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Silk Road Connect students from Frederick Douglass Academy III performing with the Silk Road Ensemble at SummerStage in June 2011
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© JENNIFER TAYLOR
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Silk Road Connect
A Silk Road Project Educational Program
Silk Road Project Artistic Director Yo-Yo Ma has outlined the following priorities for effective education, which inform our Silk Road Connect initiative:
- Passion-Driven Education: Inspire curiosity and awaken students to a world larger than themselves, making learning self-sustaining by transforming it from a requirement to a desire.
- Peak Experiences: Make content memorable so that students can be transported by their encounters and can connect them to future experiences.
- Disciplined Imagination: Draw on all students' intelligences, senses, experiences and intuitions.
- Empathy: Encourage students to understand something deeply and put themselves in others' shoes, opening the possibility for unexpected connections.
In line with the priorities outlined above, Silk Road Connect has partnered with schools to address these specific goals:
- To empower students and teachers to discover links across areas of study by highlighting what connects rather than separates them, fostering a comprehensive understanding of our world and the individual's place within it.
- To improve academic achievement and student motivation by increasing opportunities for participation in the arts, taking advantage of the integral relation of arts with academics by teaching history and science through music, arts, dance and storytelling.
- To actively address the various learning strengths of the individual by presenting memorable experiences that challenge the student through different senses (e.g., aurally, visually, tactilely).
- To introduce models of excellence to students and teachers to inspire passion-driven learning, giving teachers tools, training and support to enrich their interactions with students and connect he disparate elements of the middle school experience.
- To break free of the "learning as usual" textbook environment by simultaneously bringing the world into the classroom and leading the classroom out into the world.
- To establish sixth grade as a platform for success by sparking students' curiosity and fostering a culture of inquiry, positioning teachers as coaches and learning partners rather than simply dispensers of information.
- To create a sustainable and transferable model of passion-driven education.
Teaching Artist Program
A dynamic and diverse collection of professional artists visit schools to share their knowledge and passion. These teaching artists include musicians, dancers, visual artists, actors, and writers from the community, as well as members of the Silk Road Ensemble. Preparatory activities, such as specially-created biographies, provide students and teachers opportunities to think about the visiting artists and help drive the content through questions. Each visit includes student participation in an arts activity, as well as classroom follow-up with post-visit activities and reflection on learning. At the core of these visits are the relationships that form between students and artists, with teaching artists returning at the end of the year to perform with students. A Lead Teaching Artist serves as a point of continuity for schools and helps build visits to reinforce learning goals.
Professional Development
Teachers receive quarterly professional development sessions with other NYC Department of Education (DOE) schools and teachers, as well as on-site and embedded professional development throughout the year. Teachers will have access to a variety of educators and cultural partners that will help them build and use tools to plan dynamic lessons, improve student engagement and inquiry, and document successful outcomes in the classroom.
Instructional Materials and Resources
Schools have access to tested instructional materials including lesson plans, lesson ideas and best practices. Video and audio files intended to support classroom activities are available, as well as visual materials (maps and photos) about the Silk Road. Resource Guides, Museum Guides, preparation materials for teaching artist visits, and instructional links are all available for download online.
A Collaborative Team Approach
Critical to the success of Silk Road Connect in schools are the collaborative teaching teams that implement the program. Teachers from different disciplines work together to build lessons and units that will help students engage in the DOE curriculum, think critically, and make connections from the classroom to the world beyond.
Support from Silk Road Staff
Each Partner School is assigned a Silk Road Connect Fellow to serve as liaison with the school, providing information, assistance with resources, team facilitation, and documentation fo classroom instruction and outcomes.
Performance
Throughout the year, students learn about aspects of performance and gain firsthand experience with performance etiquette and sharing what they know through performance. Reasons for performance, process, reflection, and opportunity for expression are aspects of what students encounter as they learn to create and share content with others.
Learning Goals
To help students make connections, learning goals such as Storytelling, Journeys, Community, and Tradition help students think about the purpose of performance as well as their roles as learners.
Silk Road Connect is being conducted in New York City by invitation from the NYC Department of Education. The Silk Road Project piloted Silk Road Connect in public schools in New York City in the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years, involving approximately 500 students per year.
Pilot Program Schools
East Bronx Academy for the Future (Bronx)
Frederick Douglass Academy III (Bronx)
PS/MS 161 Pedro Albizu Campos School (Upper Manhattan)
The Young Women's Leadership School of Brooklyn (Brooklyn)
Edward Bleeker Jr High School 185Q (Queens)
MS 584 Granville T Woods School (Brooklyn)
Pilot Program Partners
The American Museum of Natural History
CALLIOPE Magazine
The Harvard Graduate School of Education
Jenny Balfour-Paul, indigo expert
Long Bow Group
Manhattan School of Music
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
National Geographic’s Genographic Project
New York City Department of Education
The Rubin Museum of Art
The Silk Road Ensemble
The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE)
Teachers College at Columbia University
The Yarn Tree
Pilot Program Sponsors
Pershing Square Foundation
Ford Foundation
New York Community Trust
National Endowment for the Arts
Union Square Fund
Con Edison of New York
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