Whether this is a message for the Milwaukee Public School Board (MPS), or to the future staff and families of the new STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) school, please be sure to include all interested STEAM students in the future learning community–not a ‘dumping ground’ from the district’s Central Office.

Our arts schools in MPS have suffered enough. This is not a blog with a hidden political agenda. In my experience after 15 years in education, two school buildings stick out in my mind, which at one time represented the love of learning and the arts. Both of these MPS schools were broken down piece by piece, with each passing year. In terms of school culture, the layers of positive community were dissolved over time. Safety and the behavior of its students took front seat as the arts were pushed not only to the back of the bus, but completely off the bus as arts programs were not only cut, but in some cases eliminated. Arts teachers were replaced with security officers.

These two schools for certain have been dumping grounds for the district’s Central Office. Numerous students were placed in these learning environments who had absolutely no interest in the arts, as creative kids and their families all over the city were perhaps never really encouraged to consider these particular schools.

If you are interested in a gem, look into The Mission Hill School in Boston, which now has a series of recent video segments shot documentary style inviting others into Mission Hill’s unique world. As a community educator who spent a school year at Mission Hill, the following words pop into my head when thinking about Mission Hill: embrace, positive, family, discover, community of caring, nature, arts, democracy.

Mission Hill uses portfolios throughout the students’ entire time at the school. It is these portfolios that not only serve as an assessment, but they allow students to share their discoveries to not only staff and family, but community members as well. There is a deep and genuine reason to be engaged in what is happening both within and beyond the school walls. Portfolios fit nicely into artistic and project-based philosophies, at a time when standardized testing continues to rule many school’s yearlong schedules instead of these child-driven celebrations of learning.

A Year at Mission Hill video series can be found here:
www.missionhillschool.org/a-year-at-mission-hill/

To the argument “All children should have the arts, not just a few.” I couldn’t agree more. However, what is wrong with putting into place a system that addresses children who learn best through the arts? And why, like the future STEAM school, can’t we create more schools that address a particular way of learning such as technology, multiple intelligences, nature/environment, etc.? Let’s put more energy into processes that allow schools to bring out the best in each child, and at the same time, assuring that the school is a good fit for each young learner.

Dance and love,
Christina M. Ratatori, a.r.t. founder

This is not a blog post to rip on our Congress. It is a heartfelt suggestion that we be reminded that teachers’ conditions at school are also our students’ learning conditions. I can tell you from firsthand experience, that some of our school buildings are toxic. That’s right, TOXIC for our youth. The deep layers of negativity, testing, yelling, and gray hallways are no place for children.  And some of their schedules are so jam packed, there is no time to breathe.

Were you aware that some educators have 10 minutes in their day to each lunch AND use the restroom? It’s true. With so many cuts, many teachers are doing extra (and triple) duties to fill recess, lunch, and bus times.

WHAT IF…

What if we had mandatory recharge times in schools to allow children to participate in the arts, eat a healthy snack, or even have some one-on-one time with a teacher? This could take many different forms such as the following: (These are just a few ideas, but you could expand on the list below to create the best fit for each school community.):

healthy snack + listen to poetry and/or music

wiggle dance/movement breaks

classroom meetings (address interpersonal & intrapersonal strong students)

listen to classical music while drawing

yoga breaks

one-on-one time (student & staff member) to encourage community work, volunteering, individual arts projects, etc.

integrate technology by watching short video clips of the great artists of our time

image: flickr.com

These sprinkles of art during the proposed recharge time is in no way a replacement for the four tiers of powerful arts education. The ultimate goal is to have the following in place for effective arts programming:  arts integration in the ‘regular’ classrooms, arts specialists in place for ongoing instruction, community partnerships/teaching artists and live performances.  The opportunity for children to experience the heartfelt symphony, tears from a moving play, or a deep connection to one’s own life story through live dance is a must and should not be seen as an ‘extra’ but a necessity.

As rewarding as it can be, working with youth sometimes drains one’s spirit and emotions. Being a teacher should never be compared to other careers. It is in a category all on its own. And with that said, students and their teachers around them deserve a little recharge time each day.

Dance and love,

Christina M. Ratatori

Please join us for the a.r.t. Tuesday tweet chats.  Let’s heal our schools with the arts!

#rally4art

Tuesday nights 8-9pm CST

All classroom teachers, arts specialists, teaching artists, administrators, parents and all who believe in more art in our schools are invited.

