Curiosity & Learning: Bridging Arts, Education, and Health
7347631231
Tribute Room - 1322
Join us for an engaging "Lunch and Learn" event hosted by the Eileen Lappin Weiser Center for the Learning Sciences. As part of our series celebrating the theme of curiosity, we invite you to a thought-provoking conversation featuring Deborah Gordon-Gurfinkel (U-M Residential College) and Francesca Williamson (Learning Health Sciences, U-M Medical School).
In this session, panelists will delve into how curiosity not only propels their research and teaching but also fosters innovative, community-engaged practices. Discover how curiosity-driven initiatives like the expressive arts program "Telling It" address the learning and mental health needs of youth, and learn about the insights garnered from Black children's interactions in healthcare settings. This session promises to expand your understanding of the transformative roles curiosity and learning play in the arts and health sciences.
Bring your lunch, your questions, and your curiosity! Light snacks will be provided.
Register: https://myumi.ch/jZ3Gg
Presentations:
Deborah Gordon-Gurfinkel - Telling It: Addressing the learning and mental health needs of youth in Washtenaw County through creative expression and evidence-based youth engagement practices
The presentation will focus on the development of Telling It framed by the teaching practices of its founder, Deb Gordon-Gurfinkel. Deb taught 6-12th grade students in London, England before emigrating to the USA in 1986. Telling It is an expressive arts program founded in 2002 that operates in collaboration with schools, shelter organizations, community centers, and carceral systems. The program is linked with the U-M Residential College undergraduate course, Community Empowerment through the Arts. Telling It staff support the mental health of young individuals by providing safe, creative, uncensored and judgement-free spaces. Through its multimodal approach, Telling It strives to cultivate resilience, empower and uplift personal strengths, and provide an expressive arts-based outlet for processing emotional struggles driven by the questions, needs and interests of the youth and our community partners
Francesca A. Williamson - Learning with Black Children and Childhoods in Health Care
This presentation centers on what we can learn about learning and curiosity from Black children's interactions in healthcare settings. Drawing upon ongoing research with children in cancer and surgical care settings, I bring together ideas from multiple disciplines and empirical findings to illuminate Black children's livingness, curiosities, and ways of knowing. I will discuss how learning from children's healthcare interactions can also inspire more humanizing, equitable care.