Making the Arts Child's Play

An Early Childhood and the Arts conference on Monday, Aug. 17 made possible by grants from the PNC Foundation drew nearly 200 people to Severance Hall eager to learn how to use art, music, and drama to build critical school readiness skills. Participants heard a speaker from Sesame Workshop, picked up early childhood arts education materials from a wide array of local providers, and even met Elmo. (Yes, THAT Elmo.)

The morning session closed with a spirited “Yee, hah!” as the participants in Reinberger Chamber Hall rose to their feet for a three-part simultaneous chorus of “She’ll Be Comin ‘Round the Mountain,” “This Train is Bound for Glory,” and “When the Saints Go Marching In,” led with gusto from the podium by well-known music therapist Dr. Deforia Lane, an advisor to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Ms. Lane was modeling an activity that might be done with children in the Toddler Rock program at the Rock Hall.

“Phenomenal!” said Cassandra Thompson as she left Reinberger Hall. Thompson is involved in family child care for young children, and liked the cross-curriculum ideas she heard on Monday morning. The suggestions she heard also would work well across a range of ages, she said.
Wanda Owens, a retired early education teacher who is involved with the Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers, said she appreciated how the presenters recognized “the importance of oral language development to help kids read, write, and compute.”

Opening the program, Paul Clark, the regional president of PNC Bank, presented a video highlighting PNC’s Grow Up Great: Our Kids and the Arts - A Great Early Start program, an initiative that in Cleveland will infuse Head Start programs with arts education for young children, through $2 million in grants to The Cleveland Orchestra, PlayhouseSquare, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. The grants are leveraging the experience of the four institutions and creating new programs in preschool teacher training and arts activities designed to reach more children in the metropolitan area.

Monday’s program was the first collaboration among the four institutions to bring early childhood education resources to local educators. Additional programming will launch in September through the arts partners and local Head Start sites. And as National City becomes integrated into PNC, other elements of Grow Up Great will be introduced in Greater Cleveland and throughout the National City footprint, including rollout of the volunteerism program and volunteer opportunities at early education centers, additional grants, availability of the Happy, Healthy, Ready for School kits in National City bank branches, and increased awareness of early childhood education and PNC’s programs in support of it.

Participants on Monday heard keynote speaker Bonnie Lash Freeman, Director of Training/Special Projects at the National Center for Family Literacy in Kentucky, as well as Sesame Workshop speaker Jeanette Betancourt, Vice President for Outreach and Educational Practices. In addition, those who attended could collect informational materials on educational programs at the The Music Settlement, WVIZ/PBS ideastream, Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory, and Cuyahoga County Public Library as well as the PNC arts partner institutions.

In the afternoon, Grow Up Great Partner Head Start teachers participated in hands-on workshops with their arts partner leaders in spaces throughout Severance Hall.

The Cleveland Orchestra’s Grow Up Great program revolves around the establishment of “Musical Neighborhoods.” Musicians and staff will be working with preschool educators at four Head Start sites – Arbor Park and Quadrangle Head Starts, managed by Catholic Charities, and Head Start classrooms in Tremont Montessori and Robert Jamison schools in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

As the PNC Grow Up Great collaboration moves forward, PNC will evaluate activities and outcomes at participating Head Start sites, observing which arts experiences are being made available and with what impact. A goal for the program is to engage not only the Head Start teachers but to engage parents as well in using the arts to support important skill building, so that parents take an increasingly active part in the arts with their children, said Maria Townsend, who will be doing evaluations for PNC. Evaluator Susie Chase said that their findings will be used to help support good practices in the programs.

For more information on The Cleveland Orchestra’s participation in PNC’s Grow Up Great program: Our Kids and the Arts - A Great Early Start, contact Education & Community Programs Director Joan Katz Napoli at jkatz@clevelandorchestra.com

Additional information about PNC Grow Up Great and resources for parents and educators can be found at www.pncgrowupgreat.com.