Just think, you can sit with your laptop & a cup of coffee or glass of wine (and even catch up on your DVR) while joining us. Whether newbie or veterans, please share this weekly tweet chat with your teacher friends and those interested in arts education. The more, the merrier. Please add the following to your smartphones:

   a.r.t. tuesday tweet chats
   Tuesday evenings 8:00-9:00 pm (Central)
   #rally4art

Follow us @artsrallytogthr.

Have you ever heard of a tweet chat?

A tweet chat (or Twitter party) is basically a live chat on Twitter, based around a certain topic, or hashtag. It’s a really fun way to engage and interact with people of similar interests on Twitter, learn more about a particular topic & have some fun.

Join us each week, as we talk about various topics of interest to classroom teachers, arts educators, arts specialists, and all individuals interested in arts education. Share your thoughts, feelings, and knowledge, and connect with other arts ed. peeps on Twitter.

How To Join the a.r.t. Tuesday tweet chat…
1.  Follow the host of the party, @artsrallytogthr to get the questions and topics for the chat.
2.  Add the hashtag #rally4art to each of your tweets.
3.  Reply to and re-tweet (RT) the tweets that you see with the #rally4art hashtag, and get ready for a wonderful time connecting with others on Twitter.
4.  SPREAD THE WORD Please share this post on Facebook, Twitter and at your staff meetings.
5.  That’s it. Easy as pie. Looking forward to chatting with you!

credit: created with input from Kiner Enterprises

In a recent a.r.t. interview, the genuine enthusiasm in Jon’s voice was addictive. I was instantly drawn to his passion and excitement when he described his use of blues music in connection to literacy, language arts, and history in his classroom. What is so interesting is that you look at his website (kidslikeblues.org) and it is easy to think this teacher has been at it with Kids Like Blues for years. While chatting with him on the call from California, I was blown away to find out this all started just back in February.

The beauty of this story is Jon’s discovery of the power of the arts as a teaching tool while struggling with two ESL learners. One from Mexico and later in the same school year, a girl from Japan, the two shells both personally and academically were broken when he introduced them to his love for blues music.

Usually educators are arts ‘heavy’ or tech savvy, not both. Jon not only has an interest in both, but he also weaves these two components into his classroom. His students are blogging, and he is always making videos of their work.

When this all began he had 10 days until a school performance. Many teachers would have said ‘no way’ to that idea. Not Jon. He told his students they would prepare during every lunch, every recess… whatever it took. THAT is a dedicated and passionate teacher. I knew this guy was a rock star. Not only did he respond asap to my request to be interviewed, but he even offered to chat that same day. He was ecstatic to describe his journey thus far, including sharing with me some of his students and their worlds turned upside down by the power of music.

Here is a bit of our conversation…

a: What do you teach?
J: I teach second grade. Two years ago I did a four/five combo with 39 students. Because of the budget crunch in California, you get jostled around a little bit more than usual. I have taught every grade first through sixth. Last year I did first grade, so I looped with my kids this year. I have about 80% of my students from last year. We hit the ground running with the blues music work this year.

a: Where do you see yourself on the process vs. product scale?
J: I don’t have much time to reflect on stuff; I just do it. We do stuff that seems natural to us.

a: How did Kids Like Blues come to be?
J: Last year, I downloaded songs for the first grade on my iPod. A lot of them were hokey. (Side note… amen, Mr. Schwartz. AMEN.) I started breaking out the classical nursery rhymes. Pop Goes the Weasel was wearing a little thin on me so I added some blues to the playlist. I played a few and they liked it a lot. Also, what I noticed was that they remembered the words really quickly.

And then one of these kids started coming up and doing a dance to it. She started doing this Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers thing. I got enough of an education to know that I shouldn’t stop her from doing this.

This was February of last year. At the beginning of that school year, we had a student from Mexico who didn’t speak any English, and she wasn’t picking anything up in class. I was getting frustrated. I was doing everything… conferences, dictionaries, speaking with her during recess, small groups, etc. A bit later, a girl from Japan showed up; she knew zero English. She had fled the tsunami with her family. I couldn’t imagine a girl more shut down. So this was about the time I started with some of the blues songs. Guess who were some of the first girls to go up and do this dance with the first girl? The next thing I knew these two ESL students were memorizing the blues songs. This was wild. There was this hilarious moment when I was like, “Ok. This is the band.” [The girl from Mexico, the students from Japan, and the dancer.] More students wanted in. We practiced until we were blue in the face and then we blew them away at a school talent show.

