Reaching Beyond the Classroom

How do we extend learning outside of the classroom environment?

How do we bring lessons into the students’ communities?

Dr. Kimberly McGlonn: 24x7 Artistry: Practice as a Way of Being

As a teaching artist, your work in and outside of classrooms is a 24x7 work in progress. It is constantly being revised, enriched, and perhaps even transformed, by your willingness to explore, notice, take chances, learn, and try new things. This may be one of the most important capacities you have to pass on to your students.

Dr. Kimberly McGlonn embodies this 24x7 life-engaged spirit. In this video, she reflects how her experiences in the world transformed her personal history, her teaching, and her work as a Black fashion designer using her art to address the twin problems of fast fashion and the criminal justice system. To illustrate, McGlonn tells the story of her brand, Grant Boulevard, and how that led to re-imagining Betsy Ross’s original flag as part of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s invitation to re-think the city’s history and future. Significantly, McGlonn worked with a team of eight high school students from Lower Moreland, outside Philadelphia, to help her re-imagine the thirteen stars and stripes. In so doing, she urges us to recognize the many ways and places that arts education can unfold — in classrooms, in city streets, and in work places — if only we would think that boldly.

Why is it vital to extend learning out of the classroom and school setting and into the students’ communities?

Hear what arts organizations have to say:

Musicopia

Mural Arts

Settlement Music

Kimberly McGlonn and Dennie Wolf:
Teaching Art/Teaching Transformation

After telling her story, Kimberly joins Dennie Palmer Wolf to discuss the importance of vitalizing the 24x7 appetite to imagine and why she is passing it on to students, her employees, and the people who witness her work.

As a teaching artist you can exercise your “24x7 muscle” and develop it in young people. Take a look at the reflection activities and begin to think about how you might get students to keep noticing, asking, making, and wondering long after your session is “over”.

How can teaching artists partner with families? How does that kind of partnership impact students?
Hear what arts organizations have to say:

Tune Up Philly

Philadelphia Young Playwrights

Looking to dive deeper?
Check out these supporting materials:

Anti-Racist Art Resources