Arts education makes an impact

TARA M. MANTHEY; The News Tribune
Published: August 26th, 2006 01:00 AM
PHOTOS BY BRUCE KELLMAN/THE NEWS TRIBUNE

Teachers from Tacoma’s Grant Center for the Expressive Arts pretend to be characters from the book “Where the Wild Things Are” as part of a drama exercise Thursday at the Broadway Center. From left are Carolyn Proehl, Tammy Bentley, Kim Smith and Darrick Hartman.

It wasn’t until teacher Kim Kallenberger tried to paint a symmetrical picture that she understood how difficult it is.

Every way she folded it, she saw some subtle aspect to her creation that wasn’t repeated on the opposite plane.

“You take a step back and realize that it’s not an easy concept for kids to do,” Kallenberger said last week at the Tacoma Art Museum.

She and other teachers from Tacoma’s Grant Center for the Expressive Arts were at the museum to better understand the benefits of teaching reading and math through dance, theater and visual arts.

The weeklong seminar is a service of Arts Impact, a regional organization that has won a $1 million federal grant to expand its work.

The four-year grant is one of 34 nationwide by the U.S. Department of Education. It was designed to support and develop innovative arts education programs.

This is the second time Arts Impact has won the grant. The first was a three-year grant in 2002. With the federal money and other support, it has trained more than 200 classroom teachers in the Puget Sound region.

Arts Impact not only helps to shield the arts from undulating local school financing, but attempts to better train teachers to meet state standards in arts education, said Sibyl Barnum, Arts Impact program manager.

With the new grant, it will also track student test scores and teacher performance in schools with arts training and those schools without. Another study group will include schools with principals who have gone through an arts leadership program offered by ArtsEd Washington.

That group has trained leaders in 13 Puget Sound schools on the importance an arts-infused curriculum, said executive director Una McAlinden. The support, enthusiasm and leadership of principals is critical to sustaining arts programs, she said.

Kapowsin Elementary in the Bethel School District created an arts team, expanded arts instruction and created a schoolwide calendar for the arts after Principal Bradley Graham went through the program, McAlinden said.

Many Grant School teachers have been through the Arts Impact training previously, said Principal Avance Byrd. All the educators returned this week to rejuvenate the school’s arts commitment and train newcomers.

A black-eyed Susan serves as inspiration Thursday for a painting by Grant teacher Jomarie Carlson at the Tacoma Art Museum.

First-grade teacher Sue Grote has been through the training before. She said the experience with art has improved her students’ confidence and self expression.

“Instead of reading a story,” Grote said, “now we have kids who want to perform.”

On Wednesday, Arts Impact mentor Meredith Essex led the staff in the symmetry activity and another in which teachers used cool or warm colors to illustrate a scene from a book.

All the lessons center on state achievement standards, giving teachers another route to meeting requirements, Essex said. Growing emphasis on standards can make some teachers feel boxed in.

“Teachers feel that as the pressure mounts there is less and less latitude in being able to express individuality and creativity,” Essex said.

Given oil pastels and paints, second-grade teacher Patricia Johnson said she enjoyed learning the new instruction methods.

“I’m really anxious to use some of those things in the fall,” she said.

ABOUT THE PROGRAMS

Arts Impact is a service of the Puget Sound Educational Service District, an education services cooperative. It is paid for mostly through grants from foundations, the federal government and the Washington State Arts Commission. The program trains teachers over two years. Each summer, they gather at the Tacoma Art Museum and the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts for a week of instruction. Then professional artists and performers go to teachers’ schools for 10 hours of mentoring and lesson development.

The Principal Arts Leadership Initiative is a service of the Washington State Alliance for Arts Education, also known as ArtsEd Washington. It helps principals develop long-term plans to gradually increase arts instruction so students will be proficient in state arts standards by 2009.