When school budgets tighten, what is one of the first things to be cut? The arts are. Sure they are nice, but what do they contribute to AYP? How will they improve student scores on high-stakes standardized tests? So the arts disappear in schools. And the learning suffers.
I consider myself very lucky to work in a school where the arts have been strongly supported. For many years, one of my jobs has been to be the Producer/Director of our school theatre program. Through this experience, I have worked with students as singers, actors, crew members, and musicians. My wife Denise Allen has been my longtime assistant director and choreographer. So we have been able to share the years of shows together and have experienced the incredible learning and growth potential that the arts provide.
In this era where many of us understand the need for a true learning revolution, we often speak using words like critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity. We call these 21st Century skills. The arts have incorporated these skills since humankind first picked up a brush or tapped out a tune.
So here is an experiential post showing the power of the arts in schools, and how opening night in many ways is the ultimate project based assessment.
The Imagineers
It is a cold Saturday morning in February. At 10 a.m., about 40 students will arrive to work on the set for The Phantom of the Opera, our current production. It’s the weekend and early for high school students, but they are here and ready. We need to build the giant staircase for the Masquerade number. It will be huge. It needs to securely hold a large group of actors, and it needs to be able to be stored backstage in as small a space as can be. So here goes!
The plan begins to form. The students and I discuss the possibility of breaking the steps into sections. We decide on 5 sections, 3 for the lower, wider steps and 2 for the upper, narrower tier. Oh, and it all has to move easily, but not when our cast is on the steps in the scene. What a project!
This is what these great kids do all of the time. Figure out where we are going, and then, collectively, map out the route. There are challenges, there are questions, but together, they make it happen. I have seen them build a barricade for Les Miserables, build a castle for Beauty & The Beast, build and land a helicopter in Miss Saigon, fly Grizabella in Cats, and build a gigantic bridge for Jekyll & Hyde. They run the sound and lights, move the sets, imagine great ideas, and take it all apart when it is over. That is not just hard work. It is fun, and it is learning.
The Student Leaders
As a production moves along, many students serve in leadership positions. We have stage managers, lighting and sound directors, who are all kids. We also have our dance captains. Each year, Denise selects a senior and junior dancer to serve in this key role. While the choreography is overseen by the choreographer, the dance captains have great input, collaborate with Denise on each number, and lead the dancers to a successful opening. While these captains need to be accomplished performers, their leadership qualities can be even more important.
I always select a vocal rehearsal assistant, who is a student who can read music at a high level, to be the musical score checker for me and to assist me at vocal rehearsals. And then we have our leads – those students who have been given the responsibility of playing a lead role exert their leadership onstage and off.
The Teachers
Of course, we are a school, so we are teachers. We have a creative team of dedicated adults who work tirelessly with the kids to make the production a success and a life experience. In addition to Denise and me, we have two tremendous adult production assistants: a scenic designer and an orchestra conductor. We model the collaboration that we want our students to do. We are transparent. The students see us have creative differences, encounter challenges, and work together to solve them
It is truly the combined effort of students and teachers that brings the show to a successful opening. And that is the goal, Opening Night. That is our assessment. But we have learned all along the way. The entire company of students and teachers has worked together, fully aware that the hard deadline of our first performance looms ahead and will not move. We have to make it. And they always do. It is done with intention, and the students contribute to the “curriculum design” along the way.
Teaching with the Arts in the 21st Century
So, let’s see. We have kids working together. Patiently solving problems, thinking critically, serving in leadership roles, creating and communicating. Sounds 21st century, doesn’t it?
In our curriculum, we have a vocal class, a digital photography class, a 4-year art program, a 4-year instrumental music program, a choir, a dance club, and a theatre program that produces two musicals each school year. And our students benefit in multiple ways from all of it.
Many of the students involved in the arts at our school are also the “high achievers.” Some students who struggle make connections in the arts that inspire them to become true learners. Why are the arts so often marginalized? Why are they the first to go? With the national frenzy for accountability, racing to the top, and measuring school success with standardized, high-stakes tests that take a narrow 3R’s view of the curriculum, it is no wonder that the visual and performing arts get cast aside.
