Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Wednesday, February 25, 2009

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KDE consultant Phil Shepherd (right) taught parents and staff how to juggle scarves in one of the hands-on activities.

Neon bright scarves floated in the air while familiar songs played in the background and laughter filled the room at Booker T. Washington Academy. A kindergarten class? No – about three dozen parents and teachers seeing for themselves how the arts can energize students and enrich instruction.

“Students love the arts. They get excited about them, and they can make all learning fun and exciting,” Phil Shepherd, an arts and humanities consultant with the Kentucky Department of Education, said during an evening workshop at the school this week. “If you start with an art form and lead into any content area, your kids are going to remember it.”

Embedding the arts in everyday classroom instruction can heighten kids’ motivation and retention, he said. Showing Matthew Grady’s stark photographs, for example, could pique new interest in the Civil War.

“The more you include visual and kinesthetic learning, the more they’ll remember,” dance teacher Camille Ely agreed.

Shepherd’s hour-long session Tuesday evening focused on brain research, learning styles and how the arts can enhance education. He offered PowerPoint slides but mostly engaged everyone with hands-on examples.

His presentation was part of an ongoing effort to infuse arts across the curriculum at the school. In October, a session called “Rock and Rap Their World” showed teachers how music can boost literacy skills. During the first week of March, a workshop on West African dance, music and culture will captivate kids in grades 3-5.

“Activity gets you invigorated, and your brain is firing and ready for learning,” Shepherd said. “You are better able to learn. That’s why movement is important.”

He opened with the poem of six blind men’s various descriptions of an elephant – making the point that background and experience shape people’s perspectives. So, too, with kids. That’s why teachers need to broaden their lessons to reach students with different learning styles.

The interactive activities included juggling scarves, molding a piece of aluminum foil into a dancing figure, and listening to clips of familiar music that triggered long-term, often emotional memories such as doing the “Electric Slide” in middle school physical education class or hearing James Brown’s signature songs while serving in Vietnam.

Shepherd also reviewed the major sections of the brain and the five senses and noted how the arts help cultivate nuances like spatial awareness and mental images. “Einstein developed the theory of relativity while playing ‘Over the Rainbow’ on his violin,” he said.

The presentation was well-received by parents like Rachel Garcia, who has three children at Booker T. Washington Academy.

“It gave me a real sense of how the brain is structured,” she said. And parents need to understand things like that, she added, “Kids don’t just need the school to teach them. It’s the parents’ job, too.”