If you miss sandboxes, recess, brown paper lunch bags and nap time, START may be the right thing for you. Student Teachers for the Arts is one of the most popular volunteer programs on the campus, probably because it feels less like community service and more like romper room.
"The volunteers love it," Gail Malsin said, Outreach & Arts Education Coordinator. "Everyone finds it so inspiring, so fun and interesting ... It doesn't feel like you're doing civic duty. It's a win-win situation."
The START program revolves around Dartmouth's efforts to bring arts education to local elementary school children of all ages. Participants visit a local school about six times throughout the course of the term, teaching the students whatever creative endeavor happens to be his or her specialty.
Malsin oversees the program, and she has been actively involved in START since its conception in 1992. That year, Plainfield Elementary School's budget cuts prevented students from taking art, music and physical education classes, and a slew of community volunteers filled in for teachers. Malsin was one of those volunteers.
When Tim Rub, director of the College's Hood Museum, caught wind of the fact that his daughter, a Plainfield student, was missing out on an art education, he started communicating with Malsin and a then Dartmouth senior Lisabeth Sewell about bringing arts back to the schools. Sewell, a dancer and arts enthusiast, had the idea of sending Dartmouth students to local schools to teach them about all of the creative and fun stuff they were missing out on.
Six years later, START has transformed from a good idea to a strong community force in its own right. Apparently, the cries of "Bobby hit me!" and "Can I eat that?" aren't enough to scare away Dartmouth students. Last spring, 51 Dartmouth men and women were involved in the program, the highest number of volunteers for a single term ever. Typically, the volunteers' projects vary wildly, ranging from tried-and-true arts & crafts to nature writing to tap dancing.
Students in the START program are given the freedom to design their own activities, but they shouldn't be too surprised if the elementary school kids seem to stick with certain themes. In fact, it's part of the fun. This year, snakes seemed to pop up in many of the boys' projects in Samantha Goldberg's '98 class and the Spice Girls were popular with female students.
Seeing one student design a wind chime banner that depicted an anaconda swallowing a man whole and spitting out his head was one particular highlight, even if his mom probably didn't appreciate it.
Besides getting to see what sick things kids are interested in, there's a lot more to the START experience. Malsin notes volunteers seem to get the most out of the classes when they work in groups. It is generally more fun and less pressure. Malsin recommends volunteers work in pairs so that the classrooms will not be full of disappointed children in case one student falls ill or forgets to show. Even if minor catastrophes have occurred in the past, Malsin is always impressed by the volunteers that come each year.
"I love working with the START volunteers," Malsin said. "They seem to be such wonderful people, bright, talented, full of fun. They have so many interesting ideas, and the kids love it when they show up."
Students feel the same way about the program. Diane Ellsworth '01 taught acting to second and third graders and was impressed by their energy and boundless enthusiasm.
"Just be yourself and be happy," she advised potential START volunteers. "The kids will think so much of you and you in turn will think so much of them."
This fall, START will be welcoming its returning volunteers as well as prospective student teachers and some new staff members. Serving as manager for the Outreach & Arts Education Program will be Eleanor Marsh, and Emily Csatari '99 will be the program's senior intern. Together, Malsin, Marsh and Csatari hope to keep START as influential and popular on campus as it has been these past few years. Malsin isn't worried.
"You know," she confided, "START has this momentum behind it. It truly has a life of its own."
