Someone recently asked me how Upstream Arts helps people, and I replied that Upstream Arts helps people primarily through engagement. The arts activities we facilitate provide means for self-expression, connection with others, practicing social and communication skills, and having fun.
Of course, I have many stories from my three years of teaching with Upstream Arts to back up that statement. Here's one: Towards the end of our residency at River Bend Educational Center, we were doing a movement and painting activity that required focus and teamwork. For a group of middle school boys with emotional and behavioral disorders who spend their entire day together, that can be challenging.
"Which color should we add next?" I asked, with the activity already underway.
"Blue. No, red!" a student responded, with general agreement all around.
"Who wants to be the mover?"
"ME!" Kyle exclaimed.
"Who wants to hold the paintbrush?"
"I've got that," Shawn offered.
"TJ, you've got the canvas?"
"Yeah, just don't get paint on my shirt," he replied.
I stepped back and watched as all 6 boys in class that day worked together: moving and mirroring each other while painting two separate paintings. Silence except for the music to which they were moving. "Now this is what engagement looks like," I thought to myself. We wouldn't have had that moment without that music and those paintbrushes. The arts helped engage, helped us help work on focus and concentration.
From a positive psychology outlook, you could say that these students were in flow, the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity (you can check out a ted talk on flow from Mihály Csíkszentmihályi here). I see this happen with regularity in Upstream Arts classes, not only for the participants but for my colleagues and for myself. When I am teaching with Upstream Arts, I am in flow. In short, I am happy. I notice similarities when I'm doing a triathlon. As Csíkszentmihályi says, "You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears. You forget yourself. You feel part of something larger."
Having training partners helps me stay engaged with my training for this triathlon. My focus and concentration is heightened because of my engagement with others. I've had a number of people who I've been working out with over the past few months who I'd like to thank for keeping me engaged: Katie Kaufmann, Maggie Chestovich, Geoff Wold, Kari Kelly, Tim Pearson, Bree Sieplinga, and Julie Guidry. Special thanks to those last two ladies, Bree and Julie, who not only keep me engaged with my training, but who also keep me engaged with my work at Upstream Arts (they're the Associate Director and Executive Director, respectively). They help keep me in flow.
Upstream Arts helps people, participants and teaching artists like myself, primarily through engagement: it fosters that sense of flow. I'm so grateful to have found my flow.
Of course, I have many stories from my three years of teaching with Upstream Arts to back up that statement. Here's one: Towards the end of our residency at River Bend Educational Center, we were doing a movement and painting activity that required focus and teamwork. For a group of middle school boys with emotional and behavioral disorders who spend their entire day together, that can be challenging.
"Which color should we add next?" I asked, with the activity already underway.
"Blue. No, red!" a student responded, with general agreement all around.
"Who wants to be the mover?"
"ME!" Kyle exclaimed.
"Who wants to hold the paintbrush?"
"I've got that," Shawn offered.
"TJ, you've got the canvas?"
"Yeah, just don't get paint on my shirt," he replied.
I stepped back and watched as all 6 boys in class that day worked together: moving and mirroring each other while painting two separate paintings. Silence except for the music to which they were moving. "Now this is what engagement looks like," I thought to myself. We wouldn't have had that moment without that music and those paintbrushes. The arts helped engage, helped us help work on focus and concentration.
From a positive psychology outlook, you could say that these students were in flow, the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity (you can check out a ted talk on flow from Mihály Csíkszentmihályi here). I see this happen with regularity in Upstream Arts classes, not only for the participants but for my colleagues and for myself. When I am teaching with Upstream Arts, I am in flow. In short, I am happy. I notice similarities when I'm doing a triathlon. As Csíkszentmihályi says, "You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears. You forget yourself. You feel part of something larger."
Having training partners helps me stay engaged with my training for this triathlon. My focus and concentration is heightened because of my engagement with others. I've had a number of people who I've been working out with over the past few months who I'd like to thank for keeping me engaged: Katie Kaufmann, Maggie Chestovich, Geoff Wold, Kari Kelly, Tim Pearson, Bree Sieplinga, and Julie Guidry. Special thanks to those last two ladies, Bree and Julie, who not only keep me engaged with my training, but who also keep me engaged with my work at Upstream Arts (they're the Associate Director and Executive Director, respectively). They help keep me in flow.
Upstream Arts helps people, participants and teaching artists like myself, primarily through engagement: it fosters that sense of flow. I'm so grateful to have found my flow.