Journey to Refuge: Understanding Refugees, Exploring Trauma, and Best Practices for Newcomers and Schools

Pre-K through 12th grade schools within the United States have become much more diverse in recent years. Schools are now commonly not only diverse because of diverse students born in the United States, but also have many immigrant students. A growing number of these immigrant students are resettled children who have refugee status. In schools, these recent immigrants are called newcomers. This book is a culmination of research and anecdotal experiences regarding the refugee issue as it pertains to these students in American schools and schools elsewhere in the world. Scholars, policy makers, educators, those who work in the refugee field, artists, musicians, and others have come together to provide this resource of fifteen chapters that address three areas regarding the refugee student. This information is designed to help educators and volunteers who work with newcomer students and includes a) what it means to be a refugee, b) how the newcomer student may be affected by trauma, and c) best practices for the classroom. Additionally, fifteen spotlight sections highlight valuable resources, ideas, or organizations that may assist schools and educators who work with newcomer students. This book goes alongside a documentary film called Refuge in the Heartland, which the editor co-directed and is available on YouTube, and was produced by the Kansas State University College of Education. The authors and contributors of this book have direct experience in working with refugees, newcomer students, traumatized individuals, or in teacher preparation programs. The work of former students of 40 universities is represented in this text, as well as many other non-profit organizations. The artwork was done by students at Valley Center Middle School in Valley Center, Kansas and by their teacher, Marie Taylor, a graduate of the KSU College of Education Art Education Program. This book is dedicated to the children who leave a refugee camp halfway across the world on a hot summer day dressed in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip flips, and whose airplane lands on a ten-degree day in a snowy, cold place that is unlike anything they have ever experienced.https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1026/thumbnail.jp

I am me: using buoyant biopsychosocial art education curriculum and storyboards to explore self-esteem with sixth grade students

Doctor of PhilosophyCurriculum and Instruction ProgramsDebbie MercerSchools must adapt to the needs of the 21st century learner. Relevant, meaningful curriculum with important implications toward students’ needs and cultures through their biographies, psychologies, and sociologies brings value to the learner, school, and society. This instrumental, single case study sought to explore how a specific curriculum developed for this study–I Am Me: THOUGHTS of Buoyancy–could teach an understanding of self-esteem to sixth-graders that would then be potentially exhibited in art making and reflection. While the curriculum unit developed for this study had six art projects and eight lesson plans, the I Am Me Storyboard art project was the central focus of data analysis. Buoyancy was used as a metaphor to assist in teaching the meaning of self-esteem. Instrumental case study was implemented by the examination of the case for larger implications in 21st century art education. By investigating the development of an intercultural classroom through art activities and art making and by using the art curriculum for social emotional learning, the curriculum was analyzed for its usefulness in providing meaningful learning above and beyond art content within middle school art classes. Arts Based Research (Leavy, 2018) was the theoretical framework for the study, building on the work of Eisner (2002) and Dewey (1934). The study was a meta-synthesis of art education curriculum, storytelling, and biopsychosocial education with a pedagogical focus on Culturally Responsive Teaching (Gay, 2018) and Biography Driven Instruction (Herrera, 2016). This study built upon the research of early adolescent self-esteem by DuBois, Felner, Brand, Phillips, and Lease (1996), which categorized evidence of self-esteem into the five categories of family, friends, activities, body image, and school. The acronym “EASEA” was developed during this study to represent Early Adolescent Self-esteem Analysis, encompassing these five categories of self-esteem. The intent of the student artists–the participants–was analyzed using visual, verbal, and “vervisual” examination. The term vervisual was developed for this study to represent a third zone of communication in which visual and verbal communication are used in tandem to inform meaning. A variety of data sources were used including field notes, interviews, information provided by students’ parents or guardians, and five different artistic phases of the storyboard that included the art making and a written or verbal artist statement for each phase. Findings of the study revealed that students told recognizable visual and verbal stories depicting components of self-esteem in a variety of ways. Students told stories in implicit or explicit ways that sometimes needed both the visual artifact and the verbal statement to be fully understood. Students felt empowered by having control over how much of their story they chose to tell. Through their art making and written or verbal artist statements, many students chose to share joyous aspects of their lives reflecting things they loved, that brought them laughter, or that represented their lives (Herrera, 2016). Students shared biopsychosocial aspects of their lives and their social emotional needs were addressed through the planned curriculum or given an opportunity to be explored. By choice, some students shared difficult aspects of their personal lives. Data revealed that all ten trauma reflecting communications were first completed as drawings in the geometric design phase where students drew a symbol representing their past, present, and future. Findings revealed that after students first drew an image, they then felt freer to write a written description of what they had drawn. Another unique finding of the study was that the various components of students’ storyboards depicted a visual rhythm or movement that cohesively and aesthetically conveyed a vervisual language, unique to each student. The study was also particularly revealing with newcomer (refugee) students and recent immigrants, giving them a platform to share their experiences prior to going to school in the United States and expressing the importance of their culture. The findings indicate that curriculum such as I Am Me: THOUGHTS of Buoyancy has a place in art education, that university pre-service art education programs should investigate the inclusion of social emotional learning courses for students majoring in art education, and that art educators should work with school counselors in developing art curriculum that addresses character traits and other issues of concern with middle school students