Placement Update

The last two weeks at my placement have been great. I have finally gotten to meet and engage with the program participants and make more meaningful connections with the staff. My placement site is at a non-profit organization which focuses on exposing youth to the arts. Wednesday through Saturday of each week, youth are given the opportunity to participate in a variety of arts related activities. The program offers singing, fashion design, hip-hop, kickboxing and theatre classes. There is also a flower shop project called, “Petal Pushers,” which is a youth entrepreneurship venture started by four program participants.
The program works with inner-city youth, mainly girls, who live around Nicolette Avenue and its surrounding neighborhoods in Minneapolis. Most, if not all, program participants are from low-income or poor families and majority of the participants are students of color. Because there is a great age and cultural difference between the program participants and the program administrators, who are elder white women, the group has a youth advisory board set up so that participants can help direct the types of programs offered as well as keep communication between the two groups flowing.
Most of the time I spend at my placement site is spent doing administrative work like engaging in grant research and grant writing. While administrative activities take the bulk of my time, my favorite part of each day is spent sitting with the girls. Before each class, program participants spend sixty minutes sitting down to have a snack and talk about life. Over the last couple of weeks, these periods spent with the girls has managed to leave an impression on me. Without meaning to, the program participants have impacted me through their ability to be so painfully honest yet so completely free. Despite the various struggles these girls have face, they manage to retain the lightheartedness which allows them to whisper about boys and giggle about the funny things their classmates said at school. Each of these girls has big dreams, whether it is to become an international spy or a world famous fashion designer, and I just feel so lucky to be around such refreshing people.
I think that most of the programs offered at this site take a very constructivist approach to learning. While this is probably due to the nature of doing art programs, I can see that the group highlights the importance of experiential learning. The unstructured periods before official classes are kept organic so that participants can choose the topics to talk about and be able to learn from one another. The “Petal Pushers” project is also very constructivist as participants created their own business plan to start the idea and continue to learn through experience as they create flower arrangements and learn to run a business.