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Professor Timothy Bellavia from Touro University's Graduate School of Education discusses the positive effect of art on social and emotional behavior in the classroom.
The Faculty Chronicles (TFC) podcast, sponsored by the Touro Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), is about building community, connection, and conversation. It will bring to life the stories behind the great works of Touro faculty, across disciplines in all our schools, focusing on classroom innovation in teaching and learning, science, business, medicine, education, wellness and more.
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Speaker 1
Hello and welcome.
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Speaker 2
To the Faculty Chronicles TFC, a podcast sponsored by the Touro Center on Excellence in Teaching and Learning and the Office of the Provost, your TFC podcast host, Army Professor Gina Bardwell and Dr. Elizabeth Ni Across academic disciplines, tural faculty are producing great work and the faculty Chronicle's wants you to hear all about it. TFC Podcasts will highlight faculty chatting about their favorite project in research, teaching, learning, science, medicine, technology and so much more.
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Speaker 2
So let's get busy building community connection and continuous conversation to provide our next faculty. Chronicle guest is on deck waiting to chat.
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Speaker 1
Welcome to the Faculty Chronicles. I am your host, Professor Gina Bardwell. And today's guest is Timothy Bellavia of Toro's Graduate School of Education. Timothy Bellavia is an assistant professor in Childhood's Grade One through six general and special education program at the Graduate School of Education. He earned his MSA from Pratt Institute and was a fellow of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
00:01:23:04 - 00:02:02:01
Speaker 1
And he is the author of several children's picture books, including the award winning We Are All The Same Inside Over the past few decades, he has collaborated with several nonprofit organizations, including Sesame Street and the Herbie Hancock Institute. Of Jazz. He was a recipient of Education's Update Outstanding Educator of the Year Award and is now serving as an integral part of a five year research project to highlight the importance of integrating STEM science, technology, engineering and mathematics topics into elementary schools curriculum.
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Speaker 1
The research is funded through an Education Innovation Research grant from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. As a recent 2020 awards include 100 top visionaries in education at the Global Forum for Education and Learning Marcum Award for Travel Leads The Class and the Video Award for Treble Leads the class. Timothy will go more into what those awards are in our interview.
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Speaker 1
Recent grants include for 2021 CHC, which is City Artists Corpse Grant NISA, New York Foundation's four Arts Grant and of course EA Air Education Innovation Research Grant for 2019 through 2023. Wow. Timothy, you are without a doubt a busy and productive arts educator. Thank you so much for being here.
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Speaker 3
Well, thank you so much for having me.
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Speaker 1
You know, you spoke to me a while back about the International Day of Tolerance. Would you please explain what that's about? To our listening audience and how did that event connect you to tomorrow?
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Speaker 3
Well, it's quite simple. The International Day of Tolerance started in 1995 and it's an annual event at the United Nations. Okay. Specifically in 23, I was asked by Nile Rodgers and his foundation, We Are Family to present my curriculum and the children's book. We are all the same inside, which at the time I was doing at the elementary school that I was teaching at Hunter.
00:03:52:13 - 00:04:19:01
Speaker 3
Many of the sponsors included things like Court TV to the Museum of Tolerance. And with that there were some luminaries like Steven Spielberg, Noah Foundation, Matty JP Stepanek, who at the time as a priest, pretty much a saint at this point, that he was a very renowned poet in his very short time on this planet. And Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
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Speaker 3
This was a curriculum that was to be promoted and that on November 16th of 23. And with that, the international day of tolerance is to generate public awareness of the dangers of intolerance and things like genocide. 23 was a time two years after a two year shy of 2001 and the nine 11 attacks, my curriculum book and dolls were brought into the forum.
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Speaker 3
This attracted Hel Wiki from the graduate school and at the graduate school. But the communications department at Touro and the the Museum of Tolerance again and Genoa Foundation are you know with the with the dangers of intolerance brought me to Toro. And that being said, I was working for your department. Gina and then the Graduate School of Education literally stole me.
