The ARC

**School Year Programs open October 2024**

It’s been soooo many years since we paused to do an introduction about The ARC! So Yalla~

The ARC runs holiday Creativity Camps, special workshops for teachers and parents, Chugim, AND popular extended Afternoon Creativity Programs at sites across the city, during tzaharon hours from 13:30 until past 17:00. We serve more than 150 children each year, from over a dozen different schools and gans~

For the last 9 years, we have partnered with local schools and Teaching Artists to grow our community-based art organization and advance a contemplative play-based pedagogy we call “Creative Consciousing ”. Our Founder Director Eliza Duenow designs all curriculum and typically leads 4 of the program days each week. She also does teacher trainings locally and abroad, as well as presenting at education conferences internationally at least twice a year.

The ARC still only works with small groups of up to a maximum of 12 children, age 5-11 (divided by age…). But we keep some groups at just 8 children for intimate nurturing learning experiences. All groups are held by at least two teachers!

Our Creativity Camps at Wonder School גן וונדר have run for 14 successful seasons of FUN. Summer Programs start at age 3 and go up through our teen Counselors in Training! We LOVE when our kids age up to work with us! And the little kids LOVE the big kid assistants(!)

For the oldest children, we have a special Creative Discovery field trip program to explore cultural, nature, recreation and arts sites across the city. (From central bus station graffiti tours to eco river walks to gallery hopping..). They are amazing adventures and our favorite programs!

All our programs focus on social emotional development and inquiry projects through creative activities, integrating nature investigations, sensory explorations, and mindfulness play. All through an immersive English environment. Our beloved teachers go through training in child development, brain development, alternative pedagogies, non-violent communication, mindfulness, regulation practices, and care-filled trauma-attunement techniques. But our base hiring requirement is a deep LOVE for children and an open curiosity!

We’ve worked with many many “gifted” children, as well as autistic children, and every kind of personality, and we believe all children are brilliant creative souls with beautiful ways of seeing and making. We help them know this as we provide them a nurturing space to be seen, known, and encouraged! All while we discover some mighty cool people, places, and things out in this wild wondrous world~

Children can join us once or twice a week.
Currently we will open programs just after the holidays in October. Old North and Sarona area to start. (Then Maoz Aviv and a new site in Ramat Aviv just after). Spots left in many of the program days!

Peek at some of our cool projects from our “Year of Object Consciousness” in this post. And see more about The ARC Programming online at:
www.arcways.art
https://www.instagram.com/creativeconsciousing

Please come Like/Follow my new foray into posting about the behind the scenes of this work on Creative Consciousing ~

I’ll be sharing stories and images from our work at The ARC, as well as clips from my conference talks and workshops!

Just expanded our offerings of hands-on Creative Ideation sessions to work with adults who are not just teachers or parents or artists. Hosting evenings for trainings, teams, parties or gatherings of folks interested in playing with Making~

A clip from my presentation at the Play on Athens International Conference on Early Childhood Education. I’ve been playing with these ideas since I was a poetry writing child, perhaps they even name my own life path… Birthed into form by hippie artist parents, growing through my studies more metaphysical, then furthered as concepts through my grounding steps in art education work. On the periphery, were decades of critical personal growth work and spiritual practices more as dalliances. These would shift more front and center to inform in later years. In early work in the arts arena, I named my passion to support “youth development through the arts”. Back before Creativity had become so commodified, in that era of aspiring makers with the first wave of The Artist Way (Julia Cameron, 1992). Back then I spoke about Flow more academically (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 2008), challenging it as just a studied state more for “the Creative Class” (Richard Florida, 2002). I pushed for “giving voice” to children through Art. I advocated and fundraised for the Arts empowering communities. I heralded the “identity construction” and life skills arts experiences offered. All building blocks and more palatable framings of what I was trying to get to, what I now call “Consciousing”. These were decades when such terms were not en vogue in the lexicon. The rhetoric of “spirituality” was much more stigmatized, before there were yoga studios on every corner, sage bundles sold at home centers, and hours of insta reels on “self healing” and meeting your inner artist child… This soul of the work, and where it took children and teachers, lit me up. But it was only years later, in watching my own children play, when I stood aside to let, listen, and see how they saw and what they were learning, that the phrasing came to me. “Creative Consciousing”. This was what I was witnessing. From the piling of nursery blocks to the splashing in puddles and mashing of peas, this was focused Presence into Play into Making. This was how they were becoming. (Much more so than how any of my teaching moments might portend to pass on any knowing…) It’s been a joy to play in this work with so many children, teachers, parents, and aspiring makers over the years~ What does creative making do for you? #creativeconsciousing

Excited to announce The ARC is returning for its 12th season to host Creativity Camps at Wonder School גן וונדר over Pesach April 24-25 AND 28-29

Welcoming children from ages 3-10~

Program days 9:00am-4:30pm with breakfast, lunch, and snack included.
Some regular ARC teachers and Eliza Duenow, ARC Director will be overseeing very cool projects big and small on the theme of "Object Consciousness". We will be playing into the Material World of THINGS both precious and disposable to make meaning and treasures~

For now, some spots left in each of the age groups. Take a peek and request an info registration form at www.arcways.art or 0543013909

Hope to see you for some holiday play~