Rachel Watts leads a workshop, demonstrating her dedication to supporting educators and artists who foster creativity in college students by arts schooling.
Photograph courtesy Brian Hatton
For over 4 a long time, Arts Connection has been a beacon of arts schooling in New York Metropolis, guaranteeing that public college youth have entry to high quality arts programming. On the helm of this mission is Rachel Watts, the chief director of Arts Connection, whose private journey with the humanities has formed her dedication to the group’s work.
Based 45 years in the past, Arts Connection emerged in response to widespread price range cuts that eliminated artwork lecturers from New York Metropolis public colleges. “The origins of the group had been to make it possible for younger folks nonetheless had entry to the humanities,” Watts defined. Since then, Arts Connection has performed a crucial position in shaping arts schooling, offering in-school arts programming throughout all 5 boroughs from pre-Ok by twelfth grade in a number of disciplines, together with dance, music, theater, and visible arts.
In the present day, one-third of New York Metropolis public colleges wouldn’t have an artwork instructor, making Arts Connection a vital useful resource for college students. Past its school-based packages, the group additionally presents artist and educator coaching and out-of-school packages designed to introduce teenagers to careers within the arts.
Watts’s ardour for arts schooling stems from her experiences rising up between Trinidad and the USA. “I wasn’t an excellent scholar till I received to include the humanities into my studying,” she shared. “That’s after I realized I wasn’t silly. The humanities helped me construct the boldness to know that I had ideas and concepts value exploring.”
Her tutorial journey displays this ardour. After finishing her A-Ranges in Trinidad, she pursued an undergraduate diploma in Caribbean artwork. She later earned a grasp’s diploma in Latin American and Caribbean Research from New York College, the place she labored with esteemed Barbadian writer Kamau Brathwaite.
Her profession in artwork schooling started on the Studio Museum in Harlem, the place she facilitated excursions utilizing visible pondering methods. This methodology encourages learners to investigate artwork by inquiry quite than instruction. She later labored at Ballet Hispanico, mixing her experience in Caribbean tradition with dance schooling. Watts joined Arts Connection in 1998, left to run a youth middle in California, and returned in 2011. She has served as government director since 2020.
Watts firmly believes that the humanities are greater than only a artistic outlet. They’re an important device for cognitive and social-emotional growth. “The humanities assist younger folks problem-solve, work collaboratively, and navigate ambiguity,” she mentioned. “In addition they present important social-emotional studying expertise, serving to college students course of feelings and develop perseverance.”
She argues that many instructional programs focus too closely on test-based studying quite than fostering crucial pondering. “The humanities assist folks be taught to assume and develop their concepts, quite than simply studying to go a check,” she emphasised.
Underneath Watts’s management, Arts Connection continues to bridge the hole in arts schooling for hundreds of scholars. She hopes to empower the subsequent technology of artists and thinkers in New York Metropolis and past by advocating for elevated arts entry and fostering artistic studying environments.