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Speaker 1
I remember. I remember you and I working together. Yes, many times, yes. So, Timothy, we just talked about the International Day of Tolerance and what brought you to Touro. And of course, faculty and administration and Touro saw you there and knew that you did this wonderful artistic work where you have developed what we call a sage doll. Will you tell the listeners what is a sage doll?
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Speaker 3
I wish your listeners could actually see the sage doll, but this is a podcast after all. A sage gel is a plush toy that is a utility patent. And this patented doll has two parts. The outside or what represented the outside like a nesting doll are the various skin tones that the participant can decorate however they wish. And the inside witches represents what we have under our largest organ of our body.
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Speaker 3
Which is, of course, for our listeners, the skin is the largest organ in our bodies. The inside parts include the brains and the veins and the hearts and all the different parts that keep our miracle machine living. So within this doll, it is able to share with our common humanity. It also celebrates our differences and our course. Our skin is one of the differences in our lives, where people are judged by how dark it is, how light it is, how smooth it is, how clear it is, how not clear it is.
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Speaker 3
That's what this doll is about and that's what a sex doll is.
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Speaker 1
So the purpose of it really has a lot of social and emotional references. Is that right?
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Speaker 3
That is correct. And of course, this doll came about when I was observing my students during lunchtime where they were talking about different things. That was kind of disturbing, where I mean, in terms of how they were comparing skin tones, but in a real like not a teasing way, but almost like a just like all the systemic problems that we've had in our in our nation, in our world about racism and any ism, for that matter.
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Speaker 3
It was it was borderline uncool. And I thought as a as an art educator, what can I do not necessarily to solve this problem, but what can I do to add on to maybe the Clarksdale study, which of course goes back to 1939 that was instrumental was an instrumental tool of tolerance, if I could call it that, in 1954 during the Brown versus the Board of Education.
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Speaker 3
So the, you know, it's a tool that basically I want the participants to explore And I, and we want of course this to be a place where they could do whatever they want and not necessarily be right or wrong. And of course with this doll I've been included social studies, social, emotional and literacy where they have to write before they do the doll which of course has helped me and the organization and get the money to produce these dolls because I've sewn every single doll in the last two years by myself.
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Speaker 1
One thing is that I like about what you're saying is that they have to write their story and that that story really helps them build on how they are going to create the doll. And I know that you use both the digital and tactile materials and platforms for students to make the doll, to create the doll, to develop it.
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Speaker 1
Could you talk a little bit about that?
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Speaker 3
Well, in recently, in the last nine years, I've used the Sage Doll in the Disney for All Students Act workshop that's required for all teaching candidates in the state of New York to be licensed. They have to take this legislation that was put in by our Honorable Paterson, who actually teaches, I think, at WorldCom, part of our university system.
00:09:00:23 - 00:09:24:16
Speaker 3
Well, honor Honorable Paterson developed a a law in New York State that students and Italy have the ability to learn, but they also have the ability to learn in the safest space that being said, I have the participants write up what would be a situation where they the the avatar or the stage door would be picked on because of was it race?
00:09:24:16 - 00:09:44:23
Speaker 3
Was it did their body size or was it their religion or whatever it is? And they have to write it first and then they have to create the sage style. And it was once upon a time I did it in the tactile form. But because of, you know, our recent events, as we call COVID 19, I, I've developed it with digital.
00:09:44:23 - 00:09:58:21
Speaker 3
So they are able to use their platforms such as Snapchat and any app or digital device to create it, just like they would if they were using a glue stick and fabric parts in yarn and beads and jewels and all that.
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Speaker 1
That's fantastic. I think you've said you told me something about you've created a way for them to drag and drop.
