Community Synthesis Essay

Engaging in Collaborative Partnerships within Communities and Museums In an ideal situation, arts teachers should be able to collaborate with their community’s members, local universities, and museums to enrich the curriculum. Living in small rural Iowa does not leave many options in this area. The closest college or university with an art department is over an hour away, and the closet art museum of any note is another half hour further. Carroll’s location leaves little chance of partnering with academic or creative institutions to help students build their creative nature. Partnership options therefore lay within community involvement in the arts program. In her interview Whaley (personal communication, December 3, 2015) states that there is not much community support for the arts in Carroll. She continues by adding that this community has a strong focus on sports, but because they focus on sports so much that there is little balance between sports and everything else. With sports seasons running into each other it makes sense that sports are a community focus in this rural area. Sports teams have events that happen one to three times a week that provide the community with local entertainment, how can the arts compete with that?

Somewhere that will not compete against the sporting events but at the same time increase the awareness of the arts. Heiman (personal communication, December 3, 2015) references this idea when he mentions a partnership between Carroll middle school’s art department and local businesses for the display of student art in their building. This is one area that growth at Carroll Community Schools can continue to be made. Perhaps the goal should be to find a local business to partner with, to put on a youth art month display and