Focusing on the Future

A relational art project with fourth grade students

Emily Szymanski and Emily Gleeson

ObjectiveOur objective was to reach out to a low-income school in St. John’s county, seeking to get fourth grade students to think positively about their futures. We wanted to help them set goals, and more importantly, get to reflect on how the choices that they make now will affect them in the future.

“Through creating art and reflecting on the art products and processes, people can increase

awareness of self and others cope with symptoms, stress and traumatic experiences; enhance

cognitive abilities; and enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of making art.”

—Art Therapy Association, 2013

Main Goals of Our Project1. Emphasize to the children the

importance of setting goals.2. Orient them towards careers:

We asked them to write about what they aspired to do in the future.

3. Help them to develop their own personal concepts of “identity”.

We used the image of a tree to represent the concepts of the past, present and future. Roots: past

experiences that ground you as an individual

Trunk: how you define your identity now (as a fourth grade student)

Branches: goals that you have for the future

A Symbolic Approach

Assessing Our Progress: At the close of our project, we

distributed surveys to the children, in order to assess how much they had learned.

Outcome We hope to have not only have engaged

these children for a four week period, but also to have inspired them to set positive goals for years to come.

Giving Back The remaining of our funds were

donated to the school’s art program, through the purchase of needed supplies.