Oh my..... I SOOOOO disagree with this! No child should be excluded
from equal access to the curriculum, and that includes Art, Music,
P.E., or whatever else, no matter where they are performing. In
fact, I
would say that low-performing children might need these parts of
curriculum most of all.... to help them see and experience the grand
intertwining of all parts of learning. Children who are
"underperforming" according to some standardized assessment shouldn't
be punished and have their curriculum narrowed down. Children don't
need *more* reading instruction, they need *better* reading
instruction
(and in my opinion, that means more actual reading and less actual
drilling).
I understand too well the frustration of having students pulled
out of
class for small group instruction and in fact I am not particularly
supportive of trading students around among teachers that people
do so
much of these days. But narrow the curriculum because a child is
reading below grade level? Sorry..... can't support that one.
Some food for thought:
10 Lessons the Arts Teach
1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative
relationships.
Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules
prevail, in the arts, it
is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one
solution
and that questions can have more than one answer.
3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.
One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and
interpret the world.
4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving
purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and
opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a
willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the
work
as it unfolds.
5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal
form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language
do not define the limits of our cognition.
6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large
effects.
The arts traffic in subtleties.
7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.
All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.
When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them
feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words
that will do the job.
9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other
source
and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what
we are capable of feeling.
10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the
young
what adults believe is important.
SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In
Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale
University Press. Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants
reprint
permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper
acknowledgment
of its source and NAEA.
Renee
On Jul 16, 2011, at 3:13 PM, Amy Lesemann wrote:
We had arguments about this, and I lost until a new teacher came
in and
supported me. Frankly, if a student is 2 or more years- even less,
frankly -
then they really do need to sacrifice music, or art, or another
special for
extra reading instruction, and stay in the regular class for regular
reading
instruction. Before I got that extra vote in the faculty
meetings, the
remedial kids were getting pulled out of their regular classes to
meet
with
me...so they were getting exactly the same amount of instruction as
everyone
else. That's not the idea. They should be participating in
reading and
writing workshop, and then going to the specialist to target
their weak
areas - in phonics, using context clues, and so on.
Good luck!
--
Amy Lesemann, Reading Specialist and Director, Independent Learning
Center
St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School
" What was once educationally significant, but difficult to measure,
has been replaced by what is insignificant and easy to measure. So
now
we test how well we have taught what we do not value."
— Art Costa, emeritus professor, California State University
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