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The ASU Gammage Molly Blank Fund Teaching Artist Program

Today we had the opportunity to attend part of the Teaching Artist Program (TAP), at the ASU Fulton Center. It was an educational and inspiring training! The Kennedy Center provided a thorough and valuable interactive session. We were very impressed with the discussion groups and resources! The Abbett Family Foundation is proud to co-sponsor this amazing opportunity to train local artist to share their talents in an educational setting. The ability to integrate art and school curriculum will provide art awareness and understanding through an art form. Students will engage in a creative process which connects that art form and their subject matter, building the students knowledge and skills through arts integration. The program will also build teacher capacity to teach through the arts.

 

To meet the growing demand for highly qualified teaching artists, over the next 3 years, ASU Gammage plans to train 90 local artists by providing them an opportunity to implement creative and educational lesson plans for the classroom, seamlessly integrating art and learning for K-12 Valley students.

 

The Molly Blank Fund – ASU Gammage Teaching Artists Program (TAP) is designed to create teaching artists in the metro Phoenix area that have been trained in the Kennedy Center arts integration method. After training, these teaching artists will develop residency lesson plans that will be implemented in a classroom setting. TAP artists will also be listed on ASU Gammage’s Teaching Artist Roster helping them to secure future teaching opportunities.

 

The program is limited to 30 – 40 local artists (both novice and experienced) who can commit to the entire program, which spans a school year. The program is being offered for the 2018-2019, 2019-2020, and 2020-2021 school year. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the cohort has been filled with qualified applicants. Applicants will be notified of their status within a month of their application.

 

TAP artists will also be required to observe an arts-integrated workshop in one of the Mesa, Scottsdale, Peoria, and Paradise Valley school districts. TAP artists will also participate in workshops, such as AZ State Department of Education Standards, classroom management, and marketing.

 

After the initial training, TAP artists will develop a residency plan with arts-integrated lesson plans. With assistance from ASU Gammage and their partnering districts, TAP artists will implement a residency in one of their partner schools.

 

The Molly Blank Fund Teaching Artists Program Roster and further information about this phenomenal program and opportunity can be found at: https://www.asugammage.com/community/school-programs/molly-blank-fund-teaching-artists-program.

 

TAP 2019

The Hamilton Education Program

In collaboration with ASU Gamage and the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the Abbett Family Foundation is pleased to support the Hamilton Education Program. The Gilder Lehrman Institute’s mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of American history through educational programs and resources. The Hamilton Education Program (EduHam) was created to bring civics to life for high school students in response to a 2014 National Assessment of Educational Progress that measured only 1 in 10 students demonstrated knowledge proficiency in U.S. History.

 

The Hamilton Education Program is giving 250,000 low-income high school students and their teachers the chance to understand what it means to be an American, who we are as a country, and what their role can be in their communities. Students are using this knowledge to make critical connections between the past and present, and we hope will continue to do so throughout their lives.

 

We are excited to announce that the feedback from participants in this program has been extremely positive. According to an internal Gilder Lehrman survey, 99 percent of teachers said several months after their participation that the experience would have a lasting impact on their students, and 80 percent said the program changed the way they think about teaching American history.

 

Our experience with the program has been inspiring! We had the opportunity to attend the student performance of Hamilton which included performances and projects based on the student’s learning before the show itself. The goal was to immerse students in primary sources from the period, relying on Gilder Lehrman’s vast trove of more than 60,000 documents. Students would then use a writing process, including analysis of complex texts and creation of cogent arguments based on them and use the information they learned to generate their own projects. The curriculum also asks students to examine the tension between accuracy and historical integrity through close readings. The creativity, passion, and demonstration of understanding through their different art forms was compelling!

 

We want to thank ASU Gammage and Gilder Lehrman for providing students with such an amazing opportunity and unique learning experience. We are so grateful to be apart of it.

 

 

Here is an additional article that provides more information about EduHam:

https://www.the74million.org/article/history-has-its-eyes-on-them-musical-infused-hamilton-education-program-brings-civics-to-life-for-hs-students/

 

ASU Gammage Partnership

This year the Abbett Family Foundation is excited to announce its partnership with ASU Gammage in an initiative to connect Arizona communities and expand their reach to even more students, teachers and communities in the Greater Tucson area and throughout the state. This partnership enables funding specifically for schools outside the Greater Phoenix area to experience ASU Gammage’s unique and unparalleled Cultural Participation programs. Thousands and more children from Tucson and beyond, with little or no access to programs like ASU Gammage’s, will now get to experience the performing arts!

 

In December 2015 we met with Michael Reed and Julianne Mate to discuss details and donated $100,000 to ASU Gammage for youth education and outreach programs. We are very excited to have the capacity to reach more Arizona youth and share the joys of live performances and educational opportunities. The funding will provide bus scholarships, which cover the full costs of transportation to and from the Southern Arizona schools and registration fees for the ASU Gammage programs. The will enable a new group of students to participate in Performances for Students, a series that brings high-level world music and dance artists to a K-12 audience. This initiative began on May 7, 2016 with “Project Tomorrow,” which expected to bring 200 Southern Arizona children and their chaperones to see the Broadway touring production of ANNIE.

 

Our partnership will continue with ASU Gammage through the 2017-2018 season as we extend the reach and correspondence with schools in the southern part of the state. The goal is not to be a “one-and-done”program, but to build relationships and programs that will have a wide-ranging impact. Because the ASU Gammage programs are quite unique and do not exist in other areas of the state.

 

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Welcome

Welcome to the Abbett Family Foundation Website. After a year of planning and organizing we are ready to launch our new website!

 

Our website will contain information on the current year’s grant proposal submission guidelines, projects we are currently working on within the community, information about community benefactors, and information about our organization.

 

We are excited to share in our blog posts the many partnerships we have already started to form in Arizona. We will also include posts relating to community benefactors we are currently working with.

 

Check back yearly for grant proposal submission deadlines and to see what we are currently up to and ways in which you can be involved in the community.