Our Wildwood, Winter 2017, Volume 40

Our Wildwood /Winter 2017 12/13

Working with the Kampani family was a way for Kendra to lend her expertise as an artist, deepen her buddy relationship with the 3rd grade, and produce a cultural connection through art.

WW and Michael that parents know what’s happening in Visual Arts, that they feel comfortable coming in and have reasons to do so. “The committee needed to happen on many levels,” Kendra says. “Artists need community.” involvement, community influence, the arts, social studies, critical thinking, and time management. Getting parents involved was the driving reason behind the new WWPO (Wildwood Parent Organization) Visual Arts Committee. Kendra recognized the potential for parents to be more connected to art in general and their kids’ work in particular. It is important to Kendra

CONNECTING THROUGH PARENT INVOLVEMENT Wildwood culture is steeped in parent involvement. Last year, Visual Arts and a parent who is a design-thinking consultant imagined Wildwood in 2050 through the eyes of 4th graders. The students built models based on their research. Leslie Wilson, a Wildwood parent and architect, who worked with Frank Gehry for many years, got the wheels turning on the project by accompanying the kids to LACMA for a Gehry retrospective. “It was this wonderful opportunity,” Kendra recalls. “We could go on the field trip,

see the show, learn techniques about making models, and connect that to design thinking that was happening on the project.” Afterward, the kids gathered information from around campus (the library, science room, office, the hot lunch serving area, and different classrooms) to determine the needs of particular spaces. Architect parents and Visual Arts provided a sounding board and asked critical questions in the model design and building phase. This opportunity for the kids to “stretch their minds” (a favorite mantra of Michael’s) neatly wrapped together parent