As a fabric artist, educator, and entrepreneur who repurposes materials including yarn, linen, and button beads to engage students to understand abstract ideas - I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that to reach all learners one must constantly reinvent themselves. When my Sage doll-making workshop was established, the educational avatars were made with the same basic structure and purpose to foster civility in the classroom. Regardless of how these dolls were decorated to represent people and cultures from all over the world, it does not necessarily build acceptance or tolerance for differences in people.
One Idea Can Last Forever
The Sage doll was invented to help people understand and celebrate what we all have in common. And doing this workshop in educational settings I pondered twenty-five years ago, could this set a new standard for self-esteem and self-perception within a classroom?
While I’ve used the Sage doll as a versatile tool to teach about different cultures and promote social-emotional skills in global settings, I would like to think that there has been a mind-shift in all the participants. The Sage doll was awarded a utility patent [US20010046830A1 - doll with interchangeable characters] in 2001 and has evolved into a digital avatar that can be used by neurodiverse learning participants. Studies have shown that dolls and avatars can help students learn about empathy, science, and other complex concepts.
This article will explore the challenges in continuing improvement when a mission and organization’s is built on wanting differences to be valued and respected. My own entrepreneurial spirit has brought to life many exciting ideas over the years, such as developing new ways to generate creative and specific examples of how my dolls are being used in educational environments with a technology to impact neurodiverse settings to teach STEM. This attitude is essential in the field of higher education, where innovation and new thinking are needed to address the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
One of the most famous studies on the use of dolls to teach children is the Clark doll study from 1939. In this study, Kenneth and Mamie Clark presented black children with four dolls, two white and two black. The children were asked to identify the race of the dolls and to choose which doll they preferred. Many of the children preferred the white doll and assigned positive characteristics to it. The Clarks concluded that segregation and racism were damaging the self-esteem of children of color.
Knowing that, I would encounter both implicit and explicit bias in any classroom of students I taught as a teaching artist or as an Assistant Professor at Touro University, in New York City. I was compelled to create the neutral, blue-colored Sage character with all the same internal organs as a human being. Over the past 25 years I’ve invited participants to create their own Sage doll, puppet, or avatar that reflected their own or any other identity of their choice. This curriculum using the Sage doll avatar subtly brings the message about the reasons our differences on the outside do not separate us in the most important of all , who and what we are on the inside.
Most recently, my utility patent was revised to introduce young children to learn about numbers, patterns, music notes, and problem-solving using fun, engaging activities in the classrooms. A research in Japan with both Journal of Educational Psychology and post- pandemic in the Journal of Educational Technology finding that middle school students who use avatars to explore a virtual science lab learned more about science than students who did not use the avatar. Ke, F. & Woo, T. (2022).
Take Me Higher: Impact through Sage Doll Avatars to Educators, Entrepreneurs, and Engagement in Higher Education
The Sage doll, was part of a five-year research project funded by an Education Innovation Research (EIR) grant from the United States Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) YEAR, highlighted the importance of integrating STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) topics into elementary school curriculum. As an educator during the COVID 19 pandemic, I faced the challenge of adapting my brick-and-mortar plan and repurposed the Sage avatar as note doll characters with interchangeable numbers representing beats in 4/4 time to teach mathematics, music, and computational thinking.
I also challenged my entrepreneurial skills set and sensibility to create a website that prominently featured a series of children's digital picture books and animated videos: "Treble Leads the Class" (2021), "Treble Catches the Rhythm Train" (2021) and "Treble Goes A 'Go-Go" (2022).
The contents of these videos and digital stories were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program, Herbie Hancock (Narrator) Mika Shino (producer), T.I.M.M.-E. Company (my own company came up with the design concepts), Atomic Kid Studios (animators), CJ Emmons the principal singer of ABC's Dancing with the Stars (voice overs), and Nick Vayenas (music). However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and one should not assume endorsement by the federal government.
The Power of Restyling and Reinvention
Moving forward into my 25th year as an entrepreneur, and “engaged arts educator” I must dare to think forward and use and repurpose my utility patent [US20010046830A1 - doll with interchangeable characters] as a teaching tool to teach a variety of subjects in a variety of settings. “If the material is good, you can restyle anything!” said one of my instructors in college. Like many teaching artisans around the world, I have often reveled in the joys of reusing or re-purposing materials on the sewing machine in my studio. While I follow or create original patterns like any tailor or seamstress, I must always think of better ways to structure and reinforce the stitches. My doll pattern is a lot like any lesson objectives in any classroom - you gather your materials, and you’re learning goal is to ultimately put the pieces and concepts together for your learners to be effectively engaged. Like all new ideas and approaches in education I’m open to collaborating, sharing ideas and most certainly not afraid to challenge the status quo and develop and try new things.
Bellavia, T (2022, September 7). Season 2. Art with Professor Bellavia. Retrieved from https://player.fm/series/the-faculty-chronicles/season-2-episode-1-art-with-professor-timothy-bellavia-touro-university-gse
Bellavia, T. (2019, November 1). Courage, humor, and a life-saving decision helped Timothy beat cancer. Retrieved from https://weillcornell.org/news/courage-humor-and-a-life-saving-decision-helped-timothy-beat-prostate-cancer
Bellavia, T. (2018, December 26). Thread count: Five traits of master planning. CETL Blog. Retrieved from https://www.touro.edu/cetl/blog/thread-count-five-traits-master-planning
Bellavia, T. (2016, May 6). Beyond skin deep. Retrieved from https://gse.touro.edu/news/stories/prof-timothy-bellavia-beyond-skin-deep.phpc
Bellavia, T. (2015, December 11). GSE Professor Presents Sage Doll Test at Education Conference
Retrieved from https://gse.touro.edu/news/stories/gse-professor-timothy-bellavia-presents-sage-doll-test-at-education-conference.php
Clark, K. B., & Clark, M. P. (1947). Racial identification and preference in Negro children. In T. M. Newcomb & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in social psychology (pp. 169-178). Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Ke, F. & Woo, T. (2022). Using Avatars to promote learning in virtual science lab. Journal of Education Technology, 23(2), 73-87.
Here is a LINK that further shares the journey and innovation of the Sage Doll (Avatar) Making Workshop: https://www.weareallthesameinside.org/timeline/index.html.
Here is a LINK that further shares the journey and innovation of the Sage Doll avatar and how it promotes social emotional sills in the classroom and beyond: https://gse.touro.edu/news/stories/prof-timothy-bellavia-beyond-skin-deep.phpc
Here is a LINK that further shares the journey and innovation of the Sage Doll as a digital avatar: https://www.weareallthesameinside.org/curriculum.html
Here is a LINK that further shares the journey and innovation of the Sage Doll as a digital avatar exploring complex science concepts: https://www.weareallthesameinside.org/divas/bette-midler-timeline.html
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Timothy Bellavia