{"id":193853,"date":"2021-08-30T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=193853"},"modified":"2023-06-27T12:46:05","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T16:46:05","slug":"rogers-award-legacy-lives-on-through-innovative-art-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2021\/08\/rogers-award-legacy-lives-on-through-innovative-art-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Rogers Award Legacy Lives on Through Innovative Art Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rogers
Jessica Stargardter \u201916 (ED), \u201917 MA (right) gathers with students from her West Rocks Middle School class for \u201cThe Future is Us\u201d art exhibit. (Shawn Kornegay\/Neag School)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: The Rogers Educational Innovation Fund awards $5,000 each year to an elementary or middle school teacher in Connecticut who leads an innovative classroom project.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Two innovative art projects funded by the Neag School\u2019s Rogers Educational Innovation Fund<\/a>,<\/span> including a photojournalism art exhibit in Norwalk, Connecticut, and a mural project at a middle school in Hartford, Connecticut, brought together middle school students this past spring.<\/p>\n

The fund is in place thanks to the support of the late Neag School of Education Professor Emeritus Vincent Rogers<\/a> and his late wife, Chris, a lifelong teacher. While Professor Rogers wasn\u2019t able to personally enjoy the fruits of the projects his fund supported due to his passing<\/a> in December 2020, the projects lived on at a middle school and an art gallery.<\/p>\n

The Future Is Us<\/h2>\n

Neag School alumna Jessica Stargardter \u201916 (ED), \u201917 MA, recipient<\/a> of the 2019 Rogers Educational Innovation Award, is a gifted and talented educator for Norwalk (Conn.) Public Schools. Stargardter\u2019s project, which involved a group of eight-graders from West Rocks Middle School calling themselves \u201cThe Future Is Us,\u201d focused on having students document real-world societal challenges and empowering change in their communities through photojournalism.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI made the project super student-centered, and the kids have taken so much ownership over their learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jessica Stargardter \u201916 (ED), \u201917 MA<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI made the project super student-centered, and the kids have taken so much ownership over their learning,\u201d Stargardter says. \u201cIt\u2019s cool to see how my original vision of the project evolved through their input.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially inspired by a graduate course in human rights and social justice, Stargardter incorporates what she learned in that class with her students. \u201cEverything I do, everything I teach,\u201d she says, \u201cI\u2019ve taken that with me and incorporated those themes into my teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jessica
Stargardter (left) gathers with her group of middle school students during the art exhibit. (Shawn Kornegay\/Neag School)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To start, Stargardter asked the students about their personal passions, pushing them to articulate why particular topics mattered to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to highlight how we already are tackling global problems on a larger scale,\u201d the group wrote in their art exhibit opening program. \u201cThis exhibit aims to celebrate and gather the Norwalk community and empower others to take action.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students started to design the project at the start of the 2020 school year. Together with Stargardter and MAD Lab<\/a>, a creative hub offering unique physical and digital art space in Norwalk, the students developed the exhibition over six months. It culminated in a gallery showing and community event that was open to the public earlier this summer.<\/p>\n

In the beginning stages of the project, one of the students reached out to MAD Lab, which quickly became interested in helping with the project, offering more than a physical space to hold an exhibition.<\/p>\n

\u201cStaff from the MAD Lab decided to mentor the students, which has been wonderful,\u201d says Stargardter. \u201cThey call themselves creatives, including all different types of artists. They meet weekly with the students and mentor them on where their art should go and how it is being portrayed. We paid for the art space from the grant, but the mentoring was free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students carried the project out throughout the year despite a regularly changing learning model caused by the pandemic. Sometimes they met in person, and sometimes remotely. Most of the students were hybrid, meeting in-person half the time and virtually the other half of the time.<\/p>\n

The students were responsible for all aspects of the project, including budgeting, securing the venue, and working with adults on requesting permissions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are so excited, and a little bit stressed at the same time, but in a good way,\u201d Stagardter says. \u201cThey were being pushed out of their comfort zone while also helping them realize their strengths. They are learning skills they can apply to real-world situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the exhibit showcased the students\u2019 mixed-media art, Polaroids and photographs, information about local organizations, and activities all focused on five subtopics: climate change, community service, mental health, self-love, and wearing masks. The student artists broke up into groups based on these topics and used the Polaroids to capture how they had been taking action to tackle these global issues.<\/p>\n

Stargardter hopes to keep the project going with future students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love how the community has come together,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing to see, despite everyone\u2019s challenges. It\u2019s been cool to see for the kids and for the kids to feel like, \u2018Oh, this matters.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Community Mural-Making<\/h2>\n
\"Jason
Jason Gilmore (right) stands in a hallway at McDonough with two of his middle school students in front of their art mural. (Shawn Kornegay\/Neag School)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jason Gilmore, the recipient<\/a> of the 2020 Rogers Educational Innovation Award, is an art teacher at Hartford\u2019s McDonough Middle School. Due to the pandemic, his winning proposal for creating a set of murals with students evolved into a virtual project.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking virtually this past school year has been challenging, especially for the kids,\u201d says Gilmore.<\/p>\n

For one, he says, \u201cwe had logistical challenges with securing and locating the supplies in the beginning, along with distributing the kits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through a collective effort involving his family members, Gilmore put together more than 200 art supply kits. Then the effort expanded to the school staff \u2014 from the principal to the school secretary to the security guard \u2014 who helped distribute the kits to McDonough\u2019s students.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome kits were dropped off at the students\u2019 homes if they were not able to come to school,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIt became a positive way to reach out to families.\u201d<\/p>\n

The art kits, he says, became an incentive for the kids to connect.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis project, and the support from the Rogers Fund, meant a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jason Gilmore <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Gilmore\u2019s health issues initially required him to work remotely; as a result, he taught art virtually for part of the year from his basement through Google Meets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at mural examples and talked about them, and we talked about various things and topics they cared about,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

At first, some students did not feel confident sharing their art virtually with their peers. Gilmore found a way to resolve that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students had different levels of English skills and different learning styles,\u201d he says. \u201cWe used an online tool called Padlet, where the students could share their ideas without identifying [themselves].\u201d<\/p>\n

Students came up with themes based on topics they were passionate about and with which felt personal connection: \u201cCelebrating Diversity,\u201d \u201cThe Cultural of Food,\u201d and \u201cCelebrating Our Cultures (Hartford\/USA, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Brazil).\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rogers
One of the middle school students from Jason Gilmore’s class stands before the mural she helped design and paint. (Shawn Kornegay\/Neag School)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Five of the six murals were painted by the students in Gilmore\u2019s in-person art classes. But when school went virtual, having students paint the larger mural proved to be another hurdle. To connect the students\u2019 concepts in a final product, Gilmore took their ideas and drawings and put them into one composition aligned with the themes. Each class got a printout of the design and filled in the colors to create the final composition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to rethink art teaching, and expanded the process of community mural-making, something I had not thought of previously,\u201d Gilmore says.<\/p>\n

The final product included six painted murals installed at different locations throughout the school:<\/p>\n