Program Offerings
CREATIVE LEARNING LAB PROGRAM
Housed within under-resourced schools, the Creative Learning Labs offer a space to nurture children’s creative potential, and foster essential 21st century learning and life skills. Carefully designed visual arts-based interventions contribute to this vibrant space for hands-on, experiential, inquiry-based learning. Creative Learning Labs are designed serve children 1st through 10th grades.
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PROFESSIONAL LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
Professional Learning and Development Programs offer an opportunity for adults who work with children - educators, parents, professionals, NGO administrators to name a few - to build awareness and deepen their knowledge around art education. We provide year-round talks, discussions, curated resources, webinars and workshops all intend to inform and inspire.
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Testimonials
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The confidence of the students to express their thoughts seems to have really been enhanced by the programme. The programme has created a space for engaging meaningfully and giving shape to ideas and beliefs. The integration and application of a range of skills in everything the students do, the conviction with which students state a point of view, validating them with reasons, are all discernible since their participation.
—Principal |
Skills like collaboration are so important. And now, through their work in the Creative Learning Lab, I am seeing students are learning to collaborate more. When asked: what does collaboration mean, the students now say: being happy when working together; taking everyones ideas and putting them together; learning to compromise.
—Teacher
—Teacher
I was struck and moved by the powerful messages and expressive power of the student’s artworks. Art seems to be a most effective way to encourage critical thought and problem solving.
—ArtSparks Exhibition Attendee
—ArtSparks Exhibition Attendee
Stories From The Field
“Jalaja and Nagarathna teach at a low-fee/low-income school in the Kolar district and co-manage ArtSparks' Creative Learning Lab that is housed within the school's premises. Between sips of masala chai, the duo tells us with gushing pride about the children's work. For the past few weeks, the class has been exploring recyclables and looking for strategies to repurpose them. In a goofy moment, Nagarathna puts on a hat made by a group of children, and points to its base—held together by bottle caps and a bowl, the hat transforms into a roller skate, when laid on the ground! The innovation is astounding, but what makes it doubly astounding is that it was collaboratively designed by a group of village children—and not one among them has had an opportunity to wear a real pair of roller skates!”
“The children were finishing up with their puppets. They were all incredibly proud and excited about their finished work—as they rightly should be. Everybody did such fabulous work. This post however is not about the quality of the finished puppets, but rather how the seeds of empathy sprout in a classroom.
We’ve observed that one of our 6th graders, B, has a few challenges in processing information, seeing a task through to completion independently, and using his fine motor skills. Integrated into a general education class, he understandably requires additional support. In the Creative Learning Lab our aim is to help him refine his fine motor skills, develop control over the material he handles, and successfully complete tasks. He did a wonderful job with the head of his puppet, a charming piece with the hair covering the eyebrows—very rockstar-ish. And, he even completed the body and limbs of his puppet with great success. However, since he was struggling to build the hands of his puppet, I asked another student, M, to step in and help him out. I was expecting M to take over and make the hands for B. Instead, I noticed M asking B to place his palm on a sheet of paper so that it could be traced and the arms of the puppet could be cut to the shape of his hand. It was such a simple gesture. And, it was incredibly thoughtful of M to include B in the task, rather than exclude him. It completely moved me. And, B was full of smiles, so excited about the cutout of his hand.
In a world where some adults mock those who are challenged, these small moments totally make my day, reinforcing my faith in the kindness inherent to humanity."
We’ve observed that one of our 6th graders, B, has a few challenges in processing information, seeing a task through to completion independently, and using his fine motor skills. Integrated into a general education class, he understandably requires additional support. In the Creative Learning Lab our aim is to help him refine his fine motor skills, develop control over the material he handles, and successfully complete tasks. He did a wonderful job with the head of his puppet, a charming piece with the hair covering the eyebrows—very rockstar-ish. And, he even completed the body and limbs of his puppet with great success. However, since he was struggling to build the hands of his puppet, I asked another student, M, to step in and help him out. I was expecting M to take over and make the hands for B. Instead, I noticed M asking B to place his palm on a sheet of paper so that it could be traced and the arms of the puppet could be cut to the shape of his hand. It was such a simple gesture. And, it was incredibly thoughtful of M to include B in the task, rather than exclude him. It completely moved me. And, B was full of smiles, so excited about the cutout of his hand.
In a world where some adults mock those who are challenged, these small moments totally make my day, reinforcing my faith in the kindness inherent to humanity."
“We often talk about perseverance as an essential attitude that defines a successful person. And we talk about how important it is to instill this capacity in our students—to stay on task and push forward no matter how challenging things may seem. So it was particularly wonderful to see the children in the context of today’s class. While visibly challenged with language, their deep desire to communicate and engage with the English language meant that they themselves insisted on writing in English. And, rather than getting frustrated, in light of their limitations, they attempted to construct sentences on their own, sought clarifications when needed, took the time to listen to words being sounded out phonetically, attempted to spell out the words accordingly, and more. I couldn’t come up with a better example of perseverance in action."
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