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Introduction to Express Diversity!

An Educational Resource Guide

1. Program Goals
2. Why did VSA create Express Diversity!
3. Guiding Themes
4. How it Works
5. What the Resource Guide Includes
6. Contacts

ED! Program Goals

Express Diversity! is a series of learning modules, lessons and resources to expand your students' sensitivity and awareness about society and the importance of every individual. The topic of disability is infused into the arts in such a way as to promote discussion and new insights.

Educators are searching for lesson plans that speak to the growing numbers of students with disabilities in their classrooms -- plans that are inclusive, comprehensive, and engaging. Written at the fifth-grade level, but adaptable for kindergarten through twelfth-graders, thisone-of a kind curriculum provides easy-to-use art activities that help students make connections across disciplines and between themselves and a larger world.

 Why did VSA create Express Diversity?

Express Diversity! recognizes and addresses the fact that all school-aged children with and without disabilities are faced with some of the same challenges. The program deals with a variety of subjects that all children are faced with, including issues of self-esteem, diversity awareness and sensitivity, and an understanding of the relationship of the individual to the community and society as a whole.

Each year, classroom teachers charged with the care and education of the youth of America are challenged to develop new and interesting ways to engage their students in school-wide acknowledgement of disability awareness, sensitivity, and appropriate inclusion. Using the arts as a means to enhance communication and unity in the classroom, Express Diversity! encourages children to ask questions, engage in discussions, and work toward a better understanding of each other.

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Guiding Themes are woven throughout the modules.

• Every individual is unique.
• Every individual has the right to basic fairness and basic respect.
• Every individual has problems to solve.

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 How it works:

Teacher materials provide12 - 20 hours of art activities for the "non-art" teacher, presenting in "modules" in each of the five subject areas.

1. An Introduction to Disability
2. People First
3. Communities for Everyone
4. Important Contributions
5. Inventions and Independent Living

Range and adaptability: Art activities range from creative writing to visual arts to drama and are the basis of the resource guide lesson plans. The lessons may be used at any time during the year or targeted to commemorate Disability Awareness Month or Exceptional Children's Week.

The Details on How the Program Works include: the Organization of the Materials, the Scope and Sequence of the program, the Adaptability of the Materials, and working with Students with Disabilities.

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 The Express Diversity! Resource Guide includes:

1. five adaptable, easy-to-use arts activities for the "non-art" teacher
2. arts and disability vocabulary for teachers, students and families
3. extension activities
4. journaling activities
5. homework assignments
6. an annotated reading list for students
7. family activities in English and Spanish
8. video segments to accompany the arts activities, and
9. a bulletin board kit with:
   a timeline of disability from 1400 to the present day, twenty-two biographies of people with disabilities, and a poster of interesting facts about disability

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Contacts:

For more information about the program not included on these pages, please call VSA at 1-800-933-8721, TDD (202) 737-0645, FAX: (202) 429-0868, or email info@vsarts.org .

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