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Thanks to a DEHR grant from the Alberta Teachers’ Association, a trio of teachers at Calgary’s Bishop Carroll High School provided a program for students to explore their inner and outer selves by decorating masks.
ATA DEHR grant facilitates art therapy project
About 50 students at Calgary’s Bishop Carroll High School explored their inner and outer selves by decorating masks as part of an art therapy project organized by the school’s Spectrum Club, which received a Diversity, Equity and Human Rights (DEHR) grant from the Alberta Teachers’ Association.
Under the guidance of counsellors Erin Luong and Susan Spellman Cann, along with art teacher Sheila Stacey, students decorated the insides of their masks to express their inner selves and the outside to reflect the outer selves that they show others.
As the three teacher facilitators moved around the room asking questions and starting conversations about choices and symbols, students began to identify what parts they show to others and what they keep private. As Luong reported on her blog, “The results were spectacular.”
“This can lead to further exploration,” Luong wrote. “Students can start to think about what it is that keeps them from showing that inner self to people. What people do they feel they can share that inner self with and what people do they not?”
Students also pondered how and why their outer selves change, how it feels to express their outer self versus the inner self, which one causes more anxiety and which feels more authentic.