Check out the girls in Sweet Home Chicago here:

a: I love how you included the standards at the bottom of some of your videos.
J: I started using the blues for my reading instruction. They were picking this up on their own. This became a project thing. It all picked up steam. I knew I had to back this up with standards. If you look into four lines of Let It Rock, there are many lessons just in that. If you say, “Hey kids, let’s do some grammar.” They hate it. But if you do it everyday within the context [of blues music], they are into it. Because it is all related; it makes sense to the kids.

a: If you could jam with one person in your classroom, who would it be?
J: Santana

Jon, this is just the beginning for you and your students. a.r.t wishes you and your lucky class more and more days of memorable learning and artful moments. Arts integration is now infused in your classroom… bravo! Oh, yeah. And I am available to choreograph for the Kids Like the Blues Band any day.

Dance and love,
Christina M. Ratatori

Please check out all of the Kids Like Blues Band videos here:

kidslikeblues.org/Video.html

A recent New York Times opinion letter reminded me of the fact no one seems to want to address, yet the wheel continues to spin for standardized testing marathons in our schools. Let me get straight to the point. The man who invented multiple choice testing eventually called his assessment a ‘test of lower order thinking for the lower orders.’ (New York Times, October 14, 2012, Nikhi Goyal, NY)

It sickens me that I recently found myself in a computer lab with 5-year-olds helping with this required testing. And with computers that were not working and faulty headsets to boot, this is how we are spending our money to help children learn? Of course our schools are seeing children acting up and interrupting the learning process more and more. They are tested and tested and tested some more.

Yes. I have touched upon testing during an earlier blog, yet the tests are still a top priority in our schools. No assessment is what I am advocating for? Not at all, but there is a difference between testing (bubbles and pencils) and assessing what students know (for example, project-based learning.)

The right and left can argue and bring in as many talking heads as they want. Here is my 5-point plan.

1. Whether it is ARTS, athletics, or even chess, we need these in our schools. They must be a requirement.

2. We need positive, dedicated, fantastic educators in our schools. If teachers do not meet high expectations, they should not be in front of young minds. Our teachers need to be lifted up and supported, not beaten down.

3. Schools need a needle & thread model weaving school procedures, social skills programming, anti-bullying, etc. across all grade levels and subjects.

4. It takes a village. Scratch that. It takes an entire universe. Mentoring programs, community partnerships, volunteers from all walks of life… let’s not push these needs aside, but instead give them priority for planning and funding. And that universe must include a small number of students in each school building and every classroom.

5. There are many, many schools that are huge buildings of doom and gloom. Think of The Wiz’s transformation scene aka “Brand New Day.” We need positive, caring, inspirational environments for all of our children.

We cannot expect our youth to be excited to come to school when the day consists of all academics and marathon weeks of testing. Arts, team activities of all kinds, and even school-wide service-learning programs are important ingredients in addressing the whole child. Wouldn’t we rather have our students pushing Veterans in wheelchairs and giving art performances at a children’s hospital than putting their energies into cyber bullying and fights at lunchtime?

When are we going to stand up to the higher-ups and follow research which states students cannot be seen solely as fillers of test bubbles? Don’t we want our youth to be creative and good citizens, in addition to strong readers and mathematicians?

This war on teachers has to stop. I remember my grandma being so proud when she was able to tell others her granddaughter was a school teacher. Now, educators are beaten up on opinion pages and the comments written online about teachers are beyond disrespectful. Sometimes teachers have only a few minutes throughout the entire day to eat their lunch (while walking down the hallway) at mock speed and try to find time to use the bathroom during that window, too.  And not to mention the hours and hours of planning time at home and on weekends… and yes, during their summers, too.  (When they are not working their summer jobs.)

A list of 15 school-wide or classroom rules probably won’t cut it. Yet, a BE KIND. WORK HARD. (Mission Hill School, Boston) philosophy is easy to understand and remember for all ages. How disagreements are handled should not change each year a student begins a new grade/new teacher. These procedures should be put into place, practiced, and expected by all (even the secretaries, lunch chefs, and custodians).

The language used should be universal for the entire school’s culture. And buy-in from every single teacher is key.

Our larger schools are crushing our education system. Strong relationships in the school setting are being replaced with students being seen as a test score statistic. There is simply a greater chance for students to fall through the cracks when the class size is 30 to 40 (or more!) students.

