Ask any creator…an architect, sculptor, writer, carpenter, choreographer, composer or designer. Sometimes you just have to stop and start all over again. They say it is ‘insanity’ to continue doing the same things and yet keep expecting different results. Sometimes you have to detach, throw out and then re-create. This is the formula I suggest for the public school systems in America.
I do want to applaud and hug the individual schools that are safe and loving places for children to attend. But for the most part, American schools are challenged only to produce high test scores not highly functioning young people. High test scores. I believe there are financial incentives and political motivations for that depressing challenge.
But where are the incentives or the inspiration for a school to become a place where all of the children are happy and expressive, no matter the speed of their academic achievements? A place where the building is bursting at the seams with weekly creative projects and competitions, book clubs and glee clubs, drama and dance performances, exciting guests, festivals, fairs and community events.
I say we take a year and ‘stop with’ the academic testing and the ninety minute pressurized periods of math and reading. Give the teachers a break from all of the grading, assessments and evaluations. Let’s try something radically different to engage young people in thoughtful learning and thoughtful behavior.
Bring in all of the artists and performers who will teach the children songs to sing, dances to do and how to take a photo. Bring in the storytellers and story readers. Bring in the screenwriters and film makers. Bring in the drummers who can teach boys to strengthen their bodies as they learn intricate polyphonic rhythms. Bring in the martial artists, the wordsmith rappers and hip-hop dance choreographers. Bring in the gymnasts and the poets and members of the Geek Squad. Let the students enjoy learning in a way that does not require testing.
Let the teachers do nothing but observe and participate and replenish themselves with enthusiasm. And then in the middle of every day, between the rehearsals for Shakespeare and perfecting their cartwheels, let the students and the teachers have a whole hour for lunch…plus recess!
If a whole year of this is too radical and unwieldy, then make it the first month of the school year or at least the first week of each month. School has to be a place where students and teachers enjoy. Mandatory joy! Nothing will work without it.
Maria, I love this idea. I think a week is certainly possible–a month would be better–a year? Wow. We are working hard to bring more arts to school kids both during and after school. Your idea is truly audacious and certainly worth talking about!
Terry M Rubenstein
Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds
I think a radical re-introduction of the arts to public schools is essential. In the Manchester neighborhood, at the edge of Pittsburgh, arts are transforming young people who start out with difficulty reading into college bound young people who are building their lives into inspirations for others.
I think this is brilliant! I absolutely agree. I think we should even expand it to say, let’s spend a year allowing children to do all the things that engage human beings deeply, but might not fit the alphanume test mandate. Like science experiments just for fun; bridge building using real bridges, making and playing games, etc. The key is to create a genuine love for whatever you are doing. Though I’m an artist myself and need to see that going on much more than it is, I also know that creating authentic engagement is the even larger goal.
Bravo! Great idea. I constantly remember the last book that Dr. Suess didn’t finish – Hooray For Diffendoofer Day! was published only after two of his biggest fans and modern children’s authors got their hands on the manuscript and the blessing of the publisher to finish the story in the good Dr.’s style. This book talked about just that. And when the test finally did come up, low and behold the students scored out of this world because they were so good at thinking, creating, innovating and learning. I recommend the book to everyone. And, Maria, we’d love to have you and your friends come to our school…
I agree wholeheartedly with the above comments. Wonderful! At Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, we are developing a new intergenerational arts education program that will pair students with senior citizens, in an after school setting, where they will explore and perform Shakespeare together. It is an opportunity for students to form interpersonal relationships with older persons who can provide sorely needed guidance, wisdom, support, and friendship. Through the arts in general, and Shakespeare specifically, we hope to enable children with either exceptional or special needs to achieve improved emotional and social development thereby helping them to reach social, behavioral, developmental and educational goals.
