As part of the Truth to Power Festival, the Institute for Learning, Access and Training offered an educational program aimed at engaging teachers and students at three Chicago Public Schools; the program focused on the development and implementation of festival-related curriculum units that integrated music, visual art, social studies, language arts and math.

Participating teachers attended a series of workshops between November 2013 and April 2014 that included lectures exploring the idea of “Truth to Power” in a variety of artistic and social contexts. Time was provided for curriculum planning, reflection and documentation.

Each school had the opportunity to draw on the Citizen Musician Fellows, a select group of musicians from the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, to support its curriculum through classroom visits and in-school performances.

In addition to classroom learning, students visited Symphony Center for the annual CSO Youth Concerts, which explored the music of Britten, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. A culminating event on May 22 offered students a chance to showcase their work for an audience of their peers and family members and to hear performances by musicians from the Civic Orchestra as well as famed cellist and Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Yo-Yo Ma.

The three participating schools, all part of the CPS Fine and Performing Arts Magnet Cluster Program, were Walt Disney Magnet Elementary, Alex Haley Elementary and George B. Swift Elementary. Participating students were in grades 6 and 8.

Visit the pages linked below to learn more about the schools’ projects, view samples of student work, and hear about the program’s impact on student learning and teacher instructional leadership.