©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Jenks students meld education with art
By Kristin Pazulski

NetworkArts, an artistic and educational non-profit organization, worked with the students at John S. Jenks to design and build a rainforest mural on the wall of the school. (Photo by Kristin Pazulski)

A rainforest is sprouting from the wall of John S. Jenks elementary school in the form of ceramic tiles, mirrored glass and the efforts of parents, students, teachers and non-profit educational art organization NetworkArts.

The rainforest mosaic, expected to be finished next week, was coupled with an educational program for Jenks fourth and fifth graders.

The fifth grade’s spring term science curriculum studies environments and ecosystems, said fifth grade teacher Christina Moore. “So the rainforest fit right in there.”

Jenks parent Karen Aves, who helped initiate the mosaic project, said each year Jenks has a resident artist for the fourth and fifth graders. She contacted NetworkArts, who does numerous projects with schools and organizations involving art and education, to see if the school and organization could work together to build art on the wall of the Jenks library, which was an “eyesore.”

NetworkArts agreed to participate, as long as Jenks raised $3,000 towards the project, and NetworkArts provided the rest of the funding, which was about $12,000 said Aves. Aves, a former grant writer for community improvement on an international level, wrote a grant proposal that earned the school $1,500 from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, which was matched by the Chestnut Hill Community Association.

With the financial backing secure, a group of parents, teachers students and representatives from NetworkArts met to decide on the theme of the mosaic.

Jane Degenhardt, a Jenks parent and now art teacher that helped build the Wissahickon mural that covers the hallway in the school, said they choose the rainforest because “it’s the most visually striking” ecosystem “because a rainforest’s animals and foliage are huge and colorful.”

NetworkArt’s artist Ricki Lent, a retired Philadelphia School District art teacher, spent the spring semester with the fourth and fifth graders, first presenting on the rainforest before the students dove into the drawing and creating of mosaic pieces. Other teachers had the students do research projects and they viewed films on the subject.

In art class, they began drawing from the visuals given to them during the presentations and projects. They drew the animals and foliage from the various “levels” of the rainforest and eventually turned some of the drawings into clay sculptures – flat on the back so they could be put on the wall but three-dimensional pieces that would jump from the mosaic wall. “They actually built up the animals with the clay,” Degenhardt said.

The mosaic’s design, coordinated by Lent, is a mesh of the students’ drawings and sculptures. The pieces of tile that create the mosaic’s colorful animals and environment were broken by the students as well. And Lent brought students in all grades to the wall to participate in the tile placement, so they were part of the process from start to finish.

The final pieces are being placed by volunteer parents, since they are too high for the students to reach without a ladder, and NetworkArts will bring people out to complete the project in a one-shot grouting effort, that Lent said will take about four to five hours with 10 people helping.

Degenhardt said Jenks hopes to have a dedication ceremony next fall, when the students return for the next school year.

Cindy Fitz, out-going president of Jenks’ Home and School Association, tied the mosaic in with the newly developed specialty program being introduced to Jenks next school year.

The fifth grade at Jenks will be piloting an International Baccalaureate program this fall. “It’s a program that’s going to enlighten the students, not only to themselves as learners, but to the world around them,” said Moore, who will be teaching sixth grade math and science next year.

This time last year, a number of elementary schools in the Philadelphia School District were placed on a list for gifted and high achievement programs, such as IB. Jenks was not on the list, so parents initiated conversation with Paul Vallas, the district’s chief executive officer, and it was decided Jenks would be an IB school, along with about 10 others in the district, said Ellen Linky, the district’s assistant superintendent in the Office of Accelerated Learning.

Jenks will have The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP), which covers students ages 11 to 16, said Linky. MYP works within the district’s current core curriculum, affecting the “delivery of the instruction,” said Linky, rather than establishing a separate curriculum, as the high school program does – titled the diploma program.

The middle years focuses on five areas – dubbed “areas of interaction.” Approaches to learning helps children to understand their learning capabilities and express their thought process and learning strategies. The community and service level teaches them the importance of community relationships and involvement. The area of interest titled homo faber, which means XX, helps students explore the various ways to express their ideas and “influence, transform, enjoy and improve the quality of life,” according to the International Baccalaureate Web site, www.ibo.org.

The environment focus helps students utilize the resources in their community and accept responsibility for their world. And health and social education area deals with handling their own social, emotional and physical health and how it affects their lives. There is also a language requirement for the program and a final project that “should encompass all the areas of interaction,” said Linky.

Linky said it usually takes three years for a school to become officially certified as an International Baccalaureate school. Jenks parents and teachers already had the opportunity to attend information sessions – one in January for both and another in May for just teachers – and in August there will be a two-and-a-half day training sessions for the Jenks teachers who will eventually be teaching the program. Linky said she suspects there will be parent meetings and involvement once the staff understands the program.

Throughout the establishment of the program, the school will be visited and assessed by representatives from the International Baccalaureate Organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Their regional office in New York covers North America and the Caribbean.