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[ Available in Spanish: "
Proyectos para Niños del
Barrio " ]
© 2000
Patricia Jane St. John Danko
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Pleides |
Patricia Jane Danko is well known for
her many and diverse projects with inner city children and
adolescents.
She
has received many fellowships and grants in support of her work, including
a five-year endowed chair at Gregory-Lincoln Education Center, supported
by I Have a Dream Foundation and the Houston ISD's Middle School Initiative
Funds; |
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a two-year position in which, as Art
Director for the Houston Adventure Play Association, she designed and implemented
an art and theater program at the Houston Adventure Playground; an Impact
II Developer Grant from Exxon Corporation; numerous small project grants
from the Houston Business Committee for Educational Excellence;and most recently,
a Title VII Federal Grant for her project, "Chicks on the
Wire."
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In addition to residencies through
Young Audiences of Houston, she has created many community outreach programs,
including those she designed and implemented for the Houston Grand Opera,
the Houston Zoo, the Orange Show Foundation, Medyko Productions, the Galveston
Mardi Gras Munchkins' Parade, and many more. |
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Like You
/ Como Tu |
Her art therapeutic work with children
is documented as part of the PBS television production, “The Orange
Show Concert Series for
Children.” |
Jane's latest project, "Chicks on the
Wire." is an art therapeutic program funded by the federal Title VII Enrichment
Program, Caminos Bilingues al Exito/Bilingual Pathways to
Success.
The purpose of this bilingual program
is to assist inner-city Hispanic adolescent girls in developing an awareness
of self within the actual context of their own lives, and to help them become
accomplished and adept in their own self-analysis and self-knowledge processes,
in their capabilities, in their
communication skills, and in the social
and cognitive skills necessary to become participating, satisfied members
of society, with goals and hopes for and confidence in the
future. |
Chicks on
the Wire
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Using puppets
and masks that each girl makes for herself and then uses as an alter ego,
any and all topics pertaining to conflict in the girls’ personal, social,
and academic lives are open for discussion.
The girls,
using their puppets and masks, present ongoing discussion circles, led from
behind a cardboard “privacy
stage.”
In this way,
the girls are released from the constrictions of reality, and may act out
and discuss their problems with “anonymity.” |
All members
of Chicks have signed a confidentiality agreement in which they have agreed
that topics discussed in Chicks will not be disclosed outside of the
meetings. |
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From
time to time, parents and friends are invited for special presentations by
the girls, in which the girls act out specific problems with conflict resolution,
using their masks and puppets.
The girls
are assisted in an analysis of the demographic, economic, academic, and social
contexts in which they find themselves. |
Hansel and
Gretal
Then, looking
at this data and projecting both short and long-range goals for themselves,
they draw conclusions as to how to deal successfully with their lives from
within their personal life contexts .
Taking a
break !!!!!!
They relate
details to the larger scope and sequence of their lives, and attempt to
understand the effects their own actions and nonactions can
cause. |
Making the
Enchanted Tree
for "Hansel and Gretal" |
Conversations
with Death / Pláticas con la Muerte
A project
for Day of the Dead / Día de los Muertos |
They analyze
their own individual points of view, as well as the prevailing points of
view in their family, their peer group, their neighborhood, and in the wider
contexts of the city and country in which they live.
Making the
Ofrenda -- The Ofrenda installed at Lawndale
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They are given
the skills necessary to recognize propaganda and persuasive techniques, and
to distinguish fact from nonfact in their daily lives, including those related
to the opposite sex, crime, gangs, and drugs.
Kids Teaching
Kids
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They compare
and contrast and then analyze the motives behind the different points of
view encountered in their daily lives.
They generate,
discuss, and compare different ways of navigating their lives in response
to the contexts in which they live, generalizing from both their own prior
knowledge and their new analyses in order to evaluate and make judgements
about what they need to do in order to predict positive outcomes in their
own lives.
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Because of
Columbus |
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Throughout
this process, a metacognitive awareness is fostered in the girls through
constant analysis of the skills and processes they are using, so that these
skills will transfer to all parts of their lives, and continue through their
academic careers and their lives after school.
Jane's work
with children and adolescents has been and continues to be, for her, more
than a "day job" with which to supplement her income as an artist and
writer. |
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With the
realization, upon the death of her husband, that she would have to work outside
her studio in order to support herself, Jane consciously decided to look
for work that would be meaningful.
She returned
to the University of Houston to obtain the advanced degrees that would formally
qualify her for the work she already knew she
loved: using art to help the children and adolescents in her
own inner-city neighborhood make contact with themselves and their own
creativity, and then to use that creativity to become better adjusted and
better functioning members of their family, school, and
society.
© 2000
Patricia Jane St. John Danko |
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