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Speaker 3
Well, I call it dragging and clicking. And so there's there's no there's no one way to do it, but there's no right or wrong way. But they can drag and click and manifest just like they would if they were cutting things out. And all the parts are on the screen and they could drag and click. And this has really been so much fun because I was inspired by my teaching, Candace, that we're teaching with these platforms like Google Class or all these different a pair deck where they they just make they're bringing in gaming basically into the classroom, which who wouldn't want to play a digital game to do reading comprehension as opposed to like just
00:10:44:23 - 00:11:05:12
Speaker 3
reading a textbook and answering the questions and not knowing or not having the insight to look at the insects of the book. So the textbook so these are these are such exciting times for me as an educator and I'm growing and that's what I pedagogy is all about. It's like reaching the students where they are and their strengths and reaching where you want to be.
00:11:05:12 - 00:11:08:07
Speaker 3
And if that's the climb, it's great.
00:11:08:15 - 00:11:36:03
Speaker 1
It is great. It's innovation innovation, which is what the grant actually is. You have a great book that you wrote. It's an award winning book that you wrote several years ago. Called We Are All the Same in Size. And that is a companion piece to your story of the Sage Bell of the development of the Sage Doll. Can you speak about that to the audience and how you use that in the classroom to for your teaching process?
00:11:37:00 - 00:12:23:03
Speaker 3
The We Are All The Same Inside Children's Picture book is at pretty much a hopefully a timeless tale of our common humanity and what we and how we can celebrate each other. And pretty much it's the mission is to basically promote acceptance and or tolerance. And within that I know we ultimately want to have peace and acceptance. But in these times of such systemic problems with humanity, I'm I've always been a cheerleader for the word tolerance because it's not scapegoating in the book it shares that what we what we can embrace, even if our values and beliefs and attitudes are different The book basically just a platform that could be used or doesn't have to be
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Speaker 3
used in terms of the workshop, but it pretty much introduces the concept through pictures and shows diversity and the unity of our humanity.
00:12:34:03 - 00:12:43:11
Speaker 1
Thank you so much. And I'm going to as soon as this interview is over, I'm making an appointment to do my stage door with you. So I'm just saying.
00:12:43:19 - 00:12:53:15
Speaker 3
Okay, I could send that sage out kit to any time you know that. And we can do it on Zoom and we can be safe. And I'll even include all the fixings that you need in even personalizing it.
00:12:53:15 - 00:13:25:04
Speaker 1
Perfect day. All right. That's a day. So I know I'm going to switch just a little bit, and I know that you are part of a trifecta research team, and it's a quite a powerful trifecta and your team received the National Air Educational Innovation Research Grant for 2019 through 2023 to work on teaching mathematics reading music and computational thinking, as well as other areas in the curriculum for elementary students.
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Speaker 1
Could you talk about the strengths that each of you have individually where you were able to get this grant, bring it together and talk a little bit about the grant process.
00:13:37:07 - 00:14:05:18
Speaker 3
I'd be happy to. You know, just like when I was teaching students at Torah or in the elementary school, everyone has their own strengths within this team. We have three principal researchers, including myself, of course, Dr. Cory and Dr. Haber. Within this team, we are have individual strengths and pretty much. Roz is the the editor and I am the creative force in that.
00:14:05:18 - 00:14:28:13
Speaker 3
I was asked to do something and went beyond that something. And it just manifested into such a great research project. And I need to state that, you know, every story starts in the middle. Dr. Haber has had her own storied career in the Department of Education in New York. Dr. Khoury has been doing this math, music and computational thinking, research for years, going back to like 20, 20.
00:14:28:18 - 00:14:53:13
Speaker 3
And so, you know, she brought me in, in 20, 17, 20, 18 and gave me the task of creating these dolls. And puppets. And I thought, oh, I could finally reach my long this term goal with kind of not stepping away from social emotional, but bringing in STEM with math and note dolls and, and computational thinking and numbers, which is something that I'm terrified of.
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Speaker 3
But I secretly want to do that.
