How art makes low-income kids future ready

In 2016 fifthyear architecture student Chhavi Khandelwal conducted her first art class for 30 class 2 students at Shankarwadi MPS school Jogeshwari East in collaboration with Manasi Mehan a Teach for India fellow The students had come prepared to draw a mountain river and sun The typical drawing we have all scribbled once as studentsBut Khandelwal asked the kids to feel the paint ldquoMummy gussa karegirdquo one student said By the end of the class each of them had dunked their palms into paint and transferred the print onto paper ldquoManasi strung all the artworks together into a banner When the students questioned this we spoke to them about teamwork Soon the class became a space for students to express what they were feelingrdquo says Khandelwal who calls her meeting with Mehan who is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Education from Harvard serendipitousAt the time Khandelwal was pursuing a thesis hypothesis that art can change lives ldquoI had worked with communities in Dharavi and Behrampada where children from lowincome groups hated going to school The impersonal teaching method was proving counterproductiverdquo says Khandelwal who was wondering whether art could be a deconditioning component to make education more relatable and personal to childrenAt the end of the academic year the art students turned the school hall into an exhibition centre to showcase their art as an lsquoEnd of Year Exhibitionrsquo for parents and teachers ldquoIn that moment we realised this cannot be restricted to just one classrdquoMonitoring and evaluation manager Tanushree Patel right chooses artworks to be put up at End of Year Exhibition 40 PicAnurag AhireBy 2018 they took up a small office in Vile Parle and cofounded Saturday Art Class SArC a nonprofit that uses the art integration approach in education for lowerincome and government schools in IndialdquoThe children used to call it Saturday Art Class and the name stuck With resource constraints we began with a volunteerrun system and looked for fundraising opportunities to build the organisationrdquo smiles KhandelwalCut to 2024 Saturday Art Class has a presence in 13 states including Tamil Nadu Kashmir Nagaland and Gujarat and works with class teachers from target schools A multilingual WhatsApp bot has 3000 educators receive art class plans resources supplementary training and support Today they have adopted Shankarwadi MPS as their official centre under two associates who are building research on the impact of visual art and socialemotional learningThis year is doubly special for the duo Next week SArC is set to receive an official contract from Mumbairsquos civic body the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai MCGM With this they will be on board to design and implement the art education programme across 20 BMC schools in the cityRukhmini Bhatia and Chhavi KhandelwalldquoSchools even in a metropolis city like Mumbai do not have a robust art curriculum A class teacher is adept at teaching mathematics and science but not many can teach art Our objective is to get arts and socialemotional learning into the mainstream and study what happens to the overall development of the child when it is done Creativity is innate and the children take to it You have to be able to facilitaterdquo says Khandelwal adding a team of associates will track how the curriculum is being implemented and train the teachersProgramme lead Rukhmini Bhatia who has curated the curriculum for the MCGM project for class 1 to 5 says ldquoWe have mapped our lesson plans to match the BMC syllabus For example we will teach the kids about colours by observing the works of say Peter Max and Yayoi Kusama We have made room for Indian art forms such as Warli and Gond art as well as global artists including Romero Brito who works well if you want to teach the kids about patternsrdquoA typical class will begin with the exploration of an art topic or an artistrsquos work and move to imagination and creating in groups pairs and individually During the sharing they pose inquirybased questions ldquoThis helps us understand their thoughtprocess and reasonsrdquo Bhatia explainsThe organisation has been selected for Presidentrsquos Innovation Challenge PIC a project that celebrates innovators from all 13 Harvard schools who are transforming ideas into impact Mehan along with support from the team back home pitched the intervention by SArC for PIC and emerged as one of the five semifinalists out of over 350 applications from around 38 countriesldquoPursuing higher education in that intellectually stimulating environment has allowed me to weave this passion into an international fabricrdquo says Mehan who continues to contribute to the growth of Saturday Art Class by applying the learnings from class and peers to the organisation back homeldquoContenders are selected under the Social Impact Student Track which is for ventures that address critical sectors of social and economic inequities climate change sustainability education preservation of arts and culture among othersrdquo says Mehan The pitch is a contender to win the Bertarelli Foundation funding of 515000 to be announced on May 1Having concluded End of Year Exhibition 40 yesterday Khandelwal and Mehan have a lot to look forward to ldquoThe main goal of education today is to provide agency to children give them the ability to voice their thoughts and be future ready In a world dominated by AI and the Internet we need to instil in them the ability to solve problems creativelyrdquo Khandelwal concludeslsquoI draw from imaginationrsquoHazrat Ali Shaikh left in red who has been attending Saturday Art Class for the past three years holds up an artwork with his friendEvery Friday evening Shahani Parveen Shaikhrsquos 11yearold son Hazrat Ali Shaikh reminds her to add his crayons and drawing book to his packed bag ldquoHazrat was a rather quiet child I couldnrsquot tell what he was feeling He started attending art class in class 4 and today three years on he comes home with his creation and tells me what the teachers taughtrdquo says the Jogeshwari East residentHazrat says ldquoMujhe suraj banana accha lagta hairdquo parroting his favourite colours that range from mango orange to yellow and green ldquoDidi taught me how to follow my imagination I sometimes make things out of paper Once they spoke to us about cleanliness toordquo