THE JOURNEY PROGRAM
The Huntington Arts Council established the Journey Program 27 years ago as a means of integrating cultural arts into the school curriculum. Journey is a multi-cultural arts-in-education program developed by the Huntington Arts Council in partnership with school districts. The goal of Journey is to foster the appreciation of cultural diversity through the arts.
Participating districts of the 2012-2013 school year are:
Commack UFSD, Harborfields CSD, Huntington UFSD, North Babylon UFSD,
Northport/East Northport UFSD, Plainview/Old Bethpage CSD, and
South Huntington UFSD
 We work closely with our partner liaisons to communicate to teachers and administrators the availability of the program. We also attend special events at our partner districts - like district-wide Multi Cultural Day, assemblies and library events.
Journey's ongoing success is based on three components:
- In our annual fall Cultural Arts Workshops For Teachers teachers from our partner school districts attend for free. Non-partner district teachers, administrators and community members are welcomed to attend for a small fee. Teaching artists at these workshops make every effort to link to NYS Curriculum and connect with lesson plans and/or personal development for attendees. The 2012 Workshop schedule can be found here: 2012 Cultural Arts Workshops For Teachers
- The Discovery Lending Chests program had over 70 individual reservations to general classroom, language, art teachers in 2011/12. Also utilizing the chests were several school librarians, Social Studies, self-contained classes and PTA members reserving on behalf of their schools. NYS Social Studies standards are recognized and the Huntington Arts Council tries to promote availability of chests to grade level teachers and special area instruction.
- JOURNEY program partner schools also host visiting artists from various countries to dovetail with NYS learning standards and enrich the classroom experience for students. Artists perform in assemblies, classroom workshops or multiple day residencies. Over 35,000 students in 7 school districts benefit from JOURNEY every school year. See our recap of school year 2011-2012 of visiting artists in our 7 partner school districts.
