Just a few days after sending their students home for the summer, 15 K-12 teachers from the Ithaca area went back to school to experience the art of cultures from around the world through a series of lectures and hands-on attempts at art forms ranging from Chinese calligraphy to Central American embroidery called molas.

The two-day workshop, "Teaching World Culture Through Art," was held June 25-26 and was hosted by Cornell's Einaudi Center for International Studies and the Johnson Museum of Art.

Practicing artists, Cornell faculty members and outreach professionals "facilitated the production of art pieces based upon cultural practices in specific regions of the world," said Sophie Huntington, educational outreach coordinator for the Einaudi Center. "Each presentation started with an introduction to the cultural practice and its overall significance and ended with an opportunity for teachers to produce their own work." The goal, she said, was to expose teachers to "a significant piece of international culture" in order to guide their students through the process of shaping their own creations.

The workshop's interdisciplinary approach, she said, was intended to encourage teachers to more fully integrate international studies into the curriculum. "It is also hoped that the combination of lecture, hands-on activity and detailed instruction will serve as a model for addressing the needs of a variety of learning styles at the K-12 level," noted Huntingdon.

Said Ann Harper of Dryden Elementary School: "As an art teacher, I feel like I need to get nourished professionally. It's broadening my own mind and my own horizons. Anything I do here, even if I don't use it exactly in the classroom, is still going to enhance what I'm teaching."

Spending the first day at the Kahin Center for Advanced Research on Southeast Asia and the second day at the Johnson Museum of Art, the teachers were presented with background, projects, teaching ideas and lesson plans pertaining to the cultures of Africa, Europe, Latin America, East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

"There [was] so much information," said Elizabeth Sprout, an art teacher at Dryden High School. "It's incredible having this great resource in our backyard. It's a great way to start the summer."