98. Arts In Your Toolkit
Talking Hands Talking Feet is a response to a need.
The need, simply stated, is for teachers (of any background) to be able to bring the arts back into the classroom. Stated better, it is to be able to integrate the arts in the academic curriculum!
It is easier than one might think. It doesn’t require going back to college. It doesn’t require a complete overhaul of the education system. It doesn’t require a lot of money. But it does require a willingness to change, to expand, to try new ways of learning, of teaching.
The Arts have been sidelined in schools in two ways: The second is lack of funding. The first, however, is much more fundamental. It is to do with how we ‘see’ the Arts. Music, Dance, Theater, Oratory, Poetry, Visual Arts, Storytelling and Film are generally NOT seen as an essential integrated part of education. No, the Arts in our education culture have become subjects themselves rather than a means of integrated learning. This distinction is SO important.
The difference between studying the Arts and using the Arts as part of your teaching toolkit is huge! It can change your life!
We want to help.
Arts Integrated Education means employing the ARTS (all of them, not just visual) as a means of learning! For everything you put on the wall or write on the blackboard (or whiteboard, poster board or whatever) you can demonstrate in 3D in the center of your classroom with your kids!
The ARTS are a means of expression. If you want to retain something, give it away! Express it to get it!
By singing and moving to a thoughtful song about Geography, Mathematics or the Human Body we develop springboards of introduction and inquiry that children REMEMBER! They remember because they are using MORE of themselves!
For every question there are multiple answers! How we go about ‘answering’ a question, solving a problem, investigating a subject is everything!
Process is everything!
By using the ARTS as part of your teaching toolkit, you are increasing the learning capacity of your students exponentially.
The first ART is in how we use ourselves – our most marvelous human equipment and faculties. Give your children a chance to ‘teach’ you how to teach them!
~PAZ
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