NIU art education students to teach during MDA camp

by Mark McGowan

Twenty students from NIU's Art Education program will have a unique opportunity this week to work with teens in a Muscular Dystrophy Association summer camp in Stevenson Towers.

Suesi Metcalf, an instructor in the School of Art, and Leslie Arbetman, the coordinating art education graduate student, are leading art education students in a program that will result in more than seven hours with the MDA campers from July 12 to 16.

"One hundred high school students are coming in, and about 90 of them will be in wheelchairs," Metcalf said. "Our goal is to give them as much control as we can to say, visually, what they want."

Projects will include a clay mural - a collaborative piece the MDA requested (for later inclusion on its Web site) - which will tie into the camp's Olympic theme. This collaborative piece might be finally presented in a suspended state.

The campers will also have the opportunity to visit a "mixed media" station where they can paint, draw, collage or combine things to produce self-portraits or other work. Campers also can make their own paper during another project.

Metcalf said Arbetman was responsible for the procurement of nearly $700 of donated art supplies (including high-quality paper and acrylic paints) from Good's of Evanston, an art supply store located in Evanston.

Metcalf instructs a summer class that concerns the teaching of art in special needs populations and settings. Her students spent four hours making adaptive tools, such as headgear with a penlight laser, which will allow the tool's users to direct and "put colors where they want them."

The camp will prove invaluable for the art education majors, Metcalf said.

"The biggest thing about teaching the special needs population is just the fear of not knowing what to do," she said.

"Leslie and I had a meeting with everybody in the summer class, and I told them: 'This is a great opportunity for you to work with special needs populations. This is your time to experiment in a less-structured environment and try things you believe in,' " she added. "I believe that these kinds of experiences will really help my students feel more at ease in the diverse classroom."

7-12-04