UC Davis Alumnus Jason Engelund, MFA 2013, partnering Chabot Elementary School in Castro Valley, helped the institution receive an Arts Education Grant from Crayola.

Chabot Elementary School was one of 20 elementary schools in the U.S. selected by Crayola and the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)  to receive the grant, which will fund innovative programs aimed at fostering children’s critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication skills. The Champion Creatively Alive Children grants are intended to help schools build creative capacity, nurture children’s creativity and inspire other schools to do the same.

Through the work of Mr. Jason Engelund, a Chabot parent/local artist collaborating with the school district, Chabot Elementary and Principal Vivienne Paratore, Chabot Elementary School received the Crayola award.  

Engelund said, “my art practice includes social projects in which I collaborate and work with communities and organizations to infuse aesthetic awareness to our everyday life. I think we need to practice getting back in touch with our senses and with reflection for better critical thinking. Helping at the elementary school level is a great place to do that.”

Engelund is a founding member of the California College of the Arts Center for Art and Public Life where he worked for 11 years developing programs for artists, architects, designers and writers to collaborate with communities to address social and humanitarian needs.

In the grant funded program, “Contemporary Voices on Teaching Art,” Engelund will provide all teachers at Chabot with monthly professional development workshops in contemporary practices in arts education, arts integration pedagogy and highly relevant, contemporary arts approaches that range from developing perceptual skills and cultural context, to making informed aesthetic judgments that derive meaning from art. 

Here is the complete list of the 20 Champion Creatively Alive Children grant recipients.