art music cultures nclb

Art? Music? Cultures? NCLB?

By Lisa Greenwood at LJ World:

Recently, Charles Goolsby, theatre director at LHS, invited the

district 9th grade English classes the opportunity to see a special

performance of the current LHS production-in-progress, Romeo and

Juliet. What a fantastic opportunity for students to see one of the

works of literature they study in class brought to life on stage!

But something was nagging at me...

If this production were not tied directly to the 9th grade English

curriculum, would principals and teachers have responded so

enthusiastically to the invitation? Or would it be construed as an

obstacle to getting students through the required curriculum in

order to perform strongly on standardized tests?

I thought back over my years as a student, and then as a teacher. I

had a sneaking suspicion that there just weren't as many field

trips as there used to be. So I polled my students, who said that

field trips had definitely dropped off in junior high from the

frequency encountered in elementary school. This is partly due to

the large amount of fantastic and enriching programs and

opportunities in our community for the elementary students.

But the teachers I spoke to said that they had noticed a definite

decrease over the years. "Not enough time -- we are already trying

to cram everything in before the kids have to take their tests --

we can barely get through the required district curriculum." This

from two math teachers, and I had heard similar comments from

English teachers as well.

So my question is...in the struggle to adequately educate our

children, and in the struggle to maintain the high standards and

increasingly unreasonable goals set by NCLB, where do we make time

to teach them about life? About culture? About music and theatre?

About arts? About their environment and their community? We can't

do those things in isolation in a classroom. They have to get out

of the classroom to experience some of these things, but that takes

away from precious classroom instruction time.

For some of our students, a trip to LHS to see Romeo and Juliet may

be the only chance they ever get to hear Shakespeare's work as it

was intended. What else is passing them by while we keep them in

the classroom, chained to the mandates of NCLB and standardized

testing?