Keys 2 Success Summer Camp- A reflection

Keys 2 Success hosted their first in-person Piano Bus this past summer 2021 with the goal of expanding their mission to provide free music education to underserved children living in Newark. This in-person initiative included piano lessons, art lessons, as well as music theory and was held in the North, East, and West wards. In addition to Piano Bus Keys 2 Success also hosted an online summer camp, STEAM Camp, that provided piano, singing, STEM, and art classes. This first-person account echoes the experiences of Summer Camp both online and in-person.

This year’s Keys 2 Success summer camp started off with me whizzing down the streets of Newark with a ball of anxiety and also excitement in my stomach. It was to be my first day of a month full of new experiences.

My main goal going into this camp was to provide kids with a fun summer! I wanted our art classes to be a place where they could have a good time being creative and hopefully learning as well. When planning out the lessons, we wanted to incorporate technical art concepts like color theory and principles of design into the crafts. In the end, not only did the kids learn about the educational side of art, but I also learned about conveying these concepts.

At times, teaching young children is challenging as it’s hard to gauge their understanding. I had to remind myself that something that may be simple to me, may be very difficult for the children to understand. I helped teach the color theory week. Our lessons involved explaining concepts like complementary colors, and then implementing that lesson into a craft project. Some kids got it easily, others needed more explaining but ultimately everyone was able to do it by the end.

In the future, I want to experiment with constructing lessons that stray away from directly explaining the concept to the kids, and instead focus more on teaching the lesson in a way where they come to the conclusion themselves. When teaching complementary colors, instead of telling them which ones are complementary, we would guide them with questions and pictures and examples to come up with the complementary colors themselves. Asking questions like what’s your favorite color? What color does your favorite color pair well with? Why do you think that is? What color does your favorite color not pair well with? Questions like these could cause students to really think about the way colors interact with each other, and I believe teaching in this way would make these concepts easier for kids to understand.

When I think about the highlights of this week, and the moments that will stick in my brain for a very long time, I think about the conversations I’ve had with the kids. While they worked on their drawings, they told me about themselves and their lives, about siblings and hobbies. As someone who is quite shy, I know the strength it takes to open up to people you don’t know very well, so it feels extremely special to know that the students trust me enough to tell me about themselves. Throughout these conversations, one thing that stood out to me was how universal some experiences are regardless of age or where you grew up. Experiences like being afraid to start a new grade, feeling like you’re not a good artist, or being scared to try something new because you’re scared of messing up. These are just a few examples from these conversations, but these are experiences that almost everyone has been through, including myself. Even simple childhood crafts like origami fortune tellers span generations.

Our prompts were relatively simple and open ended, so I loved seeing all the different ideas the students came up with. Some of the artwork was so creative and out-of-the-box that it blew my mind. I had one student, Angelo, who showed us some of his artwork that he did outside of class during one of our online lessons, and that moment stuck with me because it’s such a wonderful feeling to know that the kids trust you. Almost all the kids shared their pieces with us at the end of class, and because artwork can be so personal, I admired the courage they displayed. Even the students that lacked confidence in their art at the beginning were able to create pieces they were proud of in the end.

Overall, Keys 2 Success’s summer camp was such an exciting experience and I hope to see some familiar faces at next year’s camp!

Ella Platts is a rising high school junior studying graphic design and industrial design. She joined Keys 2 Success in 2021 through the Pen Pal program and is currently a volunteer with the Fundraising Committee, where she applies her artistic talents to creating digital content. Her interests include reading, writing, drawing, and historical sewing. Ella believes that every child should have opportunities in the arts, in order for them to foster their imagination and creativity.