April 05, 2008 –
The second graders practicing a line dance or performing a skit certainly are having fun. What they probably don’t realize is that they’re improving their literacy skills at the same time.
As they follow their teacher’s directions to reach high, leap sideways or speak loudly, they’re sharpening their knowledge about verbs and adverbs, and strengthening their cognitive ability.
And when they listen to and discuss specifically chosen stories, they are developing skills in empathy and ethical behavior.
Thanks to a new project called “ArtsCore: K-2,” 7,000 kindergarten-through-second-grade students who probably wouldn’t otherwise have access to arts education will receive it – along with the complementary language arts and decision-making skills – courtesy of UC Irvine’s Center for Learning through the Arts and Technology (CLAT).
Previously known as the Center for Learning through the Arts, CLAT sought to add a technology component to its programs. Late last year the center formally affiliated with CALIT2, subsequently winning the $828,000 ArtsCore grant. Funded by the California Postsecondary Education Commission, the project will help San Diego Unified School District K-2 teachers learn to integrate art and ethics education into their classroom teaching.
Visiting Artists Share Expertise
The project will fund professional dancers, painters and actors to make weekly visits to selected schools and co-teach standards-based arts lessons with the classroom teachers. Twelve teachers in each of five SDUSD schools will participate each year of the three-year program – a total of 180 teachers in 15 schools.
“We’re not only trying to expose children to the arts because it’s a wonderful part of life, but to fashion the program so they’re also learning cognitive skills that will put them ahead in other parts of the curriculum,” says Liane Brouillette, CLAT director and project PI.
Budget cuts have reduced or eliminated visual and performing arts programs across the state, Brouillette says. She and her staff have chosen low-performing schools in underserved neighborhoods to participate in ArtsCore. “In wealthier neighborhoods, the PTA pays or parents pitch in to bring arts education into the schools,” she says. “We are trying to give these other schools the same quality of arts instruction.”
ArtsCore focuses on training classroom teachers to use the arts to coax new literacy skills out of their young charges. “You can teach the arts but unless you make explicit the academic connections, they remain unrecognized and maybe untaught,” says Kim Burge, CLAT director of educational outreach.
First graders create a character from the books “Who’s in Rabbit’s House?”
Crafting Imagination through Collaboration
In the first year, the visiting artist and the teacher work hand-in-hand. Together, they attend workshops where they learn to recognize the literacy strands and thinking skills in each of 27 visual arts, drama and dance lessons they will co-teach.
“The visiting artist and the classroom teacher work together to create a richer environment,” says Brouillette. “It is very much a collaborative effort.”
In the second year, classroom teachers are supported by the school district’s visual/performing arts resource teachers, and, ArtsCore developers hope, by the third year, they can teach the lessons alone.
Throughout the program, teachers will also learn how to utilize literature to help the children improve their ethical and moral decision-making. Co-PI Kristen Monroe, UCI professor of political science and philosophy, and director of the Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality, has researched methods for training college students to become more empathetic; now she wants to impart this proficiency to younger children.
“There are a lot of different groups of people in society; some get along, some don’t and there’s too much prejudice against certain groups,” she says.
Using well-known books like Dr. Seuss’s “Butter Battle Book” and “The Sneetches” – as well as original short stories – Monroe hopes to give children models that will encourage acceptance and ethical behavior.
“We’re trying to accomplish three different things,” she says. “We’re trying to deal with general ethical issues, with moral dilemmas, and with getting the kids to see different groups in different ways.”
Connecting the Dots
Researchers will evaluate the program’s success. They will observe the participating teachers, and conduct school climate surveys pre- and post-project. “Research literature shows participating in the arts is a morale booster,” Brouillette says, “and kids learn more when they and their teachers feel better about their environment.”
The team also will conduct a quantitative evaluation of the program using district and state-mandated standardized tests. They will compare scores for individual children at participating schools with scores of children in a matched control group.
In addition, they will use evaluative art. Children will draw pictures of themselves and other ethnic groups, before and after the program, to see whether their perceptions have changed.
They’re expecting to see the connection between arts and literacy/ethical thinking that they already suspect. “We’re looking at literacy in its fullest context,” says Burge. “Reading, writing, listening, thinking and speaking – kids are gaining all of those competencies through the arts.”
— Anna Lynn Spitzer
