Teaching and Learning with The Arts
By Allen Raymond, Publisher, and Patricia Broderick, Editorial Director

In his cozy office, Principal Dan Noel and Vera Ryersbach, art teacher/consultant, describe Robinson's whole arts approach to curriculum to Pat Broderick and Allen Raymond of Teaching K-8.

When teachers at Robinson Elementary School in rural Starksboro, VT, need to reach children who are struggling academically (and perhaps suffering socially, as well), they long ago learned that by integrating art, drama, writing, dance, song and music throughout the curriculum, even those children who may be withdrawn will, if given opportunity through the arts, blossom into dancers, musicians, painters, writers, singer...and students who enthusiastically participate in classroom life.

"In geography we were studying different regions of the country," one teacher told us. "And, as a part of our study, the children and I learned how to perform dances associated with the northeastern region - such as jazz in New York City. In no time at all, two of our heretofore 'reluctant, reticent or bashful learners' were dancing and singing their heads off.

"Later," she said, "when those students came up to me and excitedly exclaimed, 'Did you ever think you would see the two of us dancing and singing like that?'…I just beamed."

It's difficult to "catch" the peripatetic staff for individual photos, so Teaching K-8 borrowed this Robinson Team photo.

Where it all began. Six years ago, when it was decided that Robinson Elementary would weave the arts across its curriculum, everyone, from the school board to the staff, the teachers and the parents, knew that successfully creating such an arts-oriented program would begin, as it does in any school, with the teachers. Not surprisingly, there were some teachers who, while excited about the concept, began to wonder if they had the personal talents and skills needed to incorporate the arts into their own classroom curriculums.

Not to worry; it wasn't long before the staff discovered it had been harboring a bevy of enthusiastic teachers with latent artistic talents of their own. Many, in fact, were already accomplished dancers, musicians, painters, writers and singers. "Before this, who knew?" exclaimed one teacher, with a chuckle.

Myriah Cogswell, grade 1-2 teacher is working through Morning Meeting. Myriah is a classically trained dancer and brings music and dance to all her activities.

Starksboro is located in a beautiful area, with charming houses tucked into the landscape here and there, plus lovely mountains in the distance and beautiful Lake Champlain only an hour or so to the west. A nice place to live.

It is not only a beautiful area, but it also has a marvelous elementary school and, having visited hundreds of schools, we think Teaching K-8 is in a position "to know it when we see it."

It's good because, as mentioned earlier, everyone at Robinson Elementary is in support of its commitment to integrate the arts across the curriculum.

That's not a novel or unusual idea, of course, but at Robinson Elementary, a tiny school with only 135 students, emphasis on the arts from top to bottom has received national attention (and more about that in a moment).

Another grade 1-2 teacher, Ruth Beecher, has students proudly display their artwork for Teaching K-8. The art is from a unit on local schoolhouses.

In this rural area, with homesites scattered about in remote areas, and with few businesses contributing to its tax base, life is not easy, and finding the funds to maintain the district's five elementary schools and one 7-12 high school is - to put it mildly - a significant challenge.

Challenges. As a result, school budgets are tight, and money required to update Robinson's building, a request currently before the School Board, will be hard to find.

There are other challenges, particularly in the winter when some children, for example, must spend 45 minutes or more riding the bus to and from school over narrow, winding, hilly roads, only half of which are paved.

Adding to the challenges, the student population at Robinson Elementary, and two others of the five elementary schools in the district, is declining. School administrators are not sure why; area population has been relatively stable. However, the school's enrollment, 160 in 2005, dropped to 135 in January 2007.

Frank Spina, Technology Teacher, with Peg Brakely (right), grade 5-6 teacher, make the most of a chance hallway meeting to discuss the Arts Leadership Team at Robinson. They're both members.

The school's emphasis on the arts really took hold in 2002, when Robinson Elementary School obtained, through the Vermont Department of Education, a $185,000 Federal Comprehensive School Reform grant. Spread over three years - the grant expired at the end of the 2005-2006 school year - it allowed the school to expand and refine its integration of the arts throughout the curriculum.

In a hanging wall-calendar created by the school in 2005 as a fund raiser for its arts programs, Robinson Elementary School's staff wrote, "A main premise of teaching in, about and through the arts is that teachers study or participate in an art form.

"Thus, over the past few years, our teachers have learned to knit, to play the piano and recorder, to participate in dance and drumming classes, and attend art conferences/workshops.

Vera Ryersbach in her art teacher mode, uses artifacts to teach Visual Thinking Strategies to these fourth graders.

"Teachers then model their own artistic skills for students throughout the year," the teachers wrote in the calendar, "whether performing a circus skit to kick off an all-school residency by Circus Smirkus, dancing hip-hop for a school assembly, honoring an out-going principal in Speak Chorus, or introducing the school to the new principal through song."

"But," we asked Principal Dan Noel, "how do you deal with the federal mandate of 'No Child Left Behind' and its high-stakes testing?"

"While the intent of our Arts Program," he replied, "is to go deeper into the curriculum, to provide richer content, and to help the children understand how this applies in different settings, we never overlook accountability."

Obviously, at Robinson they're doing things right, and it was thus no surprise to learn that in 2004-2005 this tiny elementary school in rural Vermont was the recipient of The Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) Creative Ticket National Schools of Distinction Award for Excellence in Arts Education - a national award granted yearly to only five schools in the country!

Pat Young, kindergarten teacher, works with a student on journal writing.

That's an absolutely unbelievable feat for a school of Robinson's size...but it is a well-deserved honor, as we saw firsthand, when we visited the school in January 2007.

Well, a great story and a great school.

And we know readers of this magazine, who often read about the achievements of the "big guys," share our joy when it happens to the "little guy" in Starksboro, Vermont!

We found Louise DeGuise, P.E. and health teacher, at a grade-level planning meeting.

Jodi Lane, a grade 1-2 teacher, is caught by the camera as she works on Social Studies Research with a student.

March, 2007, Vol.37, No.6