TEACHER TRAINING

Why the Arts?

For all children, at all ability levels, the arts play a central role in cognitive, motor, language, and social-emotional development. The arts motivate and engage children in learning, stimulate memory and facilitate understanding, enhance symbolic communication, promote relationships, and provide an avenue of building competence. Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections

 Children emerge as communicators, problem solvers and humanitarians through holistic experiences. The arts provide a unique multi-dimensional medium for early learning. Drama, movement, dance, music and visual arts communicate to young children in their own language - the language of make-believe. Their curiosity is stirred, questions arise, ideas are shared, and language is expanded and practiced. What's more, when children participate in creative arts activities infused with literacy, their interest in and awareness of reading and reading-related activities increases.  Finally, young children learn through the arts because they are participatory and fun!

 Program. Through multisensory hands-on arts experiences in process drama with integration of creative movement, music, and visual arts, participants will experience the rich linguistic and cognitive potential of using the arts as a learning medium. We will work largely with children's literature, exploring how the arts may be used to deepen student's understanding of plot, character and theme. Along the way we will pause to analyze key strategies and techniques for transferring and broadening this work in the teachers' own classrooms.

Instructors, Victoria Brown, Ph.D. and Sarah Pleydell, M.F.A. have over fifty-years hands-on teaching experience integrating the arts into the early childhood curriculum. They are co-authors of the award-winning book The Dramatic Difference: Drama in the Preschool and Kindergarten Classroom (2000), Heinemann Press. For more than twenty-five years they have presented keynote addresses and conducted master workshops at conferences nationwide for the National Head Start Bureau, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the American Alliance for Theatre and Education and Wolf Trap's Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts. They both helped to write the National Core Arts Standards. Sarah is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Maryland and Victoria is the founding director of Lucy School: An Arts Based School (pre-school through eighth grade) and Teacher Training Center in Middletown, MD.

Have you noticed how much satisfaction children get through engaging a parent in their play? And how an astute parent can use occasions of heightened imagination subtly to drop in extra information, extend the range of vocabulary, or pose a problem? Victoria Brown and Sarah Pleydell have developed a pedagogic style that harnesses this special child/teacher teaching moment by establishing that the teacher is a necessary part of the class' dramatic invention.
- Gavin Bolton, Professor at Victoria University in British Colombia.

Comments from Previous Summer Institute Attendees:

- I can't think of an educator, or anyone who works with children, who would not benefit from this workshop because of its thorough approach to children's cognitive, emotional, and social needs. - kindergarten teacher

- This workshop should be required for all teachers. The arts are so important - it is truly a part of all our lives. - first grade teacher

- Great training! Lots of ideas, lots of hands-on practice.  I am inspired! I liked the gradual movement of presentations that we had to do - planning, sharing small parts, storytelling, etc. It helped me gain confidence. - first grade teacher

- I haven't ever been to a training where I took away as much. - third grade teacher

- Fantastic! Opened so many new ways of viewing the learning experience and integrating the arts effectively. - pre-kindergarten, kindergarten teacher

- It was a remarkable, new experience everyday that brought me joy and excitement about being a teacher again.  A beautiful learning and growth experience. - first grade teacher

- This workshop was unlike others, where "cute" songs and craft ideas are shared.  This workshop was research based and applicable to any and all academic areas. - second grade teacher

- I believe taking this course will help me become a better teacher.  All your ideas will be put into my teacher's tool box. - kindergarten teacher

- This week was a very healthy and inspiring one all around: physically, mentally, spiritually and socially.  You provided a wonderful atmosphere for us to experience and discuss and create.  K-5 reading intervention teacher

- Thorough, engaging, creative, and collaborative. I've learned more in this training than any graduate course I've taken. - early childhood graduate student