023, we would like to take time to honor all we accomplished in 2022. This past year was filled with major successes and accomplishments here at ARCK. In the 2021-22 school year, six ARCK Teaching Artists worked with 720 students and 35 classroom teachers across six partner schools. COVID-19 proved to take a huge toll on our students’ academic and social-emotional skills. Despite this, we saw tremendous improvements throughout the year for our students. 78% of teachers believe that the creative skills learned through ARCK transferred to other subject areas, and 99% saw their students show social emotional growth. Our work was critical for our students who all suffered from learning loss in the wake of the pandemic, and we are so excited to continue this work into 2023!

Our students’ work was exceptional, and it went far beyond the classroom. In the spring, our Miles of Murals project saw Blackstone students and BIPOC artist Silvina Mizrahi create a mural that was displayed on the Jumbotron at Fenway Park. The Red Sox themselves were even involved, sending a video message to our students to celebrate their achievements. Additionally, we had a student accepted into the Boston Arts Academy, a major accomplishment that we celebrated by presenting her with our Above and Beyond Award at our 11th annual gala in October. We are so proud of her work!

This year, we plan to expand our reach by expanding our educator training program, impacting as many students as possible. We will continue to provide our push-in program to Boston-area schools, but training educators will allow ARCK’s mission and vision to be carried out in classrooms across the region and beyond. Through this approach, classroom educators will learn to use our successful arts-integration framework and schools can create sustainable interdisciplinary collaboration among their staff. Additionally, this training will provide educators with graduate course credit through our partnership with Lesley University. Ultimately, we hope to combat learning loss and social-emotional deficits for students everywhere, and in 2023 we will lay the foundation for a new and improved ARCK.

We hope you have enjoyed a restful and relaxing holiday season, and we wish you the best of luck in 2023. Cheers from ARCK!