I was always bad at art. From the moment I had my first art class, it was blatantly clear that I had no business using paint, clay, pencils, or crayons to express myself. This probably isn’t too unusual, except for the fact that my Dad is an Architect, my Mom is a Graphic Designer, and my sister is a Painter. Somehow the artistic genes missed me. This led to a love-hate relationship with art class. The fact that you could talk and get messy during a class was pretty neat, but it’s hard to enjoy something when it’s so obvious that you have absolutely no talent for it – especially at a young age. Still, I appreciate having had the opportunity to realize that art wasn’t for me. I had access to art supplies in school and at home, but many children in inner-city schools never even get to give art a try because the programs because funding has been cut at their schools. Inner-City Arts is a non-profit organization that provides art instruction for children who would otherwise miss out on art at their public schools.

Art is Smart

Inner-City Arts currently operates in cooperation with the Los Angeles Unified School District to bring Art back to public schools. They “offer comprehensive arts and language programs during the instructional school day, with classes in visual art, ceramics, dance, music, drama, and animation to over 8,000 children from 35 area public and charter schools.” Inner-City Arts has their own campus in downtown Los Angeles, where students are bused twice a week during school day for their classes. A given class will typically participate in the program for 7-10 weeks. Not only do these programs expose children to art, but they also have real academic impact:

A recent evaluation of Inner-City Arts programs by the University of California Los Angeles provided conclusive evidence that classes whose children and teachers actively participate in Inner-City Arts’ programs scored up to 26% higher in areas such as Math, Reading and English on the Stanford 9 test than did children who had no association with Inner-City Arts.

Inner-City Arts is currently looking for Visual and Performing Art Instructors to teach students to love and appreciate art. If you’re considering applying, you should have a degree in an art related field or in education, and have prior experience working with school aged children. Being bilingual is a huge plus. You can find the full job description on the Inner-City Arts Employment page. There are options for full-time, part-time, and contract work, so even if you have another job lined up in the LA area, you may be able to find a way to work for Inner-City Arts as well.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• Inner-CityArts.org
• Jobs at Inner-City Arts
• About Inner-City Arts
• Inner-City Arts’ FAQ
• Programs Offered by Inner-City Arts

Unfortunately many of my grade school masterpieces were ruined in a basement flood last spring. Did you create any great pieces of art when you were in elementary school? Tell us about them.

We've identified Inner-City Arts as having career opportunities in the following categories:

• all employers
• arts
• California
• education
• non-profit
• teaching

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