Project Title: How Does Art Help Children Regulate Their Emotions?
BASIS Advisor: Heather Corbett
Internship Location: Red Hook Art Project and BASIS Independent Brooklyn
Onsite Mentor: Tiffiney Davis and Danyelle Weathers
Young children are often flooded with emotions only a canvas can express. In most schools, art education is often reduced to an extracurricular or elective leaving children without a place to process and learn to manage their emotions. There are many reasons why visual art courses should be valued in the education system. While some students may be capable of managing and communicating their emotions effectively, many students lack the tools to do so and can feel overwhelmed or lash out at other students. My project aims to investigate how visual art helps children manage, process, and regulate their emotions. While researching, I will also take into consideration that these children may have different monetary or social situations at home that may affect their emotional state. While working with the Red Hook Art Project and observing visual art classes at BASIS Independent Brooklyn, I will begin to measure how students are impacted by making visual art. I will speak with art therapists to gather what kinds of visual art are most beneficial to children for emotional regulation. Additionally, I plan to survey parents and determine what emotional changes they see in their children after making art or attending art classes. Overall my research for this project is conducted through observation, interviews with parents and children, and academic journaling. I hope to see how art is beneficial to students' emotional regulation and look at how the art education system can be improved to best benefit students' emotional regulation.
My Posts
Week 10: Art Therapist Conversations + Completing The Deliverable
Hello everyone! This was my last week on-site at RHAP and I had a meeting with an art therapist, which was incredibly informative and interesting. Let’s hop right in! At RHAP, we went to Coffey Park to draw singular tree portraits. This was such a grounding way to end the year – together quietly drawing […]
Week 9: Finishing Van Gogh Projects + The Boat
Hello everyone! This week the students wrapped up projects at both locations and I learned a ton about the social prospects of visual art, so let’s discuss. At BASIS, once the students finished their Van Gogh pieces, they did a gallery walkthrough where they left compliments on each other’s pieces. The students seemed overjoyed to […]
Week 8: The Educational Prospects of Visual Art
Hello everyone! I learned a ton about the educational prospects of visual art so let’s get into it. Over these two weeks at BASIS the fourth and second graders worked on Van Gogh paintings, recreating his Starry Night. They were really calm during the art-making process and very reflective as they talked through each step […]
Week 7: Art and Understanding
Welcome back, everyone! It was another amazing week with the students at BASIS and RHAP so let’s get right into it! At BASIS I learned a lot about my students from a different perspective during their classes on Monday. Both the 4th and 2nd graders were doing Keith Haring-inspired pieces where they had to convey […]
Week 6: Art Shows and Field Trips
Hello everyone! This week was full of Art shows field trips and interesting data so let’s dive right in! This weekend was the Art show for the younger schools. This was a wonderful event because I saw all the hard work my classes put on display and witnessed how proud the students were to be […]
Week 5: Sharing The Art
Hello Everyone! Welcome back to another week at BASIS Independent Brooklyn and RHAP. Some exciting things happened this week so let’s get right into it! At BASIS this week we spent a lot of time prepping for the fine arts festival this weekend which will be very exciting. While helping to make the backdrop displays […]
Week 4: Connecting Art Making to Emotion
Hello everyone! This week was much busier than the last two and I am eager to share what went on at BASIS Independent Brooklyn and RHAP with you all! This week the BASIS students were working on their self-portraits in both the 2nd and 4th grades. The 4th graders were eager for me to come […]
Week 2 + 3: Progression With Students
Hi Everyone! I have chosen to combine my week 2 and week 3 blog post as I was celebrating Passover last week, and this week public schools are closed. Week 2 was a very exciting time at Basis. The 4th and 2nd-grade students began new projects where they are designing large beetles that will be […]
Week 1: Starting Off
Welcome to week one! This week I spent a lot of time orienting myself with the teaching styles and children at RHAP and BASIS. On Monday, I started on-site with BASIS Independent Brooklyn and attended the art classes for 4th-grade Titanium and 2nd-grade Aluminum. During these classes, I observed how Ms. Weathers runs things in […]
Week 0: An Introduction
Hello! My name is Katelyn Brickner, and I have been at BASIS Independent Brooklyn since 6th grade. For my senior project, I will be researching how creating visual art helps children manage, process, and regulate their emotions. I am very passionate about teaching and have taught glass-working classes to children over the past few summers. […]