Department of Youth Services Residential Programs Chosen for National Endowment for the Humanities Arts Initiative

Students learn about American history and culture through art

BOSTON — The Patrick Administration announced today that the National Endowment for the Humanities has selected 54 residential programs of the state’s Department of Youth Services (DYS), as well as its Community Reentry Center in Holyoke, to participate in its innovative “Picturing America” initiative, a program designed to help teach American history through our nation’s art.

The Department’s provider of educational services, the Hampshire Educational Collaborative, submitted the application on behalf of the DYS programs as part of its commitment to integrating the arts into its educational instruction. Students at DYS facilities across the Commonwealth will learn about the people, places and events that shaped America by studying 40 masterpieces of art.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for DYS students to explore our nation’s history through the arts,” said Department of Youth Services Commissioner Jane Tewksbury. “Many of our students learn best in non-traditional ways, and this program will allow them to enhance their understanding of historical events through a new medium.”

DYS’s selection for this national program complements existing efforts to integrate the arts into educational programming for court-involved youth. Through the Department’s Unlocking the Light initiative, the DYS curriculum promotes positive youth development and improved academic achievement by engaging and motivating youth to invest in themselves and their education through art.

Through the National Endowment of the Humanities “Picturing America” program, each of the DYS facilities will receive high-quality color reproductions of 40 selected works of art, including paintings, sculptures, crafts and photography. Educators will also receive a Teacher’s Resource Book to support effective student learning. By bringing quality reproductions of noteworthy American art into DYS schools, the new program offers students opportunities to learn about our history and culture in an engaging way.

Students will explore a broad range of artists, including early Native American artisans; painters Mary Cassatt and Norman Rockwell; photographers Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange; stained glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany; and architects Frank Lloyd Wright and William Van Alen. Although each of the masterpieces may be explored individually, the collection also lends itself to a study of key themes of American history and culture. For example, students may discuss multiple generations’ sacrifices for freedom, noting echoes of Emanuel Leutze’s famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware in James Karales’s photograph of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.

About the Department of Youth Services (DYS)

The Department of Youth Services is the juvenile justice agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its mission is to protect the public and prevent crime by promoting positive change in the lives of youth committed to our custody, and by partnering with communities, families, government, and provider agencies toward this end. DYS accomplishes this mission through interventions that build knowledge, develop skills, and change the behavior of the youth in its care.

About “Picturing America”

Picturing America, an exciting new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide. Through this innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper appreciation of our country’s history and character through the study and understanding of its art. To learn more about the project, visit: www.picturingamerica.neh.gov.

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