Crafers Primary School
Crafers Primary School is a ‘Category 7’ Primary School located in the Hills/Murraylands region of South Australia. With an enrolment of 240 students, the student body almost exclusively comes from a white, mono-cultural background, that has had little first-hand interaction, or the sense of, being part of another culture. As such, staff believed that this arts project, and its continuing development, would provide a rich and deep experience that would have unlimited benefits for all students and their families.
PROJECT COORDINATORS: Julie Edwards & Anne Stadler
ARTIST: Cindy Czabania
PROJECT: Experiencing different cultures through the Arts
The Artist
Well known puppetry and ceramic artist, Cindy Czabania used her expertise to help students create ‘people’ from different nations. The end product took the form of body puppets, which students made, manipulated and used with stories/dance and drama that were relevant to the countries the puppets represented.
Cindy connected well with all the students and they responded enthusiastically to her instruction, which was well organized, clearly thought out and staged methodically. Cindy often sought extra materials for students and provided great encouragement and ongoing suggestions for refinement, helping ensure the project achieved far beyond our expectations.
Aims
- The opportunity to work with and learn from a professional and practicing artist.
- Gain an understanding of the historical and cultural perspectives of puppetry.
- Hands-on experience in creating, designing and making a variety of puppets that represent different cultures/nations.
- Students are supported to make the connections between learning about a different culture and being a person from another culture.
- Incorporate puppetry into other curriculum areas – dance, literature, story telling, drama, music, theatre, IT – thus enriching the total arts experience.
- A model of community learning is developed through involvement with this arts experience.
- Student performance skills are developed as well as presentation skills that are audience appropriate.
Process
Students worked in similar age groups with Cindy – 2 groups per day for 2 days per week, over a nine week period, allowing each group, 3 hours of focused project time per day. Three key areas were used as venues for this project – our newly developed Technology Centre (for woodwork and ceramics), our Middle Years Art Centre and our Out of School Hours Centre. Through negotiation, it was decided that the working days were Monday and Friday – leaving the middle of the week for staff and parents to continue working with their groups. In order to involve the whole school, each "core group" was made up of 2 classes (50 students) and their teachers. Cindy moved between sub groups (approx. 8 students) during each half-day period, being supported by teachers and volunteer parents. Each sub-group also had an adult leader.
Outcomes
Cindy worked with students and teachers to bring different cultures, their customs and cultural celebrations to life through the art of puppetry, which included making ceramic heads and costuming body sized puppets with selected students. Based on a formal application process– 2 core groups were chosen to work alongside Cindy, who were then responsible for sharing their newly acquired skills and knowledge with all classes across the school through "show and tell" and the mentoring of other students.
Cindy held a half-day Professional Development for all staff and interested parents to commence the project and also demonstrated puppetry at a full school assembly – so all students had core knowledge of what would occur.
The project then took the form of 9 weeks (2 days per week) where students worked alongside Cindy (with parental support) to create their puppet. Staff also supported students to research and write play scripts for the culminating puppet performance.
The final performance was before the whole school and was recorded for future use. The wonderful puppets are now on display and constantly commented on by new parents and students.
Highlights
The puppets that were produced, and the stories/plays/theatre that the students used them in, were also used as a wonderful focus for a school concert celebration. Each group was able to perform their cultural play/story/dance using the puppets.
In addition, we used the puppets to help celebrate cultural diversity in parades such as our local Christmas pageant and 2007 Come Out festivals. Our IT Coordinator, together with our student forum in IT, took photos and movies of the project from start to finish.
Cindy “was patient and helped me to develop new skills”…..had great ideas”….."showed us what a puppet maker really does….. "The project with our artist:“was fantastic and everyone did their very best” “helped us to know about people from other countries”.....“was a great opportunity to work in small groups and make a really professional puppet”...“kept us learning by doing” In the future: ”I am going to make more puppets at home”......“use my puppet making skills to help others in my class” Students
240 students were involved in this project.
