The Center for Children and Youth
The Center for Children and Youth (CCY) exists to expand creative learning and pro-social development opportunities for students and teachers of Arkansas, especially serving those in broadly defined disadvantaged situations. CCY is designed to address issues of intellectual growth, social development, literacy, the arts, and techniques for addressing generational or regional poverty issues. This is accomplished through teacher professional development, pre-service education, research and curriculum development and dissemination. CCY was recently named the 2019 Governor’s Arts Award winner in arts education, in recognition for its work in the field of arts integration.
Hung Pham is the director of CCY, with Chris Goering, professor of English education, serving as faculty director. Four central programs comprise the current focus of CCY’s work:
ARTeacher Fellowship Program
This program is a a yearlong professional development series designed to support secondary teachers who endeavor to integrate the arts into their classroom curriculum. It is a collaboration among the University of Arkansas’s Center for Children & Youth, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Walton Arts Center. The series begins with a three-day summer institute and continues with five full-day workshops throughout the school year. Fellows receive expert training from nationally recognized arts-in-education professionals, financial support for classroom field trips and ongoing collaboration and support from program members and staff. Upon successful completion of the program, Fellows are eligible to continue with the Fellowship for a second and third year. During these additional years, Fellows are encouraged to share their knowledge and receive support to lead workshops at their school, present at state and national conferences or publish scholarly writing.
ARTful Teaching Conference
The ARTful Teaching Conference brings together professors and pre-service teachers from Arkansas colleges and universities for two days of exploration and learning in the realm of arts integration. The conference is organized by the Center for Children & Youth and the Brown Chair for English Literacy in the Department of English at the University of Arkansas.
The conference aims to introduce teachers to arts-integration practices (the strategy of teaching subject area content in tandem with visual and performing arts modalities) early on in their careers and to encourage faculty and administrators to make arts integration strategies a basic part of their curriculum. The conference features presentations by arts education specialists from around the country, together with workshops led by professors and secondary teachers, honoring a tradition of idea-sharing from returning attendees.
Partnership with Arkansas A+ Schools
Since 2015, the CCY has partnered with Arkansas A+ Schools, sharing resources and instructional expertise. Arkansas A+ Schools is a research-based whole-school network with a mission of nurturing creativity in every learner through an arts-integrated network.
A+ Schools combine interdisciplinary teaching and daily arts instruction, offering students opportunities to develop creative, innovative ways of thinking, learning and demonstrating knowledge. In Arkansas A+ schools, teaching the state’s mandated curriculum involves a collaborative, multi-disciplined approach with the arts — dance/movement, theatre, music, creative writing and visual arts — continuously woven into every aspect of a child’s learning.
Arkansas A+ Schools provides schools with ongoing professional development, an intricate network of support, and an active research component. The program coaches schools through a process to create an educational environment that excites students about learning and produces better achievement, as well as preparing teachers and principals to think more creatively about how to present their curriculum in collaborative hands-on ways.
Facing History and Ourselves
CCY has steadily developed a working relationship with Facing History and Ourselves, a national nonprofit and global educational organization that supports teachers and schools in developing young people’s alertness to history and a readiness for informed civic engagement. Facing History offers teacher professional development, classroom resources, and individual support to educators as they guide students to think critically about identity, our relationship to complex moments in history – with emphasis on issues of racism, prejudice and antisemitism – and their potential to influence their communities. The organization encourages empathy and social-emotional learning and a widening of perspective in the hope that students will be prepared to stand up for justice, truth and equality.
In the summer of 2017, the University of Arkansas hosted the first Facing History and Ourselves Summer Institute, with secondary teachers from across the state in attendance. In February 2019, CCY partnered with the U of A Center for Multicultural and Diversity Education to host the U of A’s second on-campus Facing History and Ourselves workshop. The attendees were a mix of pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and U of A staff. The workshop, entitled “Facing Ferguson: Media Literacy in a Digital Age,” looked at how being careful and critical consumers of media is crucial when exploring important historical and present-day issues.
For more information on the Center for Children and Youth, see the center’s website, or contact
Hung Pham
Director, Center for Children and Youth
ccy@uark.edu
(479)575-5513
