Art teacher Jesse Steiner (in Groucho Marx disguise) holds up the wheel for a student artist to spin to choose the tool he will use to paint.

When art teacher Jesse Steiner recently brought a few canvasses created during a schoolwide project to the Putnam | Northern Westchester BOCES administrative building, he expected to hang up one or two. As staff members stopped to admire the work, however, he quickly realized he would need to bring back more canvases.    

 

"Everyone seemed to want to choose one to hang in their offices or the halls," he recalled. Steiner was struck by the staff's appreciation for the art and the process behind it - and by the strong feeling of community that stretches between the educational and administrative sides of PNW BOCES.

 

The canvasses that are now being added to the administrative building are certainly striking. What's even more striking is how they were created.

 

During a month of classes at the Pines Bridge and Walden schools, Steiner and teaching assistant Debra Canzio turned the process of creating art into a "game show" involving all students. Dressed like a game-show host, complete with a fake nose and glasses disguise, Steiner created an exciting atmosphere designed to engage his students.

 

Each week, students spun a wheel to choose a tool to add paint to a class canvas. The implements included traditional tools such as brushes and ones specially devised by Steiner, such as basketballs attached to rollers or catapults that launched cat toys dipped in paints across the room. As the project went on, the painting tools went from large brushes and rollers involving large-motor skills to smaller brushes and stamps that required more fine-motor skills. 

 

Introduced by Steiner as if they were guests in a show, the students all had moments in the limelight contributing to their class's canvas. They also spent time "in the audience" supporting their classmates.

 

"Regardless of the students' goals and needs, and their functional level, we were able to target our instruction to make it appropriate," Steiner said. The project challenged the students in many areas including motor skills planning, language and communication, attention to a task and appropriate participation in a group.

 

"The kids were having so much fun, however, they didn't perceive it as educational," Steiner noted. The fun atmosphere helped students feel more comfortable about picking up a tool and helping make a piece of artwork come alive.

 

"When they can be 'in the moment,' that's when the magic happens," he said. "They're not thinking about something that upset them earlier or a task they don't want to do later in the day."  

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As they recently celebrated the annual Thanksgiving Feast at the Pines Bridge School, several students looked up from plates piled high with turkey, stuffing, baked ziti and sweet potatoes topped with crispy marshmallows to answer the question, "What are you thankful for today?"

"I'm thankful for the staff," said Lashanda Crosby, "and thankful I got to help today."

"I'm thankful I came to school today, because I love the food here," classmate Jhuleidy Rivera said.

Looking over at the teachers, aides and other staff still serving students the many dishes they had prepared, student Erin Ledwith said, "I'm thankful for all the food they made us."

	Lashanda Crosby and Anthony Reda carry notes on all the things they are grateful for to the Thanksgiving Feast

For about 25 years, staff at the Putnam | Northern Westchester BOCES school in Yorktown have marked the Thursday before Thanksgiving by cooking and bringing in trays of turkeys, side dishes, pasta and mac-and-cheese, along with pies and other desserts, for a school-wide celebration. Teacher Connie Liotta said the day is mostly about the food - after all, it is a "feast" - but it also offers a chance for students to work on important socialization skills. Some students, including those in her class, also helped decorate the tables set up in the school gym with pumpkins, paper turkeys and other symbols of fall.

"It's just a wo nderful tradition," she said, "and there's a lot to be said for tradition."