Making a Difference:
Art to Heart
Art is very important in children’s development because art is not just ‘art.’ We have some children who are more visual, for example. That’s why this is so very important. It allows you to touch children where they’re at—at their own level.
Margaret Evans-Dulin
director, St. Benedict Center for Early Childhood Education, Louisville
Marissa, Me-Shell, London, and Shon don’t know they are being educated.
The toddlers, whose chubby fingers eagerly smear globs of orange paint onto large beige pieces of paper, are too busy exploring, learning, and having fun to know that the art they’re enjoying is an essential component of early childhood education.
“Art touches all areas of development—cognitive, emotional, social,” said Margaret Evans-Dulin, director of 
the St. Benedict Center for Early Childhood Education in Louisville’s West End. Caregivers at the center recently completed a free workshop sponsored by KET on how to effectively use the series Art to Heart with its young charges.
“Art is very important in children’s development because art is not just ‘art.’ We have some children who are more visual, for example. That’s why this is so very important. It allows you to touch children where they’re at—at their own level.”
Each large sunny classroom at St. Benedict’s is a hive of activity, with children busy playing in various areas provided for interactive or solitary play. Several “foster grandmothers” are on hand as well, offering frequent opportunities for “lap time” and hugs.
Like other licensed day care centers in Kentucky, caregivers at St. Benedict’s are required to complete 24 hours of training to maintain accreditation.
“Our mission is to offer quality child-care services to children from 6 weeks through 12 years of age,” Evans-Dulin continued. “The KET training offers different opportunities for growth. My staff has learned more about art, they’ve learned different ways of presenting to the children, and they’ve learned more about literacy.”
Produced by KET, Art to Heart was designed to explore how music, dance, drama, and visual art contribute to growth and learning, as well as to provide parents and educators with ways to foster young children’s creativity. It makes a persuasive case that the arts are essential, and should be incorporated into their lives.
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Evans-Dulin, who has been with the center for 27 years, beginning as a caregiver, says that the variety of arts activities the series demonstrates in classroom settings can be easily duplicated at St. Benedict.
“Today in the twos room they were making a flag, because you know the Fourth of July is coming,” she said, in a late-June interview.
“Not only are they making a flag but they’re talking about the colors, so this activity helps them recognize colors, at age 2! Even in music, the babies are being laid on their backs, and their legs being moved to the music. These are some of the things the KET training has offered us.”
Caregiver Rosetta McLin, who’s been with St. Benedict for 17 years, agrees. “We had a project on Earth Day,” she says, pointing with pride to a colorful collage one of her little students completed. “We cut them out and they glue them on—any way they put it, that’s how we leave it. They do it on their own.”
Art to Heart training is just one of approximately 50 early childhood courses that KET provides for Kentucky’s child-care providers to maintain accreditation. And Art to Heart, McLin says, has been interesting to her as a teacher, as well as valuable instruction.
“It’s an excellent program,” she said. “It’s interesting, they are not boring, and Kathy Day, the lady who teaches it, is excellent. There’s nothing like having a good workshop! We’ve got to have these classes; I say let them be worthwhile! I don’t want to go to classes just to get the credit hours, I want to learn. And we really learn from her.”