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In the March 2009 CAPE Communiqué: |
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CAPE's Mission CAPE advances the arts as a vital strategy for improving teaching and learning by increasing students' capacity for academic success, critical thinking and creativity. CAPE's Vision CAPE works toward a future in which: • students are valued as creators of culture in our society;
• teachers, artists and students work collaboratively to develop and share innovative approaches to teaching and learning in and through the arts in our public schools;
• teachers, artists, school administrators and parents recognize the arts as a key element in transforming schools into vibrant, creative and successful learning communities;
• professional colleagues and partners regularly communicate and share their practices and research in order to continually improve and evolve the field of arts in education; and
• policy makers, business leaders and all citizens value the arts in education as essential to a just and equal society, a thriving economy and an inclusive democratic culture.Board of Directors  Nancy Jones Emrich, Pres. Phil Cote, Vice President Paula S. Carlin, Treasurer Jan Woelffer, Secretary Richard M. Assmus Frank Baiocchi Christine K. Buck Jeffrey A. Byrnes Dawnmarie Domingo Carol P. Eastin Sean D. Egan, Ph.D. Stephen Flisk P. Loreen Mershimer Mel Smith Kylie M. Sorden Beth Swanson Phillip Thomas Bill Tuggle  Donate to CAPE With your financial support, CAPE can bring its extraordinary teaching and learning philosophies and methods to educators and children throughout Chicago. Your gift will enable CAPE to continue to be an effective advocate for positive change in Chicago's public schools. For the third consecutive year Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education has received a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, America's largest independent evaluator of charities. Follow this link to donate to CAPE. Meet the Board Mel Smith Former Board President  What is your occupation? I am President of Investment Concepts, Inc. an investment advisory firm that I started in 1986. We provide investment education and advice to individuals, small businesses and not-for-profit organizations. How long have you been a CAPE Board member? About six years, four of which I was President of the Board. How did you get connected with CAPE for the first time? After many years, I left the board of a small organization that involved teenagers in theater (Free Street Programs) and decided to "interview" several organizations that I had heard about and who did good work with young people. I sort of knew Arnie (Arnold Aprill) from his theater days, so I arranged a meeting with him. CAPE was one of four organizations that I interviewed, and it was clearly the one that best met my own personal goals and interests. What do you like most about the organization? I like the fact that the research that CAPE and others have done shows that CAPE's work does makes a difference in the lives of students touched by our programs. Therefore, the back-of-the-house work that I do can contribute in some way to that impact. Also, I enjoy meeting the principals, teachers and students in the schools and learning how much they appreciate the opportunities that they have as a result of having CAPE programs in their schools. Where would you like to see CAPE in the near future? I'd like to see more funding available so that our programs could go even deeper within the Chicago schools in which we already work, or possibly spread to more schools within CPS. Are you involved with other nonprofit organizations? Although no longer on their board, I do provide occasional advice and counsel to Free Street Programs. I am also on the Board of Trustees of Bradley University in Peoria, and a member of the North Dearborn Association, which is my neighborhood organization. |
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1. CAPE Right Now 2. Teaching Artist Exchange 3. Arts Ed in the Big Easy |
4. CAPE as National Model 5. Alphonsus Academy Leads the Way 6. Cup of PAIR, Anyone? |
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 In February, CPS Right Now, the school district's community access and web-TV channel, went to Telpochcalli School to film the SCALE Afterschool Program. The professionally-done video communicates very clearly how CAPE has helped Telpochcalli frame its whole-school integration of art. Thanks to all who worked on this remarkable documentary into the program's success at this wonderful neighborhood school. And even more kudos to Principal Tamara Witzl, the teachers, staff and parents at Telpochcalli, and the CAPE staff and artists for their roles in making art an integral (and normal) part of the students' lives. The show aired on channels 23 and 49 through March 12. Here is a link to the eight and a half minute video, which has been posted on CAPE's home page. - - - - In other news from Telpochcalli, please plan to attend their annual 8th Grade Benefit on Friday, March 20, from 6-8:30 p.m. at the school, located at 2832 W. 24th Street in Chicago. Admission is just $15 (children under 5 admitted free), and includes an evening of fabulous food, student art exhibition, silent auction, folkloric dance, and other creative presentations. Proceeds from this event go to the 8th Grade Class Fund, which is used in support of the class trip and graduation activities for the Telpochcalli Class of 2009. |
