Change of Heart! | |
Artistic Alternatives to Violence | |
Professional Development Seminars and On-Site Residences | |
The visual and performing arts are neither a luxury nor a diversion. They are,
as David Rockefeller called them in his book Coming to Our Senses, "nourishment for the soul."
They are relaxing and therapeutic for millions of adults who find a way
to express their feelings creatively…rather than destructively. We must give
our children the same opportunities to release their stress that we enjoy
to release ours—for their sakes and for our own. | |
Artistic Alternatives to Violence are structured activities through which young people can identify and express their own emotions with aesthetic evaluation, rather than personal judgment. Utilizing Poetry, Visual Art, Music, Dance and Theatre, students are engaged in creating works of art, based on social, domestic and personal issues that impact their daily lives. Expressing both their negative and positive emotions through the arts, they learn how to provide for themselves specific ways to change their feelings by focusing on the act of creation and be validated for their efforts. Working individually at first, students come together to co-create a final culmination project. | |
Celebrating diversity and emphasizing unity, Artistic Alternatives to Violence utilizes the holistic paradigm of Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences in order to address the learning needs of every child. | |
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