What is the ICM?

The Bernard and Audre Rapoport International Children’s Museum is an outreach program of Art Center Waco. Its mission is to expand the horizons of young minds and to encourage creativity through cultural exchange.

The ICM integrates visual arts and museum science into a school’s daily curriculum through workshops, art exhibitions, artists-in-residence, and international and local art exchanges. The program fosters an appreciation of art as a form of personal expression and as a universal language. Students learn the importance of museums and art in society and about creative thinking through the arts.

Why is art important in the schools? The Creative Art Space for Kids Foundation says: "Young people who participate in the arts for at least three hours on three days each week through at least one full year are:
• 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement
• 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools
• 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair
• 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance
• 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem

Young artists, as compared with their peers, are likely to:

• Attend music, art, and dance classes nearly three times as frequently
• Participate in youth groups nearly four times as frequently
• Read for pleasure nearly twice as often
• Perform community service more than four times as often."

(Living the Arts through Language + Learning: A Report on Community-based Youth Organizations, Shirley Brice Heath, Stanford University and Carnegie Foundation For the Advancement of Teaching, Americans for the Arts Monograph, November 1998)

The curriculum of the International Children's Museum for the Arts is targeted for 4th grade elementary or primary students. It includes 4 short workshops, art-making activities with an artist-in-residence, an art exchange with a foreign primary school, and an exhibit of the exchanged art. The school's art teachers are involved with all ICM activities.

Students participate in a series of workshops about the workings of an art museum. These workshops incorporate but not be limited to the work of the artist(s) on display at the Art Center Waco Gallery. Taught by artists specializing in childhood art education, the workshops run during the normal art class sessions to avoid disrupting regular classroom activities.

The workshops include:

• What is an art museum ?
• Getting to know a work of art
• Art ethics: culture, interpretation and responsibility of a museum
• Developing an exhibition

The artist-in-residence program places a professional artist in the classroom for 2 weeks. Students both learn new techniques and new responses to art works. It is recommended that the students participate in the ICM program even if this grade level has not been selected to work with the Artist-in-residence.

After the students complete the workshop series, they participate in a tour at Art Center Waco and the current exhibit. The tours are tailored to the needs of ICM students and focus on museum operations and the process of developing an exhibition. The tours include a matching hands-on art activity.

An art exchange with a primary school in another country is the "international" in the International Children's Museum program. Area schools connect with young artists from Haiti, Sweden, Russia, and Germany in making and exchanging their artwork for display in their schools. ICM students learn about foreign countries and their art styles. The ICM exchange has been incorporated into social studies classes, reading, writing, history, language, and music classes. Most important, students discover the beauty and diversity in other cultures— and find that art is a universal way to communicate!

Art exchanged with the foreign school is developed into a "museum-in-school" exhibit. Students interested in further exploration of the museum workings may participate in developing the exhibition as curators. The students apply the skills learned in the workshops and tour, such as preservation, cataloging, display, design, and docents (guides).

Beginning in 2004, selected works from the current art exchange will be displayed in the Exhibit section of the ICM website.

What can be done at home to encourage artistic creativity? Visit art museums of all kinds. Compare works and help children to think about what the artist was "trying to say". Talk about the art of everday objects. Draw with your child, or visit art websites. Remember that there is no "right way" to make art. Expressing their feelings through creative works is more important than technique.

The "museum-in-school" ICM program has long partnerships with the Waco Independent School District, City of Waco, McLennan County Youth Collaboration, Museum Association of Waco, McLennan Community College, Baylor University, and other area service and cultural institutions.

We are proud to have the sponsorship of Bernard and Audre Rapaport who provide major grants for the ICM program. A portion of each membership paid to the Art Center Waco goes to sponsor this important community outreach program. We thank our sponsors.