Enrico Giordano, Associate professor and chair of the Fine Arts department, has headed an educational art project at PS 7 in the Bronx since 1996. Funded by a grant from the Annenberg Foundation for Arts Education, this project has integrated art into the curriculum at PS 7 and is recognized as a model of arts integration by the Annenberg Foundation. According to Professor Giordano this program is unique “because the ideas and techniques for these workshops evolve from my own studio work. The essence of the methodology lies in the dynamic relationship between the creative process and the fostering of creativity in both teachers and students.” The project is now recognized on an international level and was a focus of an art conference in Copenhagen last year.

Mount Saint Vincent’s Hudson River Arts and Design Center serves as the training center for teachers at PS 7 and elsewhere. The workshops enable teachers to explore art themselves before bringing it back to the classroom. As one teacher explained in a recent article, “[The workshops] give teachers the chance to transform themselves...Before long, the teachers can expect their self doubts and inhibitions to subside while the artist in them begins to emerge.”

Giordano’s workshops cover all aspects of art, including music and improvisation. They even enable teachers to handle difficult subjects, such as 9/11. Giordano developed a series of workshops focused on the heroism of 9/11. Students and teachers alike are invited to design skyscrapers, create monuments, and more importantly, discuss their feelings about these events.

Giordano sums up his program by saying, “Art Integration is not concerned with transforming teachers into artists or art specialists. However, the ideas and methods do focus on raising the teachers’ comfort level with the creative process….Arts Integration teachers are taught to connect the Arts to large or universal themes in their curriculum.”