Teaching Artistry-Intro to my year

This is year two for us in the Disney Musical in Schools (DMIS) project, which means we (the music teacher and I) are now to become the teaching artists. Though I worry that I have yet to nail down a fieldwork placement, I am in contact with Boston Ballet’s adaptive dance program as a possibility for later in the semester. Boston Children’s Theater as the administrator of the DMIS work, will be gathering us to train in early November which also seems to be a natural fit to our work this term.

Being a full time teacher does present challenges for fieldwork, but hopefully not insurmountable. American Repertory Theater (ART) is the placement I would most love to secure, but not certain if it is possible this year. It is in my lens for the future.

I was grateful to be a participant in the Lincoln Center Education Department's Aesthetic Education Forum for a week in July. From their teaching artists I implemented their methods of crafting a unit plan based. Through activities, performances and direct instruction I furthered my understanding of how to use a live work of art (dance, visual, music, etc.) to build a curriculum. My hope is that I will weave this into our teaching artistry work. The literacy coach at my school is working with me to implement my unit plan into the Expeditionary Learning work they are piloting in our school. It is a way to test out how it works before adding it to the district's site for sharing.

Three questions that are on my mind are:

• What practices do artists (teaching artists specifically) use that would be of the greatest benefit to the classroom arts (dance or theater) teacher?

• How are these practices different from those of the classroom arts teacher?

• Are there data points I don't implement to measure the success of my program?

#Post1 #September10th