Schools of Excellence in Arts Education Award

Schools of Excellence in Arts Education Award

Nomination Questions

1.  Arts Education as an essential component of Seattle Academy’s Curriculum.

The arts department, which encompasses theater, music, dance, visual arts, and media arts, champions what Seattle Academy calls its “Culture of Performance” and is grounded in the premise that all students are intrinsically creative. Our mission is to create an environment, curriculum, opportunities, and experiences that are conducive to the development and growth of that creativity.

Seattle Academy was founded in 1983, with only 87[??] students, grades 7-12. A focus on the arts was essential in the early years, when both facilities and resources were scarce. But despite our limited resources—a piano was our music, a table our visual arts studio, and a warehouse our theater—the school learned how vital the arts are to education; the arts were the school’s default extracurricular and elective program. After 30 years of growth we have never forgotten or abandoned that lesson about the importance of the arts in education. Among many other things, we learned that the arts taught a multitude of skills and perceptions that were transferrable into both academic and diverse extracurricular activities. Many of those skills and capacities are (and always have been) what the education world today talks about as key “21st Century Skills.”

Our image of a student’s arts instruction is a triangle: the three sides of the triangle are Skills, Intellect, and Emotion. What we know about learning and artistic development involves all three components, which inhabit all our arts classes. In the center of the triangle is Intuition, those qualities that each individual student brings to his or her art form that makes his/her work unique. Next, we believe that artistic endeavors require the development and integration of four complex skills and processes. The first is engagement. In this phase, students become acclimated to the creative environment and begin to recognize and exercise their natural creativity. Second is the development of vocabulary and technical skills. Vocabulary both supports the student in dialogue with artists, peers, and teachers, and begins to shape a worldview in which the arts is in an integrated element. The development of technical skills allows students to excel in artistic expression. Third is performance and exhibition. Students must be able both to apply (in the creative process) the skills that are required and also to integrate those skills in an exhibition or performance. Fourth is evaluation and reflection on both the product and the process. Students must develop the critical skills both to assess their own individual development and to provide constructive feedback to peers.

Seattle Academy is unusual in that the arts are one of the four key pillars of the school (arts, academics, athletics, trips/service), as opposed to being an adjunct or only extracurricular subject. The arts integrate into our complete school program, at times in a purposeful and planned manner, and at other times (every single day, in fact) in spontaneous and surprising ways. For instance, as part of our final exam process three times per year, students in performing arts classes from grades 6-12 perform for the entire school community (about 850 people) as their final assessment. In addition, high school graduation requirements include nine arts credits, including at least one arts credit from each discipline. In a more informal way, our professional arts staff is a resource for the rest of our faculty, in all departments. An example of this concept is the development of our Making Things Initiative, which is an integration of arts, engineering, and technology. The purpose of this initiative is to support our faculty in finding alternative ways to communicate and engage students in academic curriculum material.

Ultimately, Seattle Academy conducts learning in a “Culture of Performance” in all disciplines (academic as well as arts). Students demonstrate what they are learning or have learned in front of audiences, whether their classroom, a whole grade level, the whole school, or an audience beyond the school walls. They are challenged to take risks in front of these audiences, which requires them to combine disparate skills in moments of action in order to learn and communicate complex ideas. With performances, there is a natural, built in motivation to the learning process. Students invest their effort so that other people will recognize them for their accomplishments, and performance allows a broad definition of what accomplishment is and can be. Learning through performance is learning that shapes one’s identity in a productive way, and it fosters independence and integrity, the ability to collaborate and take risks, and the capacity to cope with change and ambiguity. Ultimately, we believe that Seattle Academy’s Culture of Performance” develops a spirit of inquiry and engagement that results in empathy for the human condition, an understanding of the meaning of excellence, and an opportunity to achieve success in all domains. Arts education is a foundational and integrative element in this way of teaching.

