BOISE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL’S STUDENT SHOW CELEBRATES GLOBAL CULTURE
By Dana Oland – [email protected]
IdahoStatesman.com
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June 1 2009
After studying other countries and cultures in a new international
curriculum, the school’s teachers and parents wanted to end with a
big finish.
"We knew the thing that could tie this whole experience and all of
our grade levels together would be music and arts," said principal
Deborah Watts.
So they turned to Vashti Summerville, who has two children in the
school and runs Open Door Children’s Theatre, a company that builds
community through the performing arts.
She created a show that brought more than just song, dance and music
to the table.
"I didn’t want to repeat just the facts. I wanted it to have more
meat. So I found stories of empowerment that show that kids all around
the world, whatever their circumstance, can accomplish great things."
She used the show, titled "I Have Greatness in Me," to teach more
about the cultures the kids had been studying.
"The arts can really help cement what the kids learn in classes,"
Watts said.
The show and the program that inspired it are part of two trends in
schools today:
â~@¢ Development of focused curriculum programs that offer more
choices for parents.
â~@¢ Pursuit by parents and teachers of ways to supplement arts
education programs that are diminishing as budget cuts become more
common.
The Longfellow parent / teacher organization used some of its existing
funds as well as grant money from the Idaho Commission on the Arts
to pay Summerville for her script and direction, said Tani Theiler,
president of the PTO.
IT WAS AN EXTRAVAGANZA
The stage brimmed with 230 kids, a sea of colorful T-shirts that
represent each of the countries they studied – Australia, China,
Armenia, Brazil, Kenya, Canada, United States and Switzerland –
through all of their subjects from math to spelling to technology.
It took them nearly 10 months to prepare for the
performance. Summerville wrote the script in September, music teacher
Lisa Allen began teaching the songs in the fall and group rehearsals
started in January.
The long, hard work has paid off, even for the kids who didn’t want
to put in the effort to begin with, Allen said.
"Even the ones who were complaining all the time are getting
excited. Music is the universal language. It ties language, poetry,
movement, dancing, art and social studies together. As educators,
we talk about various learning styles. If understanding doesn’t come
in the classroom, maybe it will in an experience like this," she said.
Fourth-grader Nikita Schwartz, 10, liked the interactivity.
"A lot of kids learn more with hands-on projects. This is kind of
like one of them," Nikita said.
What’s more, the kids learned some things in the show they didn’t
learn in class.
"It (the show) expands your information about the countries," said
Hans Theiler III, 10. "I like the Switzerland part. That’s where
my dad came from. It taught me some new stuff. I didn’t know that
Switzerland never had a war. That’s something I learned."
They sang in different languages and learned about struggles that
other kids grew up with.
"The goal of the international program is to show the kids how they
fit in the global scheme of things, and also to realize that we’re
really a lot more similar than we are different from other cultures,"
Summerville said.
Longfellow kids learned about:
â~@¢ Brazilian soccer great Pel, who won his first World Cup before
graduating high school.
â~@¢ Chinese artist Wang Yani, who began painting dazzling monkeys
when she was 3.
â~@¢ Armenian filmmaker Gor Baghdasaryan, who won the first UNICEF
One-Minute Video Junior Award for his film "Children Must Live Without
War" when he was 14.
"I liked the Armenia story because it taught me about how hard war
is on children, and how much that country has improved," Nikita said.
Students from Pierce Park Elementary, which also has the international
program, made up the dress-rehearsal audience. They ended up singing
along.
FOCUS SCHOOLS ARE STILL AN EXPERIMENT
These kinds of programs show the benefit of offering more options
for parents who are looking for a deeper educational experience for
their kids, said Don Coberly, who oversees curriculum for the district.
Other district schools with focused curriculum include Whittier
and Whitney, where students learn half the day in English and the
other half in Spanish, and Liberty Elementary, which has adopted a
Montessori approach.
"It’s the concept that the more options parents have, the happier
they will be," Coberly said.
Each of these focuses has boosted enrollment at the schools. Longfellow
has a waiting list.
Since Longfellow started its focus, students and parents have been
incredibly engaged, said Hallie Davidson, whose daughter Stella is
in the school.
"Everyone is really supporting this. She loves all this. We’ve been
singing the songs at home and she talks about what she’s learned all
the time," Davidson said. "I would love to see more art and music
integrated into what we do."
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