00:14:56:19 - 00:15:19:24
Speaker 1
So Timothy, I'm coming to like the final question and I really want to know you said you made discoveries about yourself with you became a better student of math. You were smarter than a fifth grader. But what were some of the discoveries that you noticed of your students as they were working with your note dolls? What did you notice?
00:15:20:23 - 00:15:21:08
Speaker 1
Some of the.
00:15:21:08 - 00:15:47:04
Speaker 3
Things I noticed is that when you have a hands on approach it is a mindset approach. And even though we don't necessarily think that our students are taking it and are learning, they they truly are, because when they're put to task, even though they can't speak they also they could point and they could acknowledge by tapping what the note value is, whether it's for beats, for the hole, for holy moly or the whole note or a half note which is two beats, which is for me, half note.
00:15:47:12 - 00:16:11:21
Speaker 3
Now, you know, one of the interesting initial discoveries I had and challenging challenges was before the pandemic or online learning was when I had a participant that was blind and they had to do a sage style. And of course, this is hands on learning. And that participant I thought about it all night and I got puffy paint and I had to trace the contours of the doll.
00:16:12:01 - 00:16:35:15
Speaker 3
And the participant was able to feel where they were to add the paint and colors and was able to fully participate into a visual arts program. Because I had there was a challenge in and when I so or when I develop a curriculum or write a lesson, I always think about, you know, what can the students do and what can I do to help them manifest or reach this goal?
00:16:35:19 - 00:17:06:21
Speaker 3
And having a blind student is a challenge in the visual arts classroom or concept. So having this situation brought to me and and having the the participant fully participate was one of the first moments where I thought, okay, I can handle this challenge. And then every challenge that has happened from not wanting to work with a glue stick, to maybe having gender specific issues of not wanting to play with a puppet it's been a walk in the park has been a piece of cake.
00:17:07:20 - 00:17:15:15
Speaker 1
Wow. That's interesting because the idea of the puffy paint is that like three dimensional paint that gives it some of a tactile experience.
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Speaker 3
Basically, like has a mountain in a valley where the participant could feel it and then say, Okay, with the paraprofessional, I want the eyes to be brown, or I want the pair would get gave the participant the brush and they were able to put in and then follow the control because like a little tiny wall So this was just something that, you know, and I would document every job that I did over the years.
00:17:38:12 - 00:17:54:18
Speaker 3
And it was my favorite doll that the participants ever made because it was it was such a challenge. And I at first didn't think I could reach that challenge, just like I didn't think I could do it digitally. But, you know, when there's a will, there's a way. And when you're passionate about something, you're just not going to give up.
00:17:54:24 - 00:18:16:23
Speaker 3
And that's what my bye life lessons have always been in life and education where you know it's about education, equity and leadership. And as a teacher, I never thought of myself as a leader, but I have to be because I want to do better. And I can't just sit around and be, you know, confident and rest on a doll that I made 22 years ago.
00:18:16:23 - 00:18:35:10
Speaker 3
I've got to keep moving forward and and these challenges just make it better. And you know, my hope and prayers is that, you know, when I'm no longer here on this planet, that these things that I've developed hopefully will have a life of their own. And can you know, make the connections for learners in the future?
00:18:36:02 - 00:19:03:11
Speaker 1
Timothy, we are so grateful and happy to have you at Toro. I know that I am. You are a sheer joy to to all of the elementary school teachers that you teach to teach students and you are just a sheer joy to be a colleague, to have as a colleague. So thank you so much for being on the faculty Chronicles, for sharing what you do, what you bring to the classroom and what you share.
00:19:03:18 - 00:19:22:19
Speaker 1
In general, all the grants you're working on and all the projects you're working on, who you are truly your work will truly live on. Thanks so much and I hope I can bring you back at some point to see what else you're working on. And don't forget, don't forget. I want my kid. You promised.
00:19:22:22 - 00:19:26:06
Speaker 3
I promise you will get your kit and we will party like it's kindergarten.
00:19:26:09 - 00:19:28:12
Speaker 1
Okay, wonderful. Thank you.