I agree with you, Maria. I remember when I taught first grade while living in Liberia. Without assessments and paperwork weighing me down(not to say that I didn’t keep meticulous records) I concentrated on being a creative educator. My classroom was a place of fun, inquiry, and discovery. Students were actively involved and engaged in learning and teaching. I only had one rule, “Ask three before you ask me.” I encouraged my students to be partners and collaborators in the task at hand in any given instructional period. We did lots of art, sang, danced, and did movements in order to master the material. All students read on a third grade level when they left the first grade, except for one student. I didn’t say I was Annie Sullivan (The Miracle Worker). We had art, music, and self-selected reading, physical education, and storytelling daily. As a result of this free space of learning engendered by active student participation, passing meant more than passivity, and the enthusiastic students had stars in their eyes to match the ones placed on their exemplary work. In this space, my students recited mantras such as, “I was born to know” and “It is necessary to know.” In math they mastered place value up to one million; they learned statistics. Everything we did, daily, was based on a connected theme, which unified the so-called disparate disciplines. Children are naaturally geniuses; they are only educated to become illiterates. Free the Classroom and free the students.
Lifting As We Climb.
This is a big dream and it will be a glorious day when it is realized. Could the schools consider asking the students in each school, what they would want. What would inspire them? Get their input, get them involved in creating a new reality for their lives, a new environment that will nuture their souls!
There was an internet class with Oprah and author Eckhart Tolle on this eve and the comment was made the we cannot make changes by fighting against anything – that is why the “war” againast poverty or drugs has not won. If the students are engaged joyfully in something that they can help create and where their energies are taken seriously – that they have a voioce and it is heard – that will foster change. Start the discussion and planning and get the students involved! Encourage them to set priorities as to what they would want to see take place first, second, third etc. as practical aspects such as budget is something to be considered. And then what they have helped to create, can be visually seen as being successful for both students and teachers and ultimately the community, that will faciliate other things to materialize and Grace to occur.
Glad to hear your mellifluous voice again.
I made a rather unsuccessful attempt at public school teaching a few years ago. There was precious little joy there. The teachers disliked each other. The administartion was monstous, nazi-like, almost inhuman. Nobody really wanted to be there. The kids were there because the law said they had to. The teachers mistrusted each other. They were there to earn a paycheck & looked forward to retirement asap. They were all just going through the motions. Compare this to the prep school you & I worked for: Music, art, theater & dance took place every day. & evening. There were paintings & sculpture all over the place. We did our artistic things with the kids & nobody interfered. The academic staff really cared about the kids & afterwards they got into some really fine colleges. A jubilee year! Say Ay-men! Down with that “no child left” bologna.
No, Maria, a year is not too long. In fact, years 2, 3 and 4 would strongly resemble that year because “surprisingly???”, the almighty test scores would improve. Nestled within everything you mentioned were Math, English, Science and Social Studies — in forms that are much more user-friendly and user-relevant for students, teachers and families. One month would only introduce them to humanity and civility and then revert back to business as usual. Just imagine students and teachers “enjoying each other”. Why, this “kinder, gentler” approach to education could really lead to “no child left behind.” It’s going to take radical action to stop this speeding locomotive powered by test scores and “re-fuel” it with creativity and yes, even love. What a peaceful and powerful idea!
What a curious approach Maria… aiming for happy and expressive children?… giving teachers a break? It all sounds surreal but I also see it as the necessary step that must be taken between the current standard approach to public education and any radically different approach designed to engage young people in thoughtful learning and thoughtful behavior.
As a former BCPSS teacher and as a concerned citizen I experienced and watched as programs were implemented at the “zero hour” or after the year began. Then they were abandoned when the desired results were not achieved by year’s end! Part of the reason the programs did not succeed was that no time was alloted for recovering from damage done by previous approaches/administrators or getting acclimated to the new approach.
Yes, I think your idea outlines the much needed transitional step into a much needed radically different approach that will satisfy the expectations of the teachers and children as well as higher education, the work environment or the military (the only three choices after graduation), in that order.
There’s a bunch of people doing this already – they’re called unschoolers.
