Taking the Arts to Where the Kids Are

It’s 10 o'clock on a chilly Thursday morning at Westfield Great Northern Mall, and the stroller brigade is arriving. Mothers leaning forward in exertion, pushing double strollers overloaded with coats and diaper bags, the children underneath barely visible. With superhuman strength, they steer their giant baby-mobiles one-handed while balancing a piping hot cup of coffee from the food court in their free hand. They arrive in sweatpants and tennis shoes, hair in ponytails, little if any makeup – dressed for a workout because that’s exactly what they’ll get carting young kids and 50 pounds of gear out for this trip to the mall.

But all the effort is worth it. It’s the first Thursday of the month – Kid’s Club day at Great Northern – a day when more than 50 kids and parents gather in the mall’s center to be entertained by a team of music therapists from The Beck Center for the Arts. For the moms, it’s quite likely just a temporary diversion, an activity that gets them out of the house and their cabin-feverish kids out to burn some energy. But for the kids, activities like this one could become the foundation for a lifelong love of the arts. At least that’s what Ed Gallagher hopes. He’s the director of education and creative arts therapies for the Beck Center, and oversees Beck’s community programming at Great Northern and other kid-centric Northeast Ohio spots. The premise behind these community appearances is simple – if kids won’t come to the arts, then let’s take the arts to the kids.

“We’re reaching a group of kids whose parents maybe wouldn’t sign them up for a program at the Beck, and we’re beginning to expose them to the arts,” says Gallagher. Along with music therapist Tara Griest, Gallagher has created a curriculum for Beck’s Kid’s Club appearances that’s based on the fundamentals of music education – instrument playing, listening, movement and singing. Each month’s appearance is structured around a seasonal theme – Christmas, Easter or Mother’s Day – often with a craft tie-in and a take-home activity. “We just keep driving home the chance for fun learning,” says Gallagher. “We try to make all of our programs as fun as possible, and make sure they get a chance to participate in a hands-on fashion.”

Arts Onus Shifts to Parents
It used to be that schools could be counted on to offer young kids those first opportunities for artistic expression, along with the kinds of influences that made art lovers out of so many of us. A high school shop teacher who taught us to work with our hands and understand principles of industrial design. A music teacher who recognized and nurtured a singing voice with potential. Or a drama instructor who put us in the spotlight and helped us to shine.

But that’s no longer a sure bet, says Michael Starinsky, associate director of arts education for the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA). “You can’t really count on the schools anymore to provide kids with exposure to the arts,” he says. “As arts education is cut back in the schools, the onus has really shifted to the parents to make sure their kids have these opportunities.” The problem, Starinsky says, is that today’s young parents may themselves be the products of schools that de-emphasized arts education, leaving many of today’s children without arts-and-culture influences at home or at school.

Get ‘Em While They’re Young
That’s the challenge facing today’s arts and cultural organizations, which are focusing their resources on younger ages than ever before with arts education and outreach activities. In addition to its appearances at Westfield Great Northern Mall, The Beck Center also delivers its music curriculum to 13 early childhood centers throughout greater Cleveland, with similar children’s programming available at its facility in Lakewood. They also collaborate with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on a rock-themed music education program called Toddler Rock.

Meanwhile, Starinsky and other CMA outreach and education specialists work tirelessly to plant opportunities for arts exposure at kid-friendly places and events all over the city. At libraries, community centers, festivals and special events, CMA provides performers, artists, activities and information to engage and educate young kids.

“The younger (kids get involved in the arts) the better,” says Starinsky. “Families and children should get involved early on, being around places where they feel comfortable expressing themselves. Parents should give them good early experiences with the arts so they have positive memories of that later on.”

Gallagher agrees. “The younger you are, the less inhibition you have,” he says. Tell a sixth-grader he has a good singing voice, says Gallagher, and you’ll face an uphill battle getting that self-conscious adolescent to join the choir. But start that conversation six years earlier, and you could have a budding American Idol contestant on your hands.

“The younger kids are up for anything,” says Starinsky. “But the older they get and more ‘cool’ they want to appear, they’ll act on the surface like they don’t want to do it. The instructor has to work to build their confidence and draw it out of them.”

Parental Involvement Helps It Stick
Those inhibitions can also be problematic for parents with scarce exposure to the arts who nonetheless want their children to experience arts and cultural opportunities available to them. They may hold such experiences at arms-length, avoiding any personal involvement with the rationale that “I’m just not artistic/musical/dramatic.”

“Even if you’re not good at it, you have to find something to participate in with your child to prove that you’re willing to take the risk,” says Starinsky. “If you stand aside saying ‘time for you to go do that sculpture because the artist says you should,’ there’s a lesser chance of those kids becoming involved in the arts long-term. Take that risk, and be willing to get your hands dirty with your child.”

Gallagher has high hopes that a child’s growing involvement and interest in the arts could even make an arts lover out of Mom or Dad. “If you can get past an adult’s stereotypes of an experience, I think you can make that happen,” he says. “There are times when the kid gets hooked and the parent says, ‘I’m not a musician, but this is something that Billy likes and it’s something we can do together.’”

But Is It On the Test?
In today’s standardized-test sort of world, is arts education really relevant anymore? Or is it just a frivolity, something best left in the category of “elective” rather than “required?” Why does any of this matter?

Gallagher is quick to respond with a laundry list of skills that kids gain by involvement in the arts. Learning to paint teaches motor skills, awareness of your surroundings, attention to detail. Singing in a choir teaches kids to work as a team to put a finished product together, to understand musical concepts and appropriate group behavior. There’s documented improvement in math and science scores linked to a child’s involvement in the arts. And the list goes on.

And if that’s not convincing enough, then consider how the arts form a foundation for our entire culture. “The only way we have an appreciation for what a culture achieves is by understanding its art,” says Starinsky. “If we had a greater appreciation for the art of other cultures, then we would have a greater appreciation for our fellow man. It’s a way to breed great tolerance.”

Reaching Kids One at a Time
When Kid’s Club at Westfield Great Northern Mall ends, the moms pack up their kids in their respective strollers and begin to scatter, headed off for a snack of Chicken McNuggets or a quick stop in The Disney Store.

Some stop first at the information table manned by Beck Center marketing associate Fran Storch, a lone outpost of culture in a sea of consumerism. They might register to win free tickets to The Beck’s next theater production, or pick up a class catalog. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll decide to take that next step by registering their kids for a class or taking them to a children’s theatre event, quite possibly putting their child on the road to a lifelong love of the arts.

And that’s an outcome that would make the effort of a trip to the mall with young kids more than worth it.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Jennifer Keirn jenniferkATwowway.com
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