Episode Details

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is music to the ears of students who have a passion for instrumental and visual arts. The brand new Majestic Elementary Arts Academy is opening in Jordan School District for the 2021-22 school year. On this episode of the Supercast, we go inside the new school where elementary aged artists and young musicians are extremely excited about having arts integrated into daily classroom instruction. As part of the Arts Academy, let's start by talking to some teachers. The students are getting pretty creative in classrooms where music and the arts are already coming alive.

You're here at Majestic Elementary School with Ishel and Lisa to talk about next year and the way that we're going to integrate art and music into learning all day every day. And we're really excited about that. Let's start talking about art first. I know you're the art teacher because you have your starry night mask on. Van Gogh would be very proud, although he would only be able to hang it on one side of his face. He wouldn't be able to wear the mask the way you are. Let's talk about art next year at Majestic. What's that going to look like?

Teacher:
It's going to look similar to how we're doing it here. This year, every single one of our students gets to have at least 45 minutes of art time. For our younger and older grades, they have art twice a week. So every other day, I'm in their classrooms, working with them on our current or upcoming projects.

Anthony Godfrey:
And tell me, how does art integrating into the rest of the learning that they're doing?

Teacher:
When I come in during our 45 minutes of art time, sometimes we integrate some of the core curriculum into our art session. I've taught the water cycle with my students. We've integrated culture. During that time, the other teachers can integrate arts during their own time. I just walked into sixth graders who were literally drawing and sketching out the solar system, by scale. So they were shading, coloring different planets. They were already integrating art into their science time. And then when I came in, it was time for it.

Anthony Godfrey:
When you think about it, it just seems obvious that when students are engaged like this, they're going to learn at a deeper level and they're going to have better levels of retention.  I believe that 100%.

Teacher:
Absolutely. So when students, usually in art class, I have about 90 to 100% engagement. Every student is listening. Every student, their hands are working on their projects, whether it's clay, a pencil drawing, painting, or weaving, Currently, we are doing weaving. They are integrating art into their normal day to day. Science core curriculum, I see so much more engagement and teachers do as well. For example, if some teachers wanted to integrate the water cycle into their science session of the day, if they had kids draw out each - precipitation, condensation, evaporation, when you have students draw it out visually, I think it reaches a lot more than just having them listen to a lecture

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, even just taking notes by hand has been shown to keep things in your head. When you're drawing pictures and you're engaged with art, it's really a new method for accessing knowledge and holding on to that knowledge.

Speaking of active learning,