Each ArtWise lesson challenges students to analyze details and to break down a complex visual image into its basic shapes. This process trains expert decoding skills (detailed observation), a powerful and frequently used learning tool across all academic subjects. Drawing is the visual equivalent of both math and language and demands the integration of both. Developing these skills not only makes children better artists, but better students.
Due to funding challenges, many schools in California have not been able to sustain a rich arts curriculum. As a result, there are few places for art teachers to learn and sustain the skills of teaching. California has largely lost a generation of art teachers. ArtWise is committed to the men and women who want to teach art, as well as to the children who want to learn art. We provide a place to continue the ART of teaching ART. Eventually, the pendulum of funding may sweep many of us back into the school day.
ArtWise is proud to be a source for the teachers who have the passion and skills to bring arts back into the classroom.
Practically speaking, ArtWise works to schedule classes that are affordable and accessible, given the busy lives of both students and parents.
We provide classes at elementary schools in two ways:
- Immediately following school dismissal as an after school enrichment program
- Teaching to the whole classroom
One of the most well known studies found that young people who participate in the arts for at least three days each week through at least one full year are:
- 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement
- 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools
- 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair
- 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance
- 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem
Young artists, as compared with their peers, are likely to :
- Attend music, art, and dance classes nearly three times as frequently
- Participate in youth groups nearly four times as frequently
- Read for pleasure nearly twice as often
- Perform community service more than four times as often
*Source: Living the Arts through Language + Learning: A Report on Community-based Youth Organizations, Shirley Brice Heath, Stanford University and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Americans for the Arts Monograph, November 1998)
(site: www.americansforthearts.org/public_awareness/facts)
Drawing is the place where learning and fun meet to shape the children who will grow to enrich the Sacramento community of the future.
In addition to the above, ArtWise classes fulfill a number of the State of California's Content Standards for Education. For more, you can download our standards document (in Adobe PDF format).
If you are interested in ArtWise classes for you school, please contact us via e-mail at artwise@artwiseca.org or by phone at 916.346.6545.
About the director...
Marianne Gammon has always been fascinated by the brain. This interest led to her first degree in Occupational Therapy. The focus of her training was on the endlessly interesting area of cognitive functioning in both children and adults. For over 20 years, she practiced Occupational Therapy in a variety of settings, including hospitals, rehabilitation centers and elementary schools. Drawing was an activity that she used with all ages who needed to improve various cognitive skills and of course, fine motor abilities. It was easy to engage kids in drawing, but adults were convinced they could not draw. This was so frequent and such a consistent difference between adults and kids that she began to wonder why; after many discussions with both kids and adults, she realized that drawing was a “use it or lose” sort of skill of early childhood. And if you “lost it”, the loss usually included all artistic confidence ...for life!!
Out of this experience, ArtWise was born, which is dedicated to providing a path for children to receive all the cognitive benefits of drawing and to carry artistic confidence with them… for life!