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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2008 BARROW JOURNAL PAGE 5B Folk art a teaching tool at Russell Middle School History in a shard By Donna O’Kelley Butler (Donna O’Kelley Butler is a local storyteller and the vice-chairman of the Arts Development Council of Georgia, a statewide organization to promote the arts through economic development, education and awareness. She recently visited Russell Middle School to talk with students about the arts integrated program now’ in its second month at the school.) hen I was a child, my father came in from plowing, pockets full of dusty bits of pottery, shards of a long-ago civilization. He’d examine each one, pointing out the cross-hatched and basket weave patterns. A master brick mason, as well as a farmer, he would reproduce those ancient designs in the bricking of a house or the construction of a chimney. My father saw history and art in every piece of broken pottery. His cousin kept a history of family memory, brighdy drawn in paint and wood. A group of Russell Middle School students are being taught to see more than history in pottery, painting and sculpture. Fifteen students in Robin Blan’s class are in the second month of a special grant-funded arts integra tion unit. The unit, to be taught in four phases, will use folk art from around Northeast Georgia and the Southern United States to teach a variety of sub jects from language arts to physics. “We here at Russell were really for tunate to receive the grant, but it was also fortuitous,” Blan said. “Harrison Poultry was searching for a school system that would integrate both art and character education into curriculum spanning several subject areas.” Blan, a veteran teacher and artist, rhapsodized as she described the pro cess that allowed the Barrow students to participate. “Dr. Richard Benjamin, a consultant for Pioneer RES A and a faculty member of Kennesaw University, trains teach ers using the Leonard Bernstein Artful Learning Model,” she explained. The Bernstein Model, named for the late symphony conductor and com poser, uses the arts to lead students to master complex material, meeting or exceeding, national and state standards. Teachers learn to incorporate the arts into all subject areas, appealing to all levels of student interest and achieve ment. “Dr. Benjamin was having dinner with a representative of Harrison Poultry who had been instructed to develop a grant incorporating the arts and character education,” Blan said. “Dr. Benjamin was charged with finding a school system with in 60 miles to participate. He liter ally drew a circle around Atlanta, and read the web pages of a num ber of systems. He chose Barrow County to participate, little knowing the impact Harrison Poultry has on our community.” Benjamin contacted Barrow schools superintendent Ron Saunders, who referred him to Kerry Bryant, Barrow County Schools fine arts coordinator. Bryant, a long-time veteran of Barrow County Schools