Peace and Love Maria,
LET’S MAKE A JOY-FULL NOISE! It is truly time, not only for the Youth in the schools but for all institutions such as Nursing Homes, Group Homes, Assistant Living Facilities including the Mentally and Physically challenged and Prisons. I can see the youth visiting these places demonstrating their creativity in all the ways you mentioned through dance, drama drumming, poetry, art and more as a part of their get out and get some fresh air as well as spread all that Self Love and Joy they will be feeling as a result of the opportunity to Create while Learning, EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THEIR LIVES…I SAY FOREVER WOULD BE TO SHORT. I want to help in any way I can to get this started as soon as possible, because LIVES are at stake. Please call me 410-926-7812 soon.
Hmmm… make this the afterschool classes. When the current academic classes end at 3pm etc., your classes begin. School goes to 5pm, K-12.
Think of the childcare money poor families would save, and the ability of mothers to have a job, if they so choose, to bring more income into the home.
Think of the J.H. study of poor children having a disadvantage going into school from limited family enrichment activities, and how this compounds every summer break — Your mandatory joy might just mitigate.
The question is: why aren’t we doing this? Why are we as a state and city investing $1 billion in the largely (though not entirely) joy-free public school day, and less than $10 million in the largely joy-full after-school arts and athletics programs?
Answer: The $1 billion investment is not for the benefit of the children, it’s for the benefit of the adults to whom the $1 billion is paid. A cash cow.
If you want joyous education, you must fight for capital re-distribution to joyous people–young and old. That takes not only a great idea, like yours, but also some very serious risk-taking. Are we ready?
I’m surpisingly not opposed to that 9-5 school idea someone proposed. I also believe that we as artists need to work with teachers (as we at Young Audiences and those at Arts Everyday are beginning to do) to find ways to bring that joy to the classroom every day. After working in a public school last year, I realized I could never teach in the “box” that teachers are currently constrained to. I think Dr. Alonso may have the right idea giving principals autonomy, but we MUST make sure we have GOOD principals invested in something more than test scores. They, in turn, should give teachers autonomy to teach their kids the way they see fit. Of course, we hold them accountable at the end of the day, but JOY is key for all of us. I always say I want to make a bumper sticker that says “Do the world a favor and Do what you love.” No one, child or adult, should remain in a school or job where there is a lack of joy. My sister said recently that she wonders how my 4 year old got to be such a genius. I told her she was born that way, and we have just tried not to mess it up. All kids are gifted and talented, you just have to encourage and nurture the gifts. Ask them questions and let them find the answers. We ALL learn best that way if you think about it, and it is all so rewarding when you realize you have found your own way. I also love what someone said here about collaboration. Let us continue to dialogue and partner. It truly does take the village to raise a child. I also want to say that in the current state of public schools, I am unwilling to sacrifice my child and am looking for a good charter school or Montessori to send her to until the problems are fixed. However, I am working diligently with anyone who is willing to find the solutions that will allow all children to experience and revel in their genius. People ask me often if children who are not mine are mine. I treat all children as I do my own. I always respond “They are all my children.” They are yours too! Be well.
All I can say is thank you for your wonderful energy! Your words speak volumes.
Miss Maria – You hit the nail on the head! Measuring joy is not an easy task which is why schools have a tough time seeing it’s value. But you know it when you see it and we see it often in our after school programs. It’s a vital part of the creative process. Smiles speak volumes! We need to offer young people and educators a safe space to breathe and move; a non-judgemental place to create anything/everything with a spirit of risk-taking. Thank you for your enlightening and courageous thoughts.
Linda DePalma
Education Director, Creative Alliance
Def agree with FeFe. I don’t want kids fingerpainting all day. They won’t know how to add. But extending the day, and using the extra time for arts and creativity would be awesome. We could start and end the day that way. I totally agree with the longer lunch break. First, don’t you need to unwind a bit in the middle of the day? Also, time for outdoor activity after eating would help with the terrible sleepiness that comes after eating…the food coma!
The issue of saving parents day care costs is awesome. We already have the school building and staff…it would only cost a little more. And a heck of alot less than government programs elsewhere. Bravo group!!
And since my pet issue is reforming our society’s approach to crim justice, I’m sure that happier kids will stay in school longer and commit less crime. Win Win!