After more than 7,500 collective hours of hands-on creative exploration and learning with the guidance of Werklund Centre teaching artists, students from across Calgary in Grades 1-12 presented their works for the Arts ReimaginED summit.
Liesl Ritz, a Grade 5 student, said that throughout the summit thus far, her favourite part has been learning to juggle. The day’s activities included balancing plates alongside juggling.
“I connected mostly with juggling with my friends, and some of my friends love juggling, and I didn’t know that about them,” she said, adding that typically, arts help her be calm and connect with others.
Throughout the day, students presented their changemaker projects to their fellow students
Karen Youngberg, the Associate Director of Education at Werklund Centre, said that students accessing the arts and arts education should not depend on location or age.
“We truly believe in bringing students in, elevating their voices and their ideas to make a difference in our community, so we have amped up our commitment to young people and to our teaching artist community,” she said.
With their current model, the centre is able to bring in 13 classes for a total of around 400 students. In order for their class to be part of the program, teachers must go through a lengthy application process.
“Teachers apply to come here, and then we go through a rigorous process, including looking at what teachers already have been here,” Youngberg said.
“Typically, we want the teachers who are a little nervous, a little unsure about the arts, to come here, so we can help them establish a stronger pedagogy. Soon, we will call out for next year’s classes to apply and we’ll look at all sorts of different criteria.”
Holly Gray, who is Ritz’s teacher, said that she applied for her class over a year ago.
“I wanted to do something bigger with my class; a classroom is more than the four walls that we have, so I applied,” she said.
So far, the program has helped her class feel like a community, Gray said.
“It’s been really nice to see students collaborating and coming together. I’ve seen kids who didn’t see themselves necessarily as artists coming into their own, discovering a new talent, or at least an appreciation of the beauty and the diverse things that art may be,” she said.
Further effort is needed for systemic arts access: Officials
Alex Sarian, President and CEO of the Werklund Centre, said that with Calgary’s recent rapid growth, having wide-reaching programs is essential for the centre.
“It’s not only the right thing to do for Calgary, it’s also the right thing to do for arts and culture institutions. As we continue to grow and as we expand, these are the kinds of programs, and this is the kind of philosophy that we are scaling up with and for Calgary,” he said.
Over the coming years, Sarian expects the program to expand beyond its current capacities.
“The community is asking for it, our sponsors are asking for it, and we have the space to scale up,” he said.
“But if we’re talking about the ultimate goal being every single child in Calgary (accessing arts), that should not be something that we take on on our own.”
Every artist, every arts organization, every donor, every city official, and every classroom teacher needs to understand that arts access is non-negotiable, according to Sarian, then real city-wide change can happen.
“When we ask kids who are in our building to raise their hands if this is their first time here, it’s not surprising to see a lot of hands go up because they’re young and they may not have come here before, but when you ask the adults to raise their hands if they’ve never been in this building, that is what’s concerning to me,” he said.
“You now have a generation of leaders, whether it’s educational leaders, political leaders, business leaders, who have gone through an entire lifespan without this impact. When I think about the impact we’re having on young people, it’s not just on their youth development, it’s not just on their educational career, but it’s also on the kind of creative leadership we are instilling in whatever career path they choose.”
