Time In Children's Initiative is a brilliant and life-changing multi-arts program that serves the most underserved schools and communities in Harlem and the South Bronx. Children--often homeless or victims of abuse--are taken to museums and galleries, where they sit and draw artworks in rapt attention. These are kids who have most typically never left a five-block radius of their homes. The effects of this are shown in the classroom, where children who have been a part of Time In show much greater concentration, interest, and patience. They also excel at academic tasks. This only stands to reason, because art and music are shown to enhance and develop cognitive skills. And they love it.
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- EIN 26-3603729
- (212) 209-1552
- 723 Humboldt St Apt 3 Brooklyn NY 11222-3521 USA
- timeinkids.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Arts & Culture, Arts Education
Mission: Dedicated to overcoming the academic, social and emotional iniquities of at-risk children through an arts inspired curriculum
Programs: The time in children's arts initiative's (ti) provided opera 'n art (ona) programming to 625 of the city's most at-risk public school children from harlem and the south bronx in fy15. Ona was an interdisciplinary engagement of opera through hands-on art, combined with museum/gallery visits, intensive language and literary texts each week-as part of the normal school day-for pre-k-3rd graders from three title 1 schools ps 30, ps 197 (harlem) and ps 63 (morrisania). Ti radically changed the vistas of children, teachers, administrators and parents in each school. For pre-k - 2nd graders, ona provided a nuanced and impactful early learning path to foreground the importance of the arts in the development of a diverse range of musical and visual arts competencies. Students and their classroom teachers participated in weekly, 1. 5 hour, out-of-school arts immersions from october-june. These immersions alternated between hands-on art sessions in ti's light-filled chelsea studio that focused on one opera or ballet over the course of a trimester and gallery hops/museum visits to many of the most important art exhibitions in the city (matisse & jacob lawrence at moma, kusama at zwirner, herreraat sikkema jenkins, zero at guggenheim to name a few). Mentored in a 5:1 student/teacher ratio by a group of some of the city's most up-and- coming working artists, students created a series of original artworks with an abundance of professional-quality materials. Ona studio sessions were musically immersive, including spoken and sung narration by resident vocal artist, lead teacher, soprano and distinguished arts educator, cyndie bellen-berth z ne. For 3rd graders, ti brought more sophisticated ona programming with a greater intellectual breadth and skill-based focus to children already having 1-4 years of ona behind them. A motivating combination of opera and the japanese art of manga, ona's work with 3rd graders was a successful vehicle for finely honed drawing skills, self-expressive language & creative writing in a dialogic learning environment. The ona 3rd graders learned to take direction productively and to explore ideas and imagery that reinforce a developing, pre-adolescent sense of self. An independent evaluation this spring of pk-2nd grade artwork demonstrated ti's impact: based on nyc's blueprint for the visual arts, 93% of pre-k-2nd grade students paint at a 5th grade level, and 92% fulfill the blueprint's 8th grade expectations for work in mixed media. Teachers also noted important increases in written performance, creativity, and social-emotional development as a result of ona. In one of ps197's 3rd grade classes this past year, with support from ona's arts immersive intervention, 100% of students passed the nys ela, a first for this highly challenged title 1 school, which is a feeder for 5 domestic violence shelters.