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Humanitas is a network of more than 400 teachers working
in interdisciplinary teams in 37 small schools at 26 LAUSD high schools. It is also an integrated classroom
curriculum that engages students in an in-depth exploration of the arts and
humanities and, in the process, expands student learning and teacher
knowledge and skills.
Using a unique team-teaching and team-learning approach
that emphasizes a theme taught across multiple subjects, Humanitas has
improved student performance and increased teachers’ motivation and skills.
Humanitas partners with leading organizations, such as the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences,
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the California African-American Museum, the Getty Museum,
Loyola Marymount University and UCLA’s Fowler Museum of Cultural History to
offer special seminars for interested teachers around special
interdisciplinary topics which focus on historical and philosophical as well
as scientific literacy; incorporation of the visual and performing arts into
the core classroom; media literacy and online content and curricula.
Humanitas Activities and Accomplishments
- Urban
Education Partnership sponsors eight (8) Humanitas Teachers’ Centers per
year. These three-day
workshops are held at designated Humanitas small schools and instruct
teams of teachers in this interdisciplinary, team-taught method.
- The
Partnership also promotes three two-day Humanitas Teachers’ Institutes
per year. These
professional development activities focus on a theme and include
presentations from the four core disciplines (history, language art,
science and math). Most
recently, at the Fowler Museum, Humanitas teachers concluded a four-day
examination of “Africa:
Precolonial, Colonial, the Diaspora and the Modern Continent.” Attending teachers read and
discussed four books, listened to lectures on the art and music of the
periods, attended a play by a contemporary African author, and
participated in group lessons involving the pseudo-science of social
Darwinism and the controversy surrounding the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
- Humanitas
is in its 10th year of a partnership with the Academy of
Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Twice a year, teachers meet with AMPAS staff and
design a three-day media literacy project for the eleventh grade
students. Up to 400
students then attend a three-day workshop that addresses the issue of
the media and stereotypes (as required by the California State Content
Standards) with regard to gender, ethnicity, age and sexual or political
orientation.
- Humanitas
partnered with Bell High School and Los Angeles County Museum of Art in
a recently concluded federal grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities. The
interdisciplinary, art-based lessons that were the result of that
collaboration can be viewed online.
- As
a result of the NEH collaboration, teachers from Bell High School
planned two teacher workshops entitled “Art and American Studies.” These workshops are called
“teachers’ institutes” because they are planned by teachers for
teachers. The two-day
agenda that included a review of the online NEH interdisciplinary
lessons, also looked at contemporary art around the city and ways to
integrate it into classroom studies.
- Based
on data developed in spring of 2005, Humanitas students are, on average,
30% more likely to graduate from high school than are their peers.
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