Our wonderful art teacher: Ms. Davenport!

This year Davenport teaches kindergarten through fifth grade at Madison on the north side of Des Moines, where she also serves as arts integration specialist. “I love that it’s different every day and I love when the kids finally make those connections,” she said. Madison is part of a national initiative known as Turnaround: Arts, led by the President’s Committee on Humanities and the Arts through a public-private partnership. The program is designed to provide resources to use the arts to improve test scores, parent involvement and the climate of a school.Davenport will be involved in coaching classroom teachers on using the arts and bringing teaching artists from the community into the school.The arts have historically been an under-used component of education, she said. Yet many students are visual learners which makes the influence of the arts particularly important.“She is pretty excited and that’s pretty contagious at the school,” said Nels Dovre, a music teacher and arts integration specialist at Madison. “Her passion for the arts itself is there and most art teachers and music teachers are passionate about the arts.“But she is passionate about having everyone incorporate art into their lives to make their lives richer,” Dovre said. As a teacher and a working artist, Davenport said she enjoys the balance it creates in her life. “I painted a lot this summer,” she said, noting that she attempted to paint at least two hours a day. “I think it’s really good for students to see that having a creative output is really good.” To read more about Ms. Davenport you can follow this link: