The Mission of The Starry Night Collective is to provide an arts-infused education for E/BD students to better suit their learning needs, as well as to educate and raise the awareness of teachers and others to these students’ unique situation.
The Starry Night Collective believes that if there is any group that needs this understanding and creative approach to learning, it is E/BD students. Statistically, E/BD students have the highest rate of incarceration among handicapped-identified student groups, and their graduation rate is the lowest. The evidence supports that it’s much harder for them to learn in the conventional classroom setting because their learning style is distinctly different from that of their peers.
We believe the best way for these students to learn is by using the arts as a teaching modality; this creates an opportunity for the student to learn from the whole, as opposed to just reading and/or writing. E/BD students simply have a different style of learning. To better accommodate their talents we ask them to take what they know about a topic and create a work of art, instead of writing a long paper or memorizing facts. This also helps them move from the turmoil of the emotional part of their minds and to access the logical part, where learning happens.
In most educational institutions, the curriculum for E/BD students focuses on language and mathematics, areas that are the most difficult for them to deal with. We propose leveraging the areas they are best in: interpersonal sensitivity, whole-to-part thinking and spatial creativity—areas that are developed through art and music. Mastering these will give them a better chance of increasing their proficiency in other academic areas.
Students who are identified as E/BD have had dismal educational outcomes in the traditional classroom. Our unique and targeted educational approach is geared to making their outcomes positive and hopeful. By giving children with E/BD a chance to express themselves through the arts—a medium that has been known to help learners with mental health issues—we believe we can help correct the systematic problems that have prevented them from learning in the past.
On our way to helping these students, we’ll be helping teachers better understand the needs of students with E/BD, which will prepare them for dealing with future students with similar needs. Part of our mission is to develop and share unique curricula utilizing the creative nature of the arts so that students with E/BD can achieve at the same levels as other children.
Additionally, we will raise funds and develop complete educational programs that we work to seamlessly integrate into a school’s lesson plans. During the programs we also track and record all the results so we can continually make our program stronger.
