Dr. Stephen Parker and Donna Sasso, a professional artist, have been collaborating for over fifteen years to create learning models that revolve around art, visual engagement, and conversation. The result is BCS’s Visual Consulting program. The program involves a variety of project based practices including Art Talk, a conversation based learning model that revolves around reproductions of art, and in which, teachers collaborate to model for students the art of conversation, careful listening skills and civility.
Pistachio Heads, is a hot topic for students in grades five through eight. Pistachio Heads, a notorious and eccentric bunch of nut heads, come to life when the children who create them write about them. While students remain blissfully unaware of the fact, the project’s primary learning goal is to inspire children to write more and well.
The project presents a variety of learning opportunities. Children create their own characters (relatives by birth or marriage) in present time, give them a P word name (first, middle and last) and an appropriate age, place them on the Pistachio family tree, and keep track of who is related to whom. Cut out forms provide lessons in scale, proportion, and animation. Outsider fashions (Pistachio Heads never follow fashion trends) reflect different body types and personalities. In the end, all of the odd characters become part of a written legend – the Pistachio Stories.
The culminating festivity, a P word Picnic in Balboa Park, brings together students, teachers, and Speech Therapists to relish P words and P foods: pizza, pickles, hot peppers, potato chips, pineapple and peach fruit cups, pie, peanuts, pudding cups, fruit punch, popcorn, popsicles, and (Yikes!) pistachios.