Fresno Arts Council Certifies New Cohort of Teaching Artists to Offer Arts Lessons for Fresno County Elementary Students

This March, Fresno Arts Council certified twenty-three new teaching artists to work in Fresno County PK-6 public schools. In four day-long sessions, professional artists and arts students from Fresno State and Fresno City College developed their teaching skills, including classroom management and student engagement, navigating and teaching to California Common Core and Arts Standards, and arts lesson planning and assessment

With the passage of Proposition 28, which will provide supplemental arts education funding for all California students, the need for credentialed art teachers and teaching artists will increase. Fresno Arts Council has been helping to place teaching artists in Fresno County classrooms to provide instruction in visual arts, media arts, dance, theatre, and music for several years Part of this effort includes training artists to offer lessons and experiences tied to California Arts Standards in safe and engaging environments

Fresno Arts Council’s training was developed in partnership with Fresno County Office of Education to prepare professional artists to supplement students’ current art curriculum provided by their multiple subject teachers Teaching Artists are not usually credentialed teachers, but instead are dual-career professionals who possess expertise in their artistic discipline and the ability to engage students in grade-level arts learning Teaching Artists work in tandem with classroom teachers to plan a sequence of lessons that help students meet standards and develop skills and confidence in visual, performing, and media arts, while establishing a foundation for lifelong art appreciation.

For this session, Fresno Arts Council partnered with Fresno State University to offer its certification training to students enrolled in Art 177S, a service learning course for Arts majors. Students received class credit for participating in this training. Our newest cohort of teaching artists includes specialists in drawing and painting, ceramics and sculpture, theatrical performance and technical design, dance, and fiber arts.

If you are interested in bringing teaching artists into your school, classroom, or community space or are interested in future teaching artist trainings, please contact Program Coordinator, Andrea Mele at andrea@fresnoartscouncil.org.