You would think schools would be the most inspiring environments in the world, but many of our schools are filled with instructors who make them feel ‘less than,’ crush their self-esteem and spend more time catching them doing what is wrong than everything they are doing that is right. Are there educators who are shining beams of positivity? Absolutely.

Many hallways are not filled with art and music. Instead, some administrators strictly enforce silent hallways. Could we have singing and skipping ones instead? Let children be children. Please. Walking down silent hallways with hands behind their backs for a five-year-old? Really? The arts would, with time, change the landscape of a school’s culture. Can you imagine starting a school day with a student singing over the PA or a poem being read to the entire cafeteria during breakfast time?

I do not know all nor do I pretend to. However, after 15 years in the schools, including a very rare list of having experienced every kind of school at every grade level from the West Coast to the East Coast, as well as the Midwest. As those living on the coasts sometimes say, “Somewhere in the middle.” I have not only observed the most successful and broken schools, but I have been in the trenches of both.

Here is just one example of the way things are and the way things could be. The state of our classrooms today…teachers are expected to read a script, be on yadda yadda page on yadda yadda time on a particular day. No room for exploration, discovery. No time to connect to other learning. Drill and practice and direct instruction are key as arts integration is frowned upon. Students actually act up and get in trouble so they can be removed from the (sometimes boring) classroom. After the behavior is addressed, they are kicking and screaming because they do not want to return to class. Is this what we want for our children?

What if. What if a classroom used song lyrics to build literacy? Time and money for the arts? Absolutely. The Figureheads’ new CD, kings of positive hip-hop music for kids, would not only be listened to for the positive messages (anti-bullying addressed), but dissected to pluck out certain vocabulary words and parts of speech. “I don’t want to go back to class,” would be replaced with perhaps not acting up in the first place. Flocabulary is another fantastic arts-infused resource that brings excitement and a hunger for learning, as well as the EDGE Kennedy Center resources.

I have decided not to  hold back this month and quite frankly put controversial comments into the cyber air. Feel free to comment below if you should agree… or not. The conversation is important to have. Education needs a revolution. This is not a drama queen statement by any means. If you believe it is over-the-top, then you haven’t set foot in a classroom recently… or at all. That is another topic for another blog on another day.

Dance and love,
Christina M. Ratatori, a.r.t. founding director

Why do we accept this for our children in our schools?  There has to be a better way.  ”Students first.”  ”The most important place is in the classroom.”  Really?  Those words mean absolutely nothing when it comes to looking at the recent actions of higher ups.

Arts-related classes are usually the first to go.  It is often the art, drama, music, and dance programs that are changed or eliminated entirely.  Yet, although all students deserve the arts in our schools, in urban settings, our youth desperately need these arts experiences.  We cannot–must not–turn our backs on the poverty that exists in our communities.  Poverty can create negative home environments and even homeless families.  So much is taken away in these young people’s lives.  Sometimes school is the only positive and consistent piece of their world, yet we shake it up all over the city.

So often, it is easy to quickly stand on the soapbox and bring up the argument of arts integration…using the arts to teach academics.  (For example, using visual art to teach geometry or using drama as a tool to educate students about history.) Yet, we also need to remember the much needed lessons in the ‘art for arts sake’ side of the discussion.

Let me be clear by sharing this story with you…

An elementary classroom began a school year with numerous challenges.  The community feel to the group was nonexistent due to numerous disruptive students and the academic levels were below grade level for numerous students in the class.  Tempers often ran high and arguing was ongoing.

When the afternoon came around, it is time for drama.  Drama activities allowed the students to learn and practice listening and speaking skills.  They demonstrated taking turns, eye contact, and teamwork.  Yelling was replaced with smiles and laughter.  They walked into the ‘specials’ room with a certain negative energy filled with tension and later, walked out as artists.  Even though it had only been a few weeks, the arts were transforming these students in positive ways.  In addition, the student-teacher relationships had changed drastically, as well as the way the students treated one another.  Trust was built, creative risks were taken, and stories were created and shared.  How can students learn Common Core Standards if the spirit of a child is rattled to the core?

It was in the best interest of the students for the teacher to fight for this class to be ‘saved’ from the cuts.  And she did; however, the Third Friday cuts affected other students in the school.  There were other classes she could not save.  Numbers were low for the school building and once Third Friday came around, her position was cut.

The arts are always the first to go.  And when… and how…do we say, “Enough.” ?

Dance and love,

Christina M. Ratatori