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Home > Programs > Washington DC > Advocate Profile
 An Interview with Karen O'Brown
Independent freelance artist and teaching artist for the Kennedy Center, Community Partnership Division under education, the DC Arts & Humanities Education Collaborative and the Washington Performing Arts Society
How do students respond when you use a variety of methods, including the arts, to teach reading and math?
It is so strongly curriculum based but they don’t even think about that part of it. Listen 
But when I present [the book structure] to the children, they are so proud of it that when we introduce how to use it, there’s not that resistance that there would be on a straight 8.5 by 11 piece of paper or a worksheet.
Listen
Usually about 1/5 to 1/3 of the students find that normal classroom work is extremely difficult. These methods that I teach, these structures that I teach are so pleasing to them because they often have skills that don’t get to be shown in the classroom in a day-to-day way.
Listen
Is your role to deliver an arts experience to children but at the same time teach teachers to integrate arts into their curriculum?
It’s my passion to get to all the teachers, and its also when I’m in the classroom, I can tell within the first couple of minutes if the teachers are excited about hands on activities.
Listen
My passion is getting to teachers in a way in which I give them a break and ask them what is the one subject that you hate to teach every year. Listen
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