ARTSblog

The other week I attended the Arts Education in Maryland Schools Alliance (AEMS) annual Café. The topic at hand was integrating the arts into the core academic curriculum – i.e. using arts to teach math, history, etc.  While I support an integrated curriculum, I was struck by the focus on bringing the arts as a SUBJECT or tool for learning into the academic classroom, not necessarily bringing the arts TEACHERS, as the integrated arts model stressed teaching the academic teachers to incorporate arts projects and teaching into their teaching plans.

While I strongly encourage all teachers to take advantage of the wonderful skills arts can provide in learning, I am concerned that the integration model may lead to the further evaporation of qualified arts teachers in our schools. This particular fear was furthered by a discussion of integration as a timely choice in tight economic times –instead of a social studies teacher and a studio art teacher, how about a social studies teacher who can incorporate studio arts? In my opinion, the integration needs to occur across the board – the arts into math classes, AS WELL AS math into the arts classes, not merely the combining of them into one class.

 In NDEO’s green paper on the Future of Dance Education, the fourth threat keeping dance education at risk in American schools is the issue of: “What is dance education? Who teaches it? Read the rest of this entry »

I was recently listening to a segment on the Diane Rehm show on NPR about First Lady Michelle Obama’s new initiative to combat childhood obesity, “Let’s Move,” (to hear the segment: http://wwww.wamu.org/programs/dr/10/02/11.php). Growing up in dance, I maintained a high level of physical activity as a child and, while the health benefits were never my motivation for dancing, they were a welcome benefit. Listening to the current debate on childhood obesity and the strategies of “Let’s Move,” I am struck by two things.

1. Why does the focus on physical fitness and health so often focus solely on sports and leave out dance?
2. How, as proponents of an education in dance in the ARTS can we tap into the concern over fitness and health without falling back into our traditional and stifling place as dance in P.E. programs? Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the Green Paper discussion on Dance Education. We encourage you to read the full Green Paper available in the tab above and make general comments at this time. Be sure to keep your comments brief—BetsyLoikow, the Ambassador for this Green Paper will soon begin deeper, threaded conversations around specific paragraphs, sections or themes that appear in this Green Paper. Follow this conversation thoroughly by adding the Dance Education feed to your RSS reader!