Hillside Teachers Receive Grant to Mix Arts, Community Service

The best way to learn is by doing, and teachers Katrina Macht and Anthony Sgro have embraced that with a recent grant they received for using the arts to encourage youth service.

The teachers recently received a $5,000 student achievement grant from the National Education Association [NEA] for a “Youth Engaged in Service through the Arts” program.

“It is for service learning proposals that use arts, music and theater to advance the goals,” Macht said. “The students are creating service action projects and implementing them, and they are going to be worked through the language arts program at the school for the sixth graders.”

Macht said the program will require collaborations with the fine arts department at the school.

Basically, Macht said, students will choose projects at the beginning of the year that are related to the local community, such as working with the senior center, and then will collaborate with the fine arts department to develop the project.

“When we come back in September, the new group of students will be exploring community problems, both local and global, and issues that are really important to them,” she said. “They will select topics and do research, and try to understand the reasons for the problems and any negative consequences for the community.”

“Then they will design and implement an action plan,” she added.

For example, Macht said, students could put together a performance for the senior center.

The money from the grant will be used to pay for artist-in-residence Timothy Macht, who has been working with the school for about five years, and who will work with the students to develop their plans in the classes.

In addition, money will be used to further the current lab at the school with video cameras and other technological equipment, as well as for art supplies that might be needed.

Macht said she had applied for this grant in a previous year and didn’t receive it, but is glad the school is getting the money for the coming year.

“I am always seeking grants, that’s for sure,” she said. “Hillside is a roots and shoots school, and that’s all about service learning.”

“Although the school provides for in-kind support, anything that is needed to fund that program has to be raised through fundraisers or grants,” she added.

She found the grant, Macht said, just by doing a search on the Internet.

The grant is awarded by the NEA in collaboration with support from Nickelodeon through the Big Help Grants partnership. According to a release from the NEA, Nickelodeon is helping fund the grants through the network’s program, which works to connect kids to issues important in their lives.

It focuses particularly on issues surrounding environmental awareness, health and wellness and community involvement.

“I am really grateful to the National Education Association for funding Hillside,” she said. “It’s an honor, and only two New Jersey schools were awarded it, so that’s cool. I’m excited to be able to further implement and integrate the arts into the actual curriculum, and it’s a great way to excite kids about learning.”

“I am trying to bring fine arts into the language arts classrooms, and to implement service action projects while integrating language arts and fine arts,” she added.

The best part about the program, Macht said, is that students will be able to choose their topics for themselves, which means they are more likely to have success with them.

“When students can tap into their own personal interests, they have a lot more success,” she said. “And we have many students who maybe are not good readers and writers, but are very good artistically, so this is to tap into their natural affinities so as to grow into the areas they are not as confident in.”

Macht said she believes the arts are extremely important in education, and it is just another avenue to express themselves.

“They can put ideas into other forms in addition to words on a page, and there are other avenues of expression too,” she said. “This opens the door for many students who have other intelligences that regular classrooms are not necessarily conducive for.”

And aside from the arts, Macht said, students gain real-world knowledge and experience helping others.

“They see that what they are learning in school is for a purpose, and they can apply it to a real-world purpose,” she said. “They can make a difference right here, right now.”

“One students said to me that service learning gives students the power to do something when they usually have to sit on the sidelines and watch the world struggle,” she added.