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- - - - CAPE is happy to welcome intern Joshua Lerner, who will be assisting CAPE staff on documentation and data collection. Josh comes to CAPE with a background in youth development and college access work. In addition to his time spent with CAPE, he is currently a site instructor with the Young People's Project, a program focusing on math literacy and leadership development on Chicago's South Side. |
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 "I became interested in CAPE because of its philosophy of arts integration as a fundamental part of equal educational opportunity for all Chicago students." |
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On March 12, 2009, the Center for Community Arts Partnerships at Columbia College Chicago presented, in collaboration with Urban Gateways and CAPE, a day of idea exchange between teaching artists in Chicago and teaching artists visiting from Scotland. |
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Special thanks are due to Mark Diaz, Amanda Lichtenstein, Cynthia Weiss, Shawn Lent, April Langworthy, Kelsey Wild, and Joanne Vena for designing the day's activities. The Teaching Artists Exchange was supported by the Governor's International Art Exchange Program of the Illinois Arts Council, Columbia College Chicago, and the Scottish Arts Council. - - - - On the weekend before Mardi Gras weekend, the Arts Education Partnership (a national coalition of arts, education, business, philanthropic and government organizations that demonstrate and promote the essential role of the arts in the learning and development of every child) convened in New Orleans under the leadership of Director Sandra Ruppert to address the year's theme of surviving and thriving in this period of challenge, opportunity, and transition. New Orleans itself served as both fascinating background and compelling case study. CAPE Executive Director Amy Rasmussen and CAPE Founding and Creative Director Arnold Aprill were joined by fellow Chicagoans Julie Simpson of Urban Gateways, Robert Donnelley of the Smithsonian Education Committee, Sydney Sidwell of the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, Sarah Solotaroff of the Chicago Arts Education Collaborative, and JeeYeun Lee of the Center for Community Arts Partnerships at Columbia College Chicago. Highlights included working with AEP staffers Laura Smyth and Michael Sikes to help develop AEP’s research agenda, brainstorming “scale up” strategies with our colleagues Joanne Toft and Patricia Teske from the Minneapolis Public Schools, working with Harvard-based researcher Steve Seidel to investigate implications and applications of the recently completed “Qualities of Quality” study, and talking with Mississippians Sally Killebrew and Malcom White about the highly successful, ground breaking economic-recovery-through-the-arts strategies developed by the Mississippi Arts Commission in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. |
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- - - - Wonderful colleagues from San Francisco came to visit CAPE. Nicole Avril, Executive Director of the Geneva Car Barn and Powerhouse, and Eva Frank, Executive Director of the Center for Civic Engagement, are planning a bold new initiative in the City by the Bay, and came to brainstorm with CAPE staffers Scott Sikkema and Arnold Aprill. Here's what they had to say about their visit: |
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"The San Francisco-based Geneva Car Barn and Powerhouse is a wonderful, historic, former railway building in significant disrepair. Our goal is to renovate the building and convert it to an arts education center. The heart of its programming will be job-related, arts-related, training for under-served youth, but it will also serve as a cultural resource for the entire community, with a café, gallery, event space, and theater – the only one of its kind in the district. We learned so much from our meeting with Scott and Arnie, but two of the most important take-aways are the following: the criticality of documenting methods, processes and products in ensuring programmatic excellence, and the importance of supporting the establishment of a new contemporary art genre that acknowledges the work done by teaching artists and students as not ancillary, but legitimate in its own right. Thank you! Thank you!" - - - - CAPE researchers Dr. Gail Burnaford and Olga Vazquez unveiled findings from CAPE's after school program, Supporting Communities through Arts Learning Environments (SCALE), at the Eastern Education