Art and music students at Central College partnered to create picture books for children featuring inspirational stories and songs.
2023 Student Voice Survey Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse found that less than half (42 percent) of college students believe their professors select diverse course materials that represent diverse perspectives and voices.
Over the past several years, Central College faculty and students have considered ways to diversify the music curriculum to include the voices of women and non-American leaders in music education. To further diversify music education, Sarah Van Waardhuizen, associate professor of music at the Iowa institution, was inspired to have students create their own books that reflect their own experiences and perspectives.
Through a departmental partnership, music education students created new teaching materials to share with young students in their own classrooms. The hardcover books help fund future music education and conference attendance for Central School students.
Creating Art: Van Waardhuizen is piloting the new course, Elementary Music Methods, in spring 2023, making the children’s book a central feature of the course. The goal was to write simple songs with simple chords that elementary school children could learn and sing along with, along with a story with a life lesson.
Matt Kelly, professor of art and chair of Central’s visual and performing arts department, helped find students who could illustrate the books along with the music students who wrote the songs.
Music education students wrote stories and songs and then met with art students. Students edited the books and they evolved as the illustrations were created. The arts students each received one research credit to offset the workload as well.
“The collaboration and dialogue was practical and very educational for the students,” says Van Waardhuizen.
The course eventually produced three books, one by each of the students in the course and one by Van Waardhuizen.
One student, Quincy Cottrell, created a story based on Albert Einstein’s quote: “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its entire life believing it is stupid.” The Story Wishes for fish focuses on how each individual is unique and should be celebrated together with friends.
At the end of the term, Van Waardhuizen submitted the art to a publishing website to print hard copies, which she distributed over the summer. The department received no external funding for the production of the project, but a small percentage of sales is given to a venture fund that covers attendance at conferences and other music education projects.
The impact: “The partnership has resulted in a beautiful fusion of music and art, creating a new approach to storytelling and education,” says Van Waardhuizen.
Each student who contributed received a hardcover copy of their book that they could bring into their classrooms to use in their curriculum.
“How cool is that? I think young children will be fired up when they see that their teacher has published a hardcover book,” says Van Waardhuizen.
All three books are also sold online.
As a result of this class, additional faculty members from other departments, such as communication studies and psychology, are interested in partnering to create similar projects.
The cornerstones of the experience were trust and creativity, as students had to push themselves throughout the semester to meet deadlines and overcome problems, but the resulting product was worth it, says Van Waardhuizen.
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