Cultivating belonging & action through visual arts
A grade 3 ISU student working on an abstract painting of a favourite place on the ISU campus.
At the International School of Uganda (ISU), visual arts teacher Jill Pribyl is creating transformative learning experiences. Through thoughtfully designed projects, she connects students to their sense of identity, place, and global citizenship while fostering deep community engagement. I recently had the privilege of sitting down with Jill to explore how visual arts can amplify belonging, well-being, meaningful connections and community engagement.
The Artist as Educator
Jill arrived in Uganda 20 years ago as a Fulbright Scholar in Makerere University's Performing Arts Department. "I came to Uganda as a practicing artist—both visual and performing—and transitioned into education from there," she explains. "My experience in teaching comes from a very strong arts background into education, not education to be an art teacher. So I think that's a different inroad."
This artist-first approach informs everything about her teaching philosophy. When discussing strengths of the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Programme (PYP) curriculum, Jill notes: "I've really loved working in the PYP because it is so flexible and open, and it allows for teachers to have a lot of agency in how they're approaching the subject matter, and what lessons or units they decide to develop."
Perhaps most powerfully, Jill models what it means to be a practicing artist alongside her students. During a recent Literacy Week at ISU, she worked on illustrations for her upcoming children's book, The Brush, while her students tackled realistic art projects of their own.
"[The students] were really engaged in my process, and of course, I was also engaged in their process of drawing realistically," Jill reflects. "Being vulnerable by sharing something that isn't perfect yet, and that they had a say in some of the creative decisions I made - that kept the students excited."
Students painting in Jill’s visual arts studio at ISU (above) and grade 5 landscape paintings from the “Where is Home?” unit (below).
Where is Home? Identity Through Landscape
One of the impactful learning experiences Jill has designed this year addresses a question that resonates deeply with people living in international school communities: Where is home? The unit, designed for fifth-grade students (who also study migration in another subject area), invites students to explore their connection to place through landscape art.
"There are so many international students from all over the world, and they've all migrated to Uganda. So what have they brought with them to this place?" Jill reflects.
The process began with research; students searched for landscapes from their home countries and studied artists who have depicted those places. After experimenting with colour theory and various styles, each student created a painting representing a landscape they identify as "home," accompanied by a reflection on what home means to them.
"Sometimes students are from different places than where their parents are from," Jill observes. "So you may have someone who's American who thinks China is their home, or Ethiopia, even though they've lived in Uganda. It's quite interesting for students to engage in the thought process of ‘What does home mean to me’?"
The final exhibition was presented at the ISU Festival of World Cultures, creating a visual tapestry of the school's international diversity while allowing students to share aspects of their identities that aren't immediately visible.
"I think that makes you feel that you are seen, heard, and acknowledged," Jill notes. "And I think that brings another level of understanding for other students to say, 'Oh, I didn't know you lived in China your whole life.' Because I think that also what we're losing really in our societies is the art of conversation and getting to know people a bit deeper."
Examples of grade 3 student art about favourite places on the ISU campus.
Finding Sacred Spaces: The School as Community
For third-grade students exploring communities, Jill created a unit focused much closer to home - the school campus itself. In "Shapes, Places, Colors, Spaces," students identified their favorite places at ISU, photographed them from multiple perspectives, and transformed those images into abstract canvas paintings using lines, shapes, and colors that expressed their emotional connections to the spaces.
"I thought, we have a community within our school that is really important to the students, especially if they're from overseas. The school is a big part of their social life and their well-being," Jill explains.
The project culminated in an art exhibition where students proudly displayed their work, engaging with peers and parents who asked about their creative process and inspiration. To preserve this meaningful work, Jill created a professional gallery brochure that documented the exhibition.
"We do this amazing work, and then it's just gone, and everyone takes their painting home and we have no record," she says. "So I decided to make a brochure, which the students were also excited about."
The brochures (which Jill made for both the grade 3 and grade 5 exhibitions) are artifacts that serve multiple purposes: they celebrate student achievement, create a permanent record of the students’ artistic journeys, and advocate for the vital role of arts education in the school community.
The Forever Forest is an art installation made from upcycled plastic on the second floor of the ISU Arts Centre.
The Forever Forest: Art as Environmental Activism
Perhaps most ambitiously, Jill has guided her fourth-grade students in creating the "Forever Forest," an installation made entirely from plastic waste that connects artistic expression with environmental awareness and community partnership.
Inspired by a Dutch artist, Thomas Dambo, who created a similar installation in Mexico City, the project addresses Uganda's plastic waste problem while making a powerful visual statement. Jill partnered with the Kiteezi Women's Center, an organization where women collect, clean, and sell trash from a local dump site to support their families.
"I wanted to engage in a collaboration,” says Jill. “I wondered, what if we had the women collect trash for us, for our forest, and then we pay them? And then, in addition to that, the women could come and actually make the forest with us.”
The fourth graders raised money by selling handmade bookmarks, enough to pay the women for their materials and time. When the women came to ISU, students worked alongside them to construct the installation, breaking down social barriers and creating meaningful human connections.
"The women felt like the students accepted them, and they weren't looked at as people who work at the dump site. They were respected and included," Jill shares.
The Forever Forest became part of a service experience at the AISA-GISS student conference hosted at ISU in February, where it served as both an art installation and a provocative reminder of our consumption habits. Ultimately, the forest will find a permanent home at the Kiteezii Women's Center's new building, something to represent this reciprocal community partnership.
Arts brochures from the grade 3 and 5 units have become artifacts of belonging and advocacy in the ISU and local communities.
The Arts as a Bridge to Community
For Jill, engaging with the local community isn't just an add-on to the curriculum—it's essential to authentic learning, especially in an international school context.
"When you are in a country like Uganda, it's important to have links with the community. Otherwise, you're just in a bubble, and the learning that you take away will not be as impactful if you don't engage with the community," she emphasizes.
This philosophy manifests in upcoming collaborations with the African Children's Choir school, where ISU students will work alongside Ugandan children to create environmental art and music using recycled materials. Jill approaches these partnerships with a commitment to reciprocity and mutual learning.
"I see them as our partners. I want there to be no hierarchy here because they bring amazing skills, and we bring different kinds of skills," she explains. "How can we find ways to bridge those cultural differences, and work together to create something completely new?"
The Human Element in Art Education
As we concluded our conversation, Jill reflected on the profound importance of relationship-building in education—a reminder that in an increasingly AI-driven world, the human connections fostered through art remain irreplaceable.
"Teaching is also about building relationships and getting to know people," she notes.
Through her innovative approach to visual arts education, Jill creates spaces where students can be vulnerable, take risks, and discover their creative voices while connecting deeply with themselves, each other, and the wider world.
In the process, these young artists learn lessons that extend far beyond technique; they learn to embrace mistakes as opportunities, to see themselves as part of multiple communities, and to use their creative expression as a force for positive change.
As one of Jill's fifth-grade students wrote about their painting of Amsterdam: "I learned that mistakes happen, and that's totally okay. It's good to learn new things from our mistakes." This is a sentiment that captures the essence of Jill's approach: art as a journey of growth, connection, and belonging.
Please enjoy this interview with Jill about the grade 3 and 5 units, as well as a grade 4 unit that features the community partnership with the Kiteezi Women’s Centre.