Research Association Annual Conference in Sarasota, Forida on February 27. They presented alongside educational advocates and academics under the session titled "Interdisciplinary Instruction and Assessment. - - - - On March 6, when CAPE presented on innovative approaches to standards to all the music and visual arts teachers at the district wide Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive Professional Development Day, it was also an opportunity for CAPE to learn. Dr. Beth Russell presented on the Institute for Learning (IFL) frameworks that have been adopted by our sister city. IFL focuses on what it takes for all students in public school districts to become enthusiastic, effective, and independent learners. The approach is based on five “principles of learning”:
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CAPE’s professional development methodology has been recognized as a national model. The Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the San Francisco Arts Commision, and the Santa Clara County Office of Education collaborated to create Designing the Arts Learning Community: A Handbook for K-12 Professional Development Planners to provide school districts with access to information and criteria to help them develop high-quality professional development programs in the arts for their K-12 teachers. This online resource synthesizes documents, interviews, responses from promising practices in the field and literature regarding professional development and arts education. Click to see this documentation of CAPE’s methodology. - - - - Every year, Habla: The Center for Language and Culture in Merida, Mexico, convenes the Habla International Education Summit to provide a series of "Idea Talks" to extend the thinking of the Center. Click to see a video of “New Standards for a New Century”, the talk given in January 2009 by Arnold Aprill, Founding and Creative Director of CAPE. You can also access other Habla Idea Talks. |
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 On February 27, teachers from a diverse array of Chicago Catholic schools attended a workshop co-hosted by CAPE and Alphonsus Academy & Center for the Arts. Close to 30 eager and enthusiastic teachers took part in a lively discussion facilitated by CAPE Founding and Creative Director Arnold Aprill, Education Director Scott Sikkema, and Alphonsus Academy Principal Dr. Megan Stanton Anderson. The sparks of creativity flew as teachers discussed the values of arts integration and learned from some examples of the successful partnership between Alphonsus Academy and CAPE. Alphonsus teachers Michelle Belaisie and Katie Key presented documentation of their stimulating classroom projects, which had pre-schoolers building sculptures of "health" and middle-school students depicting their dreams in the context of both modern art and Lois Lowry's Gossamer. The event culminated with a chance for all participants to envision the benefits the arts may bring to their own classrooms and discuss next steps for making that vision a reality. - - - -  The Partnership for Arts Integration Research (PAIR) project is showcasing visual artwork by 4th and 5th grade students from Healy & James Ward Elementary schools at the Bridgeport Coffee Company, a neighborhood coffeehouse. The project partners two schools in the Magnet Cluster Program to build arts integrated curriculum. Healy, a school with a Fine and Performing Arts focus, and Ward with a World Language focus, teamed up with teaching artists Mirtes Zwierzynski and Adam Busch to explore the theme, “Where am I from, Where am I Going?” PAIR is a collaborative venture between the Chicago Public Schools Office of Academic Enhancement & CAPE, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The artwork is on exhibit through March 29, 2009 at Bridgeport Coffee Company, 3101 S. Morgan, Chicago. - - - -  As part of the Lyric Opera of Chicago's teacher workshop preparing educators for their up-coming production of Pagliacci, CAPE presented a session on teaching "subtext" in writing, highlighting the tension between characters’ thoughts and words and between their words and their actions. Mirroring the famous tenor aria from the opera, in which Canio the clown weeps while applying his comic make-up, participating teachers wrote monologues in which they described having to present themselves in ways that were the opposite of their true feelings. Under the direction of poet Amanda Lichtenstein and CAPE Founding and Creative Director Arnold Aprill, these little "arias" were performed in a make-shift set that turned the workshop room into a laundromat. The performers folded and hung laundry while pouring out their tales of operatically contradictory emotional states, and then discussed applications of the exercise to teaching writing in their classrooms. |
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 © 2009 Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education 203 North Wabash, Suite 1720 • Chicago, Illinois 60601-2417 312/870-6140 • fax:312/870-6147 • info@capeweb.org |