Total Number of Arts Teachers in the School

2.  Creative Approach to learning

Program Design

There are a few specific tenets that link our diverse disciplines. We believe that students are not risk-averse and thrive in environments where they are creatively challenged. We believe that all students should have access to and have extensive requirements in the arts and arts-related programming. As well, there are a number of driving values to which all of our disciplines adhere. First, access to the arts both in classroom activities and in extracurricular activities is of ultimate importance. We have a no cut policy, which means that any student interested in an art form or performance opportunity will be included. The only consideration is resource limitation e.g. media labs can only support a limited number of students. Our no-cut policy and the sheer volume of classes in the arts support this value. We have over 50 distinct performance events each year. In all the art forms, we encourage risk-taking and creative expression. (And in addition to our no-cut policy, we support the development of excellence, through advanced levels of instruction and performance ensembles in all program areas.) Though these are important values, each discipline focuses on a systematic process of development involving discipline and collaboration, in an effort to seek a balance between excellence in product and process. Though our approaches may differ, each discipline (theater, music, dance, visual and media arts) attempts to address individual student needs and appreciate the importance of a holistic approach involving physical, visual, and emotional development.

The school’s mission is to prepare students for college and life. We see the arts as lifelong skills, and the participation and appreciation that students of Seattle Academy gain through classes and participation sets the tone for lifelong involvement in the arts as practitioners, audience members, purchasers, and donors. As well, the values of creativity, risk-taking, and a disciplined approach to work set the tone for success in post secondary endeavors.

3. Parent participation and cultural awareness

Parent participation is a key to our success. Parents participate in all levels of arts activities. Parents make up the production team in the Performance Events. Each show has a parent producer who coordinates all activities, from taking cast headshots to advertising to box office management. We are fortunate to have both a full time costumer and technical director, though parents support both areas by sewing, procuring and organizing props, assisting with construction and strike. They also chaperone students on arts retreats and events outside the school community. In visual arts, parents hang shows and provide expertise as guest artists, as we are fortunate to have a number of internationally recognized artists in our parent community who openly share their knowledge with students.

Cultural awareness varies by discipline. In theater, visual, and media arts, students have the opportunity to explore, dialogue, and present material in multiple genres. Based on the openness with which we can create our classes, faculty get to select material which is appropriate and timely for their students. In many cases, students have the opportunity to self-select material, which they feel is both challenging and relevant. We also bring in professional artists to speak and demonstrate, who are from diverse art backgrounds and disciplines. In the theater, we attempt to select material from different time periods and diverse settings. Recently, we partnered with our diversity club to present the musical “Hairspray” and used the event to focus classroom discussion in both English and History classes. In visual and media arts, students receive in-depth exploration of diverse historical periods and styles, as a global perspective is critical to understanding the art form. In dance, students have the opportunity to explore diverse styles of movement including ballet, modern, jazz, hip-hop, African, etc. We introduce students to dance styles that cross cultural and ethnic boundaries. Music lends itself to a similar form of exploration, although within the context of music and dance, class work tends to be generated from the teachers, and is curriculum-based on the immediate needs of their students.

Aside from the integration of cultural awareness in classwork, Seattle Academy is dedicated to cross cultural experiences.

·  Both the 6th and 7th grade have a SEE trip where students depart school for a week to explore diverse parts of Washington State.

·  There is the 8th grade challenge where the entire 8th grade takes to the streets of Seattle for 3days and two nights, working in shelters with the homeless, sleeping in churches or community shelters.

·  Our 9th grade, in the Fall, goes on the Odyssey Trip which is a wilderness experience with minimal supervision. The experience is based the students reading of “The Odyssey”. Our Upper School students have a variety of potential experiences.

·  Our annual Zambia Trip where student work with students at a school in Zambia where Seattle Academy has built and developed a technology Center.

·  During the spring and summer, we offer trips for both Upper School and Middle School students to China, India, Nepal, Italy, and Turkey designed to provide students with an in depth cross cultural experiences.

·  In the summer, an Alaska Trip where students kayak the Yukon River for 3 weeks.

·  Seattle Academy is dedicated to the premise that these experiences are available to all students, and has a “community fund” to support student who might otherwise not have sufficient resources for these experiences.