Mumbai-based NGO Saturday Art Class (SArC) conducted a nine-month study to understand how art could improve behavioural outcomes in students from low-income communities. The result? Measurable joy
Animals are roaring, birds are flapping their wings, and fish are swimming in the sea. This isn’t the scene of a mythical jungle by the sea somewhere in Utopia, but in a 40-seater classroom of Shankarwadi Mumbai Public School in Jogeshwari East, Mumbai, where fifth-grade students are enthusiastically enacting the cues given to them by Priyal Patki.
Patki is a facilitator and researcher with Saturday Art Class (SArC), a Mumbai-based NGO that conducts programs in visual arts and social-emotional learning (SEL) for students from low-income communities across India during their formative years of education. For many of these children, these classes are a window into a world beyond the challenges of their immediate reality.
And that excitement translates into better behavioural outcomes – six, to be precise – that SaRC has captured via a nine-month-long data study in their Art Labs Program. The study ran from June 2023-March 2024.
SArC was founded in 2017 by Chief Executive Officer Manasi Mehan and Chief Design Officer Chhavi Khandelwal with a simple idea – taking visual art to students from lower-income communities studying in municipal schools.
In 2016, Khandelwal was working on her architecture thesis with the hypothesis that art could change lives. She had roped in Mehan, then a Teach For India fellow, to conduct the class. By the end of the class, the students ended up stringing together a banner of the artworks. By the end of that year, they put together an End-of-Year art exhibition for parents and teachers. The duo had managed to turn an art class into a space for children to express themselves.
“The parents of most of these children are domestic workers or auto drivers. They have a lot of daily struggles, and often don’t get a chance to think of life beyond that,” says Patki. “When we started engaging with these children via the SEL-based framework, we saw small changes. Children were able to work with each other, and express their ideas, thoughts and feelings. We then decided we wanted to understand more deeply what the core outcomes are that get built in children over a sustained period of time.”
This led to the Art Labs Program, which studied how art was impacting six crucial behavioural outcomes of 550+ students from Grades 1 to 8 of Shankarwadi Mumbai Public School. The Program records the outcomes of SaRC’s Visual Arts & SEL classes.
But how does one capture imagination or measure joy? SArC has created an assessment based on certain actions to do so.
An SArC art class curriculum is built with the intention to develop certain skillsets in children. This includes collaboration, communication, imagination, the ability to persevere through challenges or hardships, and critical thinking abilities. They are always on the lookout to identify more measurable skills.
Each art class begins with an exploration or introduction to an artist’s style. Once the children’s imagination is thus fired, they create their own artwork, and share it with the class. Imagination, as a behavioural outcome, was understood as children being able to create unique artworks and apply what they have learnt.
“A child participating in class by raising his/her hands and facing the facilitator confirms they are interested in what is happening,” Patki says. Such indicators are a positive behavioural outcome.
In the first two-three classes, SArC begins by conducting a baseline assessment. This is followed by a midline and endline survey during the year. For this, the facilitator is joined by an observer in class. Facilitators and observers are trained to keep their biases aside, record only what they see, not what they feel or assume.
“The observer engages with the class and asks them about their ideas, their thoughts behind a particular drawing, etc. Four kids sitting together doesn’t mean they are collaborating. Only one of them could be doing the exercise,” explains Patki.
The outcomes – Joy, Imagination, Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration and Perseverance -- are defined by a set of actions/behaviours that students display in the classroom. An observer marks the class on certain behaviours and responses. For example, what percentage of children raise their hand to participate, what percentage of children come up with unique artworks, etc.
These behaviours are also part of what are called 21st century skills or life-long learning skills, that help a child develop holistically beyond academic achievements.
SArC also uses semi-structured interviews to record observations conducted with parents and academic teachers. “Secondary school students talk about what they see in their classroom. This way, they evaluate themselves as well as the class,” says Patki.
Before the study, the NGO was focused on training educators within municipal schools. Educators would be trained for three years, enabling them to create a safe space and build creative processes. “We shared our curriculum with them, and gave them training and resources on how to conduct the art class. “Our lesson plans are so easy to understand that even a math teacher can facilitate an impactful art class,” says Patki.
But the NGO was curious to go beyond, and measure how art helped a student. “There is research on this subject in the Western context. We wanted to explore this question from an Indian context, targeting the socioeconomic group we were working with,” says Patki.
Hence, the study. “The change is gradual, but extremely visible,” says Patki, referring to the Grade 5 students who are in the third year of the program. “Earlier, they either saw art class as a free period, or would copy what was on the board. Now, they understand that they are going to learn about an artist’s style,” she says. “At the endline study, we were able to see how they were communicating their needs better, and were willing to collaborate with their peers.”
After the first few classes, the average baseline score for all grades on Joy was 4.03, with 75.8% of students feeling happy and engaging well in the classroom.
