Gift that Keep on Giving
Connecting College, Campus, Community through Art

Arecent collaboration between The University of Iowa College of Education, Iowa City schools, and others was all about giving.

The project began with hosting Joseph Cashore, a marionette virtuoso, as an artist in residence. Nearly 1,200 fifth and sixth graders from 13 local elementary schools were then invited to a performance of Cashore’s “Simple Gifts,” a show that displays the art of puppetry as well as explores many emotional subjects.

College of Education professors Rachel Williams (Art Education) and Tarrell Portman (School Counseling) and more than 25 counseling and art education graduate students worked with Iowa City art teachers and guidance counselors on creating curricula to incorporate both the puppet making and the emotional content of “Simple Gifts” into their classrooms after the performance.

Portman said her counseling students created a unit based upon several “gifts.”

“Lessons included the gift of self expression, the gift of self-control, the gift of goal setting, and the gift of empathy,” she said. “I hope this project helps the many children who saw the Cashore performances embrace the gifts they give to themselves and to others.”

Portman said the lessons on gifts are meant to be presented to students before they attend the Cashore performance, to prepare them to get the most out of the experience.

Art teachers got in on the act by learning to make their own marionettes and rod puppets in a series of in-service meetings with Williams and her students.

Wunder uses puppet making to teach students self-expression and empathy.

Amy Wunder (MA ’04), an art teacher at Lucas Elementary School who is working on her Ph.D. in art education at the College, said she had never made puppets before with her students and enjoyed the experience.

“It’s been outstanding. Watching the marionettes and doing the in-service and seeing what other art teachers were doing really inspired me,” she said.

The kids seemed to enjoy the new learning experience as well.

Using feathers, googly eyes, jewels, and beads, fifth graders in Wunder’s class transformed blobs of colored clay into unique puppet characters.

Dan Heick made an alien with a red rectangular head and 10 eyes. Jade Gravelin made a replica of her hamster, Missy. Luke Posivio made Theodore Roosevelt complete with a handlebar mustache and silver glasses frames.

The project, which also involved Hancher Auditorium and The UI Center for Teaching, doesn’t stop in Iowa City; Cashore will use Williams’ and Portman’s curricula when he performs for other school children all over the United States and abroad.