FiftyThree and Guggenheim Bring Digital Art to Classrooms
Creativity is surrounded by myths, including the notion that it's innate. We see this disproved every day here at FiftyThree, from watching distinct sketching styles emerge and evolve among members of Mix, to getting emails about how Paper re-ignited someone's childhood love of doodling.
Creativity isn't second nature only to a lucky few; we're all born creative but, over our formative years, it's slowly trained out of us. This is no doubt why, when asking a second grade class who thinks of themselves as creative, 95% of students will raise their hands. Fast forward to fifth grade and only 50% will, and by high school only 5% of students identify as creative (via).
We want to help eradicate this trend, which is why FiftyThree teamed up with the Guggenheim Museum to do just that. For the past 44 years, the Guggenheim has sent teaching artists into New York City's public schools through a wonderful program called Learning Through Art (LTA). By studying not only art, but the artistic process, students are taught to think more creatively. The year-long program targets 4th, 5th, and 6th graders, a developmentally pivotal age when kids typically decide whether they're "creative" or not.
Understanding technology's ability to accelerate learning, the Guggenheim introduced our app Paper and iPad into the LTA program. Under the expert tutelage of teaching artist Jeff Hopkins, students from the 6th grade class at P.S. 86 used Paper alongside traditional art tools. Especially cool is that the resulting work is now on display at the Guggenheim Museum! The exhibition ends June 17th, so be sure to check it out if you're in the area.
To commemorate this special program, the talented filmmaking duo Michael Tyburski and Eddy Vallante created this short film in collaboration with our team. Enjoy!
