The Arts in every classroom

Disc 1. Program 1. Introducing arts education. Includes three segments: What is arts education? Shows a montage of insights from teachers and administrators, plus examples of successful arts instruction in classrooms across America. What are the arts? Presents teachers, administrators, students, and parents who offer thoughtful and sometimes humorous comments on what the arts mean to them. In How do you know they're learning? educators from several schools tell how they know if their students are "getting it." -- Program 2. Expanding the role of the arts specialist. Three arts teachers work with colleagues around their schools, using collaborative techniques that go beyond the traditional work of arts specialists -- Program 3. Teaching dance. Two teachers with contrasting training and approaches to teaching bring rich dance experiences to students at their arts--based schools. Kathy de Jean promotes inquiry and self-expression in a multi-grade dance class. Scott Pivnik uses African dance as a gateway to geography, writing, and personal growth for a class of second-graders -- Program 4. Teaching music. Two music specialists from arts-based schools demonstrate different approaches to serving diverse student populations. Barrett Jackson study of the violin become lessons in character and discipline and Sylvia Bookhardt and a class of fifth-graders explore the Renaissance through choral singing.

Disc 2. Program 5. Teaching theatre. Two specialists work on basic theatre skills with children of various ages, and use theatre education as a gateway to other kinds of learning. Amanda Newberry's lesson in improvisation with a third-grade class stimulates students' imagination, heightens language and listening skills, and encourages critical thinking. George Jackson teaches basic movement skills to a first-grade class, invites fourth-graders to take center stage as they explore a script, and works with fifth-graders to create masks that reveal inner feelings -- Program 8. Working with local artists. Students and teachers at P.S. 156 (The Waverly School of the Arts) in Brooklyn, New York, benefit from the school's established relationships with artists from local organizations. This program focuses on a first-grade class creating original works with visiting artists--a dancer and a writer.

Disc 3. Program 9. Collaborating with a cultural resource. A fourth-grade teacher and a museum educator in New Orleans collaborate to develop a unit of study with ties to language arts, social studies, and visual art. Students explore the work of a well-known artist, visit an exhibition of his work, meet for a drawing lesson alongside the Mississippi River, and create poems and pictures that they proudly display to their parents -- Program 10. Bringing artists to your community. Successful collaborations between classroom teachers and artists who come for a residency enrich the curriculum of this rural school in Idalia, Colorado. A visiting actor brings story-telling and vocabulary to life for kindergarten and fourth-grade students and their teachers, while a musician engages first and third grade students in writing songs that relate to subjects they are studying -- Program 11. Students create a multi-arts performance. A team of arts specialists and classroom teachers guides kindergarten and fourth-grade students in creating an original work based on Cirque du Soleil's Quidam. The program presents highlights of the creative process, including brainstorming about characters' emotions, creating speech and movement for the characters, constructing costumes, and performing -- Program 12. Borrowing from the arts to enhance learning. To add vitality and context to day-to-day learning experiences, three teachers use techniques drawn from the arts that engage their students' minds, bodies, and emotions. In Denver, a teacher uses rhythm, color, movement, and hands-on projects to engage her class of fourth- and fifth-grade boys. In White Plains, New York, third-grade students create short skits that help them understand the concept of cause and effect. In Lithonia, Georgia, a fifth-grade social studies unit on family history culminates with students using favorite objects to make visual representations of their lives.

Disc 4. Program 13. Three leaders at arts-based schools. Three administrators provide instructional leadership and solve day-to-day challenges at arts-based schools serving diverse student populations -- Program 14. Leadership team. The team's central role in management is part of a long-term strategy to protect the school's commitment and see them work together on a diverse agenda, including the school's annual Arts Celebration, the increased demand for enrollment from outside the school's neighborhood, and orientation of new teachers to the school's arts-based curriculum.