Arts Education Spotlight: Juneau Arts & Humanities Council

September 13-19, 2020 is National Arts in Education Week, and is a national celebration recognizing the transformative power of the arts in education. The arts are an essential part of a complete education, no matter if it happens in the home, school, or community. Students of all ages—from kindergarten to college to creative aging programs—benefit from artistic learning, innovative thinking, and creativity. The Alaska State Council on the Arts celebrates, with gratitude, all the Alaskans participating in supporting our children and youth through teaching and learning in and through arts and cultures in Alaska.

As we begin our new Grantee Spotlight feature in the ASCA newsletter, and with the schools in session across the state, it seemed appropriate to highlight the work of one of ASCA’s long term arts in education grantee partners. The Juneau Arts & Humanities Council (JAHC) incorporated in 1973. It is the formal arts agency for the Capital City of Juneau, Alaska and operates the Juneau Arts and Culture Center (JACC), a vibrant community center, along with Centennial Hall. The Juneau Arts & Humanities Council cultivates vibrant arts and cultural opportunities and is a leader in building a strong, prosperous community where creativity and innovation thrive.

The JAHC is a recipient of ASCA funding in the Biennial Operating Support and Artists in Schools Grant Categories, and is ASCA’s key partner in the Alaska Poetry Out Loud program, which operates with funding through a Special Project Grant. JAHC is a hub for the arts in Juneau, and their commitment to partnership in support of participation and learning for children and youth in the City and Borough of Juneau has grown and developed over many years.

Stephen Qacung Blanchett is the Education Director at the JAHC. Blanchett is an Indigenous rock star (you can learn more about his artistic practice on the Pamyua website and on Qacung’s Facebook page) , with over two decades of experience in the Artists in Schools program across Alaska. Of the JAHC’s approach to arts education, Blanchett shared, “Our philosophy and approach to our work is knowing that we cannot do it alone. With every single one of our programs, our approach is to work as a collective voice with our community. In doing this we find ways to partner with local, state, and national organizations to achieve our goals, to bring not only the arts to our community, but also utilizing and uplifting the beautiful Indigenous cultural knowledge from around the state, especially from the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian Aani. As a core value in our mission, we strive to educate through arts and cultures. As an organization we also strive for equity and inclusion in all of our programming, and by doing this we work to mirror what our community looks like, so that every voice can be heard.”

“To give you perspective of how we operate and how we believe our work should go forward, we developed a 10-year strategic plan that includes the goal to provide arts & culture education opportunities through collaborative work with partners like the Juneau School District to coordinate and complement arts and cultural educational opportunities in school programs and professional development, that enrich arts, humanities, and cultural learning for all children.” To learn more about all the programs and partnerships in support of teaching and learning in and through arts and cultures at the JAHC, and the many community partners engaged with this work in Juneau, go to https://www.jahc.org/education/.

Blanchett writes, “Driven by the core belief that every student deserves a quality arts and culture education, our goals are to: (1) Sustain and expand  district programs for learning in and through the arts and culture for all K-12 students; (2) Support teachers and teaching artists in providing learning through arts and culture, and (3) Engage our arts-rich community in advocating for the value of arts and cultural learning for Juneau students.”

As a means to meet their goals, JAHC and their partners focus on developing educators, including classroom teachers and teaching artists. “Our greatest assets are our teachers and the teaching artists. If we can build the skill set and the resources for them, our efforts to integrate the arts and culture within everyday learning can be achieved.” During the drastic changes to how education is delivered in community with the pandemic, JAHC has relied on their partnerships and the creativity of dedicated teaching artists and educators. “Immediately after the closure of schools in Alaska, JAHC and a handful of teaching artists that had the resources in that very moment, created online content and provided virtual arts integration instruction, requested by JSD administration and staff. Providing technological resources and training to all of our teaching artists and teachers will give necessary wide spread support to the schools that are struggling to keep virtual classroom instruction consistent.”

What does success look like for the JAHC Team and their community partners during this time? “By providing all of our teaching artists with the resources and tools to help schools with arts integration, success will be measured by the completion of artist residencies to every school within the school district, the creation of local online content that is relevant to the diverse community of Juneau, and ensuring that every student has access to art and culture education. Now that we have started the new school year, we have hit the starting blocks running, working together with JSD to continue our vital work.”

“One of the beautiful and shining moments with virtual classroom experiences was working with master weaver and storyteller Lily Hope. Working with JAHC, Ms. Hope created an art kit that coincided with a traditional Tlingit Story. The Box of Daylight Window Art mini kit was sent out to families along with Lily’s recorded story with a youtube link.” You can visit the link to Lily Hope’s Storytelling on youtube at https://youtu.be/wlQ0s0yUqrE.

“As we continue our efforts to integrate arts and culture in our students every day learning experiences, we celebrate the amazing strides that we’ve accomplished together as a collective, we also acknowledge that we still have so much more to learn together as community for our common goals, of equity, inclusion, justice, beauty, through arts and culture integration for every single student in our community.”