In “Hearts for the Arts,” columnist Charlotte “Charlie” Burks ’27 spotlights various Stanford student groups that perch at the nexus of art and service.
Flying is not an uncommon superpower for young children — or even adults — to wish for. Although Stanford has not (yet) developed technology that literally allows students to fly, Stanford student organization Flying Treehouse helps students’ imaginations soar through the power of words.
The student organization, which is now housed under the Haas Center on campus, first began as a class — DRAMA 190 — before becoming a student organization in 2012. Flying Treehouse has since worked with elementary schools in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto to increase access to creative writing lessons in second and third grade classrooms.
Club members take stories written by elementary school students and create comedy skits and musicals, which they then perform at students’ schools throughout the quarter, so that they “see their stories come to life,” said Alex Agris ’25, director of Flying Treehouse. The student group also reproduces a “less student friendly” version of the show on Stanford’s campus.
The Flying Treehouse also aims to teach at schools across socioeconomic levels, said Jinnie Bayarjargal ’26, the club’s financial officer. Though the club teaches at Escondido Elementary School right off campus, which is attended by many Stanford professors’ children, Flying Treehouse members also teach classes at East Palo Alto Charter School, a TK-8th grade school that statistically serves children of lower socio-economic status backgrounds.
“Children of those backgrounds have less access to be agents in art,” Bayarjargal said.
According to Create CA, only 11% of California schools actually meet the state law requirements that schools provide “sequential, standards-based visual and performing arts education.”
“Developmentally, it is important for children to have access to the arts, to be able to see those things and be involved in them as a contributing agent,” Bayarjargal said. “In us being able to offer that, our hope is that these children then grow up to not only appreciate the arts, but also that they may continue to have careers, passions or hobbies in the arts.”
Flying Treehouse members teach for an hour at a time, about three times per week, reaching a total of around 90 students per quarter. Teaching style changes depending on the classroom and volunteer teachers, though the group does not change curriculum from year to year, club members said.
“Working with the teachers in the classroom is really important,” said Shefali Doshi ’26, a Flying Treehouse teaching coordinator. “Usually teachers have their own structure or system of maintaining order in their classroom.”
Coordinating with the school teachers allows for Flying Treehouse members to organize shows that fulfill the club goals and fit into the teachers’ curricula.
It is challenging to individually spotlight each student’s writing because of the large number of students taught by the club, members said. Thus, the Flying Treehouse members find common themes in students’ pieces and “melt them together,” Agris said.
“We want to make sure that all students feel their writing is represented on stage,” Agris said.
Though members of Flying Treehouse all perform at their shows, the favorite memory of many is what follows their performance.
“At the end of the show, kids will come up to you and hug you,” Bayarjargal said. “Even kids that you didn’t teach or are from another classroom, they’ll say ‘Thank you so much.’”
As the club works to bring their students together through writing and the arts, these shared goals have also brought together a diverse group of Flying Treehouse performers.
“I honestly don’t think I would have met [the people in Flying Treehouse] in any other way,” Doshi said. “A lot of us are studying different things, living really far away on campus, but we all have a shared value of working with the kids — and also just being silly.”