January 15, 2009
Through a collaborative partnership with the Lincoln
Center Institute (LCI), students in The School of Education have
been taught how experiential investigations of the arts,
specifically the performing and visual arts, can engage children in
learning and support their development of a wide range of critical,
analytic, and expressive skills. Since 1975, LCI has brought
dance, music, theater, film, visual arts and architecture to over
20 million students, teachers, and professors of education.
And for over 10 years St. John's University and LCI have focused on
bringing the arts into the process of teacher education through
series of experiential workshops and performances. The
faculty have been actively incorporating the arts across the
undergraduate and graduate Education curriculum. Students in
The School of Education receive both a theoretical understanding of
art education and the concrete skills to truly integrate the arts
into every classroom.
The School of Education has been expanding the LCI program to all
their campuses, most recently with the growing Manhattan
Career Change programs. On October 15, 2008 LCI was
introduced to the graduate students in the Manhattan campus
Adolescent Education program. Instructors from LCI work with
the professor in order to cater the program to fit the needs of the
class. Dr. Nancy Montgomery, who was a part of the faculty
training, collaborated with LCI to present a workshop under the
theme “Change & Transition” for her graduate course, EDU
7107.
LCI had students participate in
creating an exemplary model of opening a line of inquiry and
exploring it creatively. With a photography exhibit entitled
“Street Works,” the class first experimented with a variety of
lenses and selected sights to experience seeing the world through
multiple perspectives. Then teams of students discovered or
invented their own “Street Works” with props similar to those in
the exhibit and one camera per group. After these were shared and
analyzed, we described what we saw in the pictures and inferred
contextual details and the photographer’s intentions. Finally, we
applied our learnings to teaching middle school students going
through all kinds of changes and transitions, as were the scenes
from the exhibit. Students brainstormed ideas on how to teach their
own students to observe the world from others’ viewpoints, and how
to refine their own art of questioning in the classroom.” -
Dr. Nancy Montgomery
Students who were more accustomed to the blackboards than the
storyboard were initially skeptical of how arts would translate
into their content specialties, such as math or science, but were
soon drawn by the program’s emphasis on student development and
individualized learning style. Marc Sorondo, a second year
Adolescent English major expressed his experience by saying, “It
was a great example of teaching through experience rather than
lecture, and gave me a greater appreciation of a more
student-centered, activity-oriented approach to teaching,
especially when it comes to topics that aren’t easily
explained.” Perhaps Erin Moharita, a student in the
Adolescent math program, best summarized the workshop: “Our
experience with the Lincoln Center presentation demonstrated that
art education has no age or curriculum barriers. Art
appreciation can be incorporated into any classroom by using many
facets of our everyday life. Seeing the same thing through
multiple perspectives provides unlimited learning opportunities and
sharing of ideas.”
The faculty and students look forward to further expanding the LCI
programs on the Manhattan
campus, and are currently building a program that will involve
the education community throughout the Manhattan
neighborhoods.