Lessons Learned

Some core lessons learned through the experience include:

• The importance of choosing the right artists for the right students: The Black artists we invited suited a school with a largely diverse population of BPOC kids. For the kids it was meaningful that they saw a reflection of themselves in the artists who taught them.

• Importance of time for building a relationship and keeping the kids engaged: The three-day timeline allowed the artists to build meaningful and memorable relationships with the children. With even more time allotted, the outcome could have been even more memorable.

• Importance of teacher encouragement, open-mindedness and input: Because of the open-mindedness of the teachers’ the children felt encouraged to engage with us and were given a chance to be themselves and share their interests with us, while supported by familiar faces.

The students were receptive to the creative outputs, learned about their peers' cultures and formed a rapport with the artists. When asked to give feedback on the programme a child reported “I learned about different cultures and different types of songs”.


On the 2nd workshop day the students had been asked to bring in an object from their family archives. We found that they had a keen interest and confidence in discussing their own cultural heritage. Some displayed a great knowledge on the history of their objects and understood the significance they had to their families. Through talking to students or by being in their learning environment we witnessed that their teachers had begun developing a cultural hybridity within their classroom. Which would have positively influenced how keen the students were to share their interests with us.