But if we truly want creative citizens, who have a sense of culture, can solve real-world problems, collaborate in teams, and also keep us entertained, shouldn’t we be embracing the arts and their teaching potential?
What do you think? Please share your arts-in-schools experience by leaving a comment. What might happen if we made the arts a key subject area to which every student has equitable access. Can we do that?
Ed Allen
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First of all, Bravo Ed! If you have ever had the pleasure to meet Ed, you know that he is the most positive cheerleader education could ever have.
How true it is that we need to nurture the creative in our students. What a shame it would be to rob our students of the beauty of artistic expression. When we encourage students tap into the well of their talents, we are all the beneficiaries.
Thanks Terri for stopping by and for being the first to comment here!
As a former theatre professional turned reading specialist, I would like to echo your assertion that the arts are a wonderful arena for learning critical thinking skills. Character motivation, inference, context clues, point of view…essential for actors and for success on standardized tests, but a whole lot more fun to learn (and teach) through staging a show.
Stacy, thanks for the comment. Someone like you clearly can see the strong benefit of arts in education. One question, how do you see the arts affecting performance on standardized tests? If that is true, it would surely be a great thing for the testing pundits to hear!
Ed, I was thinking particularly of script analysis. If that doesn’t encourage close reading, I don’t know what does! If a student has had the experience of really digging deep into a script to find a character’s spine, infer subtext, and visualize the final product, he or she is using the same reading strategies that will be quantified on a state test. Plus, think about all the wonderful vocabulary and background knowledge students learn from our great dramatists.
Several years ago, when our district was introducing the 6 Trait writing framework, I drew the “short straw” of working with the music and art teachers on an institute day. We had great conversations centered around ideas, organization, fluency, word choice, voice, and even punctuation.
If we take the perspective that literacy is really one of the arts, it becomes very easy to help students make essential connections that will help them transfer what they’ve learned in an authentic setting to the artificial world of testing.
Sadly, having said all that, we still struggle to get out of our curricular compartments and work toward meaningful integration.
Stacy, excellent points. And yes, sadly we are still tied to hierarchical subject order where subjects are taught in isolation.
Ed,
When you asked
“But if we truly want creative citizens, who have a sense of culture, can solve real-world problems, collaborate in teams, and also keep us entertained, shouldn’t we be embracing the arts and their teaching potential?”
I answered “yes, absolutely” out loud here at my computer.
For those in schools who have not been successful in maintaining arts programs, I see your past as the basis of a powerful argument for re instituting them into the curriculum. Do you have additional ideas on how folks can be successful in a drive to integrate arts into their curriculum?
Lani
Lani, thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment. Wow, that last question is a big one!
I think that if there are no arts in a school, theatre is a great way to start. It gets many kids involved, can be as grand or as simple as budgets and talent will allow, and set a project up perfectly with opening night as the assessment.
First the arts need to be supported. At my school, Cardinal O’Hara, the arts have been supported over the near 50 years of our existence. But growing a new program at a school can be a powerful teaching and learning experience.
So I would say to start with theatre, but in truth, start with anything. Dance, Music, Art, Theatre, stage cradt, anything. Once you step in, watch the arts and the learning grow!
Ed, I really enjoyed this post and learning more about your background and the work you’re doing at your school with students. My aunt is a HS English teacher and has been the director of her HS’s productions for probably close to 20 years. I love watching the performances and the heart, soul, and hard work and dedication that goes into every show. As you mentioned, many of her performers are also high-achieving academically and have many athletic accomplishments. I think their successes are a testament to the love of the arts that has been fostered and supported in them throughout the years! These students leave her school and go on to do extraordinary things, and they always make a point to come back and visit her and see the shows. She has made such an impact on their lives, and while she would have done so through her teaching in English class, the creative environment she fosters through the theater program is so very special.
Lyn,thanks for stopping by. It is great to hear from a fellow VFLR author!
I also love that every time we do a show, my wife and i are greeted by so many grads after the show. It is incredible to see the wonderful adults that they have become. Sometimes, there are so many that the poor cast has to wait a while for notes to begin!
