Day 1 ARTS SCHOOLS NETWORK CONFERENCE

Inspiration from the First Day of the Arts Schools Network Conference

LeAnn Binford, Director of Big Thought Institute, Dallas, TX painted an incredibly positive picture of the state of arts in Dallas Public Schools. She discussed how the Big Thought Institute had created this vibrant collaboration between local business, corporations, the juvenile justice dept., parents, educators and the school district to infuse arts education so that it was there for every student. They are clearly supported by the highest level of school administration as the Dallas Superintendent of Schools,  Dr. Hinojosa joked about how Texas was notorious for accountacanabilism, referring to the drive to test students, but that Dallas was different.  Their program for arts education for incarcerated youth has resulted in a very low rate of recidivism. I was going to say the lowest in Texas but I am not sure I heard right, although I would believe it.

•        Takeaway from this: A renewed desire to work with businesses as well as our Arts Community Partners. I used to attend the Town Hall Meetings in Los Angeles that were designed to bring education and business together. I would like to look into that again. I work with Linked Learning and they are great at helping businesses partner with schools but our school is performing arts and we mostly partner with arts organization. I want to work with Linked Learning and others to broaden our partnerships, particularly in regards to my directing for media classes.

After the speech, we spent a couple of hours at the Booker T. Washington High School for the performing arts and saw this vision in action. That is one amazing school.  Incredibly articulate and poised, students guided us through the school. Afterward we wandered about the school on our own.

The most striking thing about the school is the student’s pride of ownership. The hallways are full of artwork and photographs. The students design all the hallway displays. Students were practicing music and drawing in the hallways. I could see how they were so supportive of each other. Students were helping each other create life size portraits for an arts integration class. The place was full of smiles.

•        My Takeaway from this: I teach video and my students submit and win awards but my students have created a bulletin board in the hallway celebrating and sharing their achievements. I know they would like to do it.  I also liked the displays of very artistic senior portraits under their arts specialization. I’m the advisor for yearbook, so I know the yearbook photographers would be into making that happen.

We stopped into the conducting classroom where students from the choral program and the band work together to learn to play together and also to conduct.

• ·      My Takeaway: It’s difficult for my small school to have a conducting class, but maybe we could arrange a special master class. I think it is very cool to have students take strong leadership roles. It doesn’t get much stronger than conducting and we really need more female conductors.

Every six weeks there is a special program at the school called PB&J where the students, share their work informally with each other and also formally, performing finished pieces in the theatre. It is really designed for the students to interact and share and build community. During this day, the academic teachers are given the time and space to create benchmark or interim exams, look at data, and work together to focus on the English, history, languages, and math for an entire day while the arts teachers and volunteers supervise the students. This isn’t to say that arts are not integrated into English and history. We say some amazing work in the English and history classes.

• ·      My Takeaway: I don’t know if it is possible but I would absolutely like to advocate this for my school, at least one day a year.

I saw a class, in action where the teacher was assigning a task where students would find an object that spoke to them. It could be a rock. They would use this object as the starting point for a story that might include music, dance, or visual arts. This was a class that integrated all the arts with English (and other subjects, I don’t really know).

• ·      My Takeaway: I want to make a renewed effort to offer more choice to students as to how they can show mastery and to document my efforts.

There was the most amazing opera class. I shot a little video but the mike on my camera couldn't handle the dynamics of their voices. They went from soft to this amazingly deep and high sound. The student tour guide told me that opera was more popular at the school than musical theatre and it was due to their partnership with the local opera. 

I also saw the arts teacher using an alternate space, with table and chairs, to give an assessment. She was the costume and set design teacher. I thought that was an interesting idea. I asked the teacher if the space was designed for that and she said that it was a study space and she just used it that way. It does seem like a good idea for theatre, dance, and orchestra to have access to alternate space like that when they need it for writing. The actual costuming shop class was really beautiful with old furniture and manikins.