Essential Questions for My Haku Year Project

Punahou requires Academy teachers to reflect on their teaching practices and pursue ongoing professional development.  In their Haku Year, teachers investigate a topic of their choice that has both personal and curricular import.  As a member of Haku Cohort IV, in my Annual Report last May, I was asked to answer the following prompt:
   

Please discuss the essential questions you wish to use as the basis for your Haku Year project.   Why does this area of focus interest you?  What are you going to do?  How will you obtain student feedback?  How will you share your work/thinking with our community?

My response:

The third bullet of Punahou's mission statement reads as follows:

·             Develop and enhance creativity and appreciation of the arts.

 

I have a long-standing personal and pedagogical interest in the arts, and in my work as a Curriculum Resource Teacher (CRT) and teacher, have uncovered some research that suggests the arts should not be seen as supplemental, but essential.  For my Haku Year, I will be investigating the following questions:

• How and in what ways are the arts, both visual and performing, important?
• How might arts integration benefit instruction in English and other disciplines?

Specific questions to consider/areas to investigate:

1.     At Punahou, K-12, in what grades/courses do the arts and other disciplines intersect? What are the rationales underlying the conscious pedagogical choice to integrate art with core curricula?  What're the experiences of teachers and students when arts are integrated: Benefits?  Challenges?  Pitfalls?

o   AP Biology (Diane Sweeney, Mike Judge): use of drama, music, and cooking to illustrate key concepts.

o   Arts and Letters.

o   Gr. 4 (Kris Schwengel): iMovie, Comic Life.

o   Gr. 6 Underground Railroad Drama Reenactment.

o   English I Poetry/Drama: rap poems, acting out Shakespeare scenes.

o   Sophomore Quality Project; Senior Independent Project.

o   Might also be worth looking at mainstream art classes and seeing whether they utilize elements from other disciplines, e.g. I think Dana Len's AP Art classes require students to keep a metacognitive artist's log.

2.     Art's often viewed in terms of product, not process; outcome-driven, as opposed to a learning tool.  As a result, the arts are often compartmentalized as separate, "special" classes, not only in Hawaii's public school system, but Punahou as well.  What benefits, if any, do the arts confer which transcend the traditional values accorded to them, namely enrichment and aesthetic value? 

3.     Would instruction improve by deliberately incorporating a stronger artistic element into mainstream academic subjects like English, Social Studies, Math, Science, and Foreign Language?  If so, how? 

·             Storyboarding/sketching as scaffolding for writing.

·             Music/rhythm aids in retention of content.

·             Multiple intelligences and sensory hands-on learning: increased engagement for all learners, could increase intrinsic motivation.

4.     In regard to cognition and neurology, in what ways do the arts affect and/or shape the brain, and what're the implications of those changes?

·             Music and language are processed in the same area of the brain; musicians have comparatively better language facility, because of increased ability to discern pitch, rhythm, intonation.

·             Novelty effect + physical activity à build neural networks

5.     Interview community resources, e.g. State Foundation for Culture and the Arts, Artists-In-The-Schools teaching partners, Youth Speaks Hawaii, and students re: the value of the arts.

6.     In my classes, I've noticed there's historically been a strong correlation between high achievement in English and artistic talent, often in multiple areas.  Why might this be so? Does study of the arts enhance linguistic ability, and if so, how?

7.     Based on my findings at the end of this process, what concrete strategies could I and other non-arts teachers incorporate to enhance teaching and instruction?

Data Collection Methods:

1.     Literature review, especially in regard to arts-brain linkages.

2.     Classroom observation.

3.     Interviews w/ Punahou colleagues, community resources, and students.

Documentation Method: This blog.