Very nice posting, Ed.
We’ve been working to fine-tune our use of language and distinctions among the arts and related learning in order to clarify and expand their roles in schools. Consider this possibility: Schools, like businesses, when confronted with cutbacks go after R & D first (research and development). It is not the arts that is being cut but R & D.
If the Arts identified themselves with their broader missions they could make a stronger case for inclusion of their modes of thinking.
Dance is the R&D division of physical movement. The whole area includes physical education, health, wellness, gesture, physical rehabilitation, sports and other areas of physical movement. Our fight is to include all forms of physical movement as important ways to learn, think and communicate.
Music is the R&D division of sound. The whole field of sound includes music, speech, acoustics, the recording industry, sound effects for film and television, and other areas of sound design. Our fight is to include all forms of sound as important ways to learn, think and communicate.
Visual Art is the R&D division of visual literacy. The whole field includes visual communication, design, visual culture and art. Our fight is to include all forms of visual literacy as important ways to learn, think and communicate.
The same is true of all subject areas: Applied science gets more support and is not cut when pure science is. Applied math is favored over pure math (the kind that John Nash did in “A Beautiful Mind”.) Poetry and great literature are cut while reading and writing resources are increased.
So, in my field (Art), we see that our field is actually visual literacy which includes (in descending order of support in schools) 1. Visual communication, 2. Design, 3. Visual Culture, and 4. Art. In tough times we emphasize the value of Visual Communication and Design for all students when money is too tight for personal self-exploration (R&D) of Art (for some students).
Martin, thanks for the comment. I really like the R&D reference. Now all e have to do is get those who don’t get the arts to get them for the true learning experience that they are, and that treating them as a core subject will benefit students in all subject areas.
Thanks for stopping by.
I have had the pleasure of seeing every O’Hara Show since 2000 and I can see all the 21st Century skills our students gain during their experience w/ our theater program.
Ed and Denise live these ideals; our school and our students are lucky to have two such dedicated professionals!
Thanks Ellen for those kind words and for stopping by.
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It’s hard to imagine that nearly 10 years ago I graduated from O’Hara where I participated in a number of productions both on and off stage. Looking back, I don’t even associate much of my High School life to the academic aspect of school–but the thing that will forever stick out in my mind? The shows!
I spent countless hours in that auditorium building sets, singing songs, and making friends. Most importantly, I learned the necessary skills to continue to pursue my creative instincts while responsibly managing my time and priorities. This is a necessary skill to have this day and age. Working on shows at O’Hara taught me the discipline of rehearsals and deadlines while helping me grow as a person. I wasn’t doing these shows for the grades–I was doing them for myself.
Without my experience in O’Hara theater I honestly believe I wouldn’t be able to manage the activities I am in now. Sure, I work a simple 9-5 job, but I also blog for geekadelphia.com, I sing in a band, I’m an aspiring author, I’m producing a short horror film, and working to get one of my scripts produced as a full feature. The arts are essential in learning. These kids aren’t sitting at a desk in a classroom–they’re wrangling their skills and learning how to follow their bliss. Which really…isn’t that what we all should be doing?
Hi Ed,
What a great post, thank you! I’ve been married to a fabulous drama teacher for 24 years and I’ve always said that the other disciplines should look to the teachers of the arts for the experts in building learning communities, differentiation and the ultimate project based learning.
I think you might agree with my thoughts in this post!
http://bsherry.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/celebrating-teachers-of-the-arts/
Thanks so much for the work you do to keep arts alive in schools!
Brenda
Hey Ed! Excellent posting! We are a “gifted and talented” Magnet Elementary School in Raleigh, NC, where the philosophy is that every child has many gifts and talents that we need to foster and allow them to discover. We have a very strong staff, particular in the area of visual, graphic, and performing arts…but we’re just now beginning discussions on how STEAM can incorporated into our instruction. I’m going to use examples from your posting as I talk with our school system, as well as our community partners, to help forward our case for providing more resources to connect the arts to STEM! Chas