By Midline, it decreased to an average score of 3.78, with active participation of 69.5%. “We then studied the reason for the drop in percentage. We spoke to the students to identify needs of the class, and to see what practices were not working, etc,” says Patki.
At the Endline, the average score surged to 4.31, with 82.8% of students presenting indications of feeling joy and a sense of pride in art class.
Imagination showed up as children being able to create unique artworks and apply what they learnt about an artist. From an average Baseline score for all grades at 3.77 with 68.8% creating unique artworks, the Endline scores surged to 4.31, with 82.8% of students creating unique artworks.
All of this is visible in the classroom.
Once the animal enactments are done and the children’s restless energy dispels, Patki asks them to settle down. She sets some ground rules for the next hour. “How will we show respect to each other?” she asks. Ten-year-old Sunil raises his hand and answers, “By listening to each other!”
“Has anyone here heard of Raza uncle?” Patki asks. She tells them about the painter who once lived in Madhya Pradesh near the jungle. “SH Raza took inspiration from nature – he drew rivers, trees and the sky. Every painting had a bindu (red dot), which he believed was the source of all life,” she says.
Patki shows them a printout of one of Raza’s masterpieces: ‘Bindu Vistaar’. Students spot geometric shapes, including lines, waves, triangles, squares and rectangles. Ten-year-old Farah even spots a blue jalebi spiral.
Patki then encourages them to divide a blank drawing sheet into nine boxes, “just like Raza Uncle.” The task for the day is to fill each box with individual ideas, using geometric signs like the renowned Indian painter. “Remember, there is no right or wrong. You are only expressing your ideas,” explains Patki.
This has generated some unexpected insights too. SArC found that exposure to visual arts & SEL was helping to instill two more essential qualities in children: respect and confidence.
When students engaged in understanding an artist’s thoughts, they learnt to value the thoughts and emotions of the creator, and cultivate respect for others. At the end of semester one, the average score for respect was 4.04, which increased to 4.30 in semester 2. “This translates into an increase of 6.43%. That may not sound like a lot, but it manifests in the child being able to show respect to his peers. Behavioural change takes time,” says Patki. “Learning Math, Science, and English are important, but a child also needs confidence to share his/ her own thoughts and ideas. Art gives them the ability to collaborate with their peers and be creative.”
The data gathered from this study is now being used to validate their hypothesis that art does actually build and prepare children for their futures.
For now, the data is being documented in a report and shared on social media. The team also plans to host webinars to talk about the data and validate the findings. The next big step will be to rope in an external evaluator to see if the scale can be standardised and introduced to more schools.
Next, SArC aims to test out the student-teacher engagement and student engagement in the school. Another core area of focus this year is to capture the perspective of parents on the need for visual arts and SEL, which is missing.
This year has been a turning point for the NGO from a data standpoint. Saturday Art Class was pitched for the President Innovation Challenge in Fall 2022. It earned recognition from the Harvard Innovation Lab, and won the Social Impact Fellowship in May 2024.
Today, SaRC has reached 1,78,000+ students across India; trained 6,000+ educators to become creative visual arts facilitators, and reached over 1 million students through digital resources. In 2023-2024 alone, over 1,41,000+ children across 13 states have got access to visual arts and SEL.
The NGO continues to leverage its Whatsapp chatbot to support educators they train. It will also publish reports on the impact of visual arts on learning in a quarterly, open-source publication.
SArC aims to impact 3,50,000 students and 600 educators across India through the Art for Educator program in the academic year 2024-25. By 2027, the plan is to reach 5 million children through government partnerships and reach remote areas through grassroots nonprofits.
Every artwork that a child creates in the classroom is a product of SArC’s data-driven study. This is best witnessed as an immersive experience at its End-of-Year exhibition, where select works by children from across the country are displayed under one roof. This is conducted in collaboration with partner organisations and classrooms that had an SArC intervention.
After this pilot study, SArC has partnered with Mumbai’s civic body, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) to design and implement the art education programme across 20 BMC schools in the city. A recommendation letter from Balasaheb Kanke, Headmaster of Shankarwadi Mumbai Public School, who opened the doors of his school seven years ago, sealed the deal.
SArC is also building its partnership with the state government of Nagaland to implement its program at scale for the state.
“Art is part of the government curriculum but the classes don’t happen regularly. There is one teacher who visits many schools and they just draw something on the board for kids to copy. When I first attended the End of Year Exhibition, I was shocked to see that the artwork was by our students. The Saturday Art Class has instilled values and leadership qualities in our kids,” says Kanke.
This is evident in the last 15 minutes of Patki’s class, when students line up and paste their drawings on the wall. One by one, they come forward to talk about their drawing based on Raza uncle’s geometry.
Sunil has turned the nine boxes into a reminiscence of his village. Pointing to the colourful boxes on his sheet, he narrates confidently, “There is greenery, open skies and a playing field in my village. This one here is a tent from a recent wedding I attended,” he says with pride. All his classmates give him a loud cheer.