“I think it’s nice how people work together to make art — and come together,” fourth-grader Charlotte Boger said.
Joan Austin Elementary School Fourth-Grade Teachers Katie Cornick and Lindsay Ruhnke think so too, so they regularly assign art projects. Yet the sense of community that art inspires is not the only reason to include art lessons. There are so many other benefits: children enjoy the opportunity to express their imaginative selves, the art is beautiful, and the process of creating it feeds their minds.
“Art is important to their brain development,” Ruhnke said.
Cornick felt the same way.
“It’s engaging different parts of their brain,” Cornick said. “It improves hand-eye coordination. It lets them express themselves.”
Cornick and Ruhnke strive to make these art projects even more beneficial, linking them to cultural education, so the students can learn about other places, such as Mexico. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, each student created “papel picado,” which literally means “paper with holes in it” in Spanish and is a form of Mexican folk art, with roots in Aztec traditions.
“We did it the usual way,” noted Isaac Figueroa-Enciso, who has made his own papel picado before. “We folded the paper in half and cut little shapes out with scissors.”
When the students completed their papel picado project, teachers hung the colorful creations on strings like the pennant flags at a race track. Earlier this week, Isaac and his classmate, Monroe Quigley, took a moment to appreciate their handiwork.
“We made sure to do the best that we could,” Monroe said solemnly.
In fact, the resulting display brought so much cheer that Ruhnke and Cornick are keeping the papel picado until after Día de Los Muertos on Nov. 2 (with some cultures marking the day on different dates).
Fourth-grader Emma O’Neal says that she does like to look at student artwork, such as the papel picado, and finds all of it beautiful. However, what she loves most about crafting is the confidence it gives her.
“The greatness of being able to admire your own work — it feels amazing to see what you did and be proud of it,” Emma said.
At Joan Austin, there is so much artwork bringing pride to fourth-graders like Emma. Examples include trees with rust- and lemon-colored leaves (for autumn), ghosts carrying lists of fears students want to express (for Halloween), and a school of fish that each student decorated however they wished (for any day of the year).
“The fish represent the individual student's expression of themselves as an individual, yet retain the sense of belonging and community,” Ruhnke said. “We might all look, sound, and act differently, but we are all students at Joan Austin in fourth grade.”
Best of all, this diverse collection of artwork is grouped together in classroom displays, highlighting how all these unique individuals truly can come together through an art project.
“Some people did look at it in different ways,” Emma said of the fall trees art project, then gestured toward individual pieces. “That person covered the whole tree in leaves. That person didn’t cover much. … I think it’s beautiful.”
“It’s beautiful,” Charlotte agreed.
It is, and it also offers so much to the students, the staff, and everyone who sees this lively art community’s work on display at Joan Austin. Just as Charlotte suggested, these art projects offer a chance for individuals to work together and to unite as a community.