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Boise Elementary School's Student Show Celebrates Global Culture

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  • Boise Elementary School's Student Show Celebrates Global Culture

    BOISE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL'S STUDENT SHOW CELEBRATES GLOBAL CULTURE
    By Dana Oland - [email protected]

    IdahoStatesman.com
    http ://www.idahostatesman.com/localnews/story/787807.h tml
    June 1 2009

    After studying other countries and cultures in a new international
    curriculum, the school's teachers and parents wanted to end with a
    big finish.

    "We knew the thing that could tie this whole experience and all of
    our grade levels together would be music and arts," said principal
    Deborah Watts.

    So they turned to Vashti Summerville, who has two children in the
    school and runs Open Door Children's Theatre, a company that builds
    community through the performing arts.

    She created a show that brought more than just song, dance and music
    to the table.

    "I didn't want to repeat just the facts. I wanted it to have more
    meat. So I found stories of empowerment that show that kids all around
    the world, whatever their circumstance, can accomplish great things."

    She used the show, titled "I Have Greatness in Me," to teach more
    about the cultures the kids had been studying.

    "The arts can really help cement what the kids learn in classes,"
    Watts said.

    The show and the program that inspired it are part of two trends in
    schools today:

    â~@¢ Development of focused curriculum programs that offer more
    choices for parents.

    â~@¢ Pursuit by parents and teachers of ways to supplement arts
    education programs that are diminishing as budget cuts become more
    common.

    The Longfellow parent / teacher organization used some of its existing
    funds as well as grant money from the Idaho Commission on the Arts
    to pay Summerville for her script and direction, said Tani Theiler,
    president of the PTO.

    IT WAS AN EXTRAVAGANZA

    The stage brimmed with 230 kids, a sea of colorful T-shirts that
    represent each of the countries they studied - Australia, China,
    Armenia, Brazil, Kenya, Canada, United States and Switzerland -
    through all of their subjects from math to spelling to technology.

    It took them nearly 10 months to prepare for the
    performance. Summerville wrote the script in September, music teacher
    Lisa Allen began teaching the songs in the fall and group rehearsals
    started in January.

    The long, hard work has paid off, even for the kids who didn't want
    to put in the effort to begin with, Allen said.

    "Even the ones who were complaining all the time are getting
    excited. Music is the universal language. It ties language, poetry,
    movement, dancing, art and social studies together. As educators,
    we talk about various learning styles. If understanding doesn't come
    in the classroom, maybe it will in an experience like this," she said.

    Fourth-grader Nikita Schwartz, 10, liked the interactivity.

    "A lot of kids learn more with hands-on projects. This is kind of
    like one of them," Nikita said.

    What's more, the kids learned some things in the show they didn't
    learn in class.

    "It (the show) expands your information about the countries," said
    Hans Theiler III, 10. "I like the Switzerland part. That's where
    my dad came from. It taught me some new stuff. I didn't know that
    Switzerland never had a war. That's something I learned."

    They sang in different languages and learned about struggles that
    other kids grew up with.

    "The goal of the international program is to show the kids how they
    fit in the global scheme of things, and also to realize that we're
    really a lot more similar than we are different from other cultures,"
    Summerville said.

    Longfellow kids learned about:

    â~@¢ Brazilian soccer great Pel, who won his first World Cup before
    graduating high school.

    â~@¢ Chinese artist Wang Yani, who began painting dazzling monkeys
    when she was 3.

    â~@¢ Armenian filmmaker Gor Baghdasaryan, who won the first UNICEF
    One-Minute Video Junior Award for his film "Children Must Live Without
    War" when he was 14.

    "I liked the Armenia story because it taught me about how hard war
    is on children, and how much that country has improved," Nikita said.

    Students from Pierce Park Elementary, which also has the international
    program, made up the dress-rehearsal audience. They ended up singing
    along.

    FOCUS SCHOOLS ARE STILL AN EXPERIMENT

    These kinds of programs show the benefit of offering more options
    for parents who are looking for a deeper educational experience for
    their kids, said Don Coberly, who oversees curriculum for the district.

    Other district schools with focused curriculum include Whittier
    and Whitney, where students learn half the day in English and the
    other half in Spanish, and Liberty Elementary, which has adopted a
    Montessori approach.

    "It's the concept that the more options parents have, the happier
    they will be," Coberly said.

    Each of these focuses has boosted enrollment at the schools. Longfellow
    has a waiting list.

    Since Longfellow started its focus, students and parents have been
    incredibly engaged, said Hallie Davidson, whose daughter Stella is
    in the school.

    "Everyone is really supporting this. She loves all this. We've been
    singing the songs at home and she talks about what she's learned all
    the time," Davidson said. "I would love to see more art and music
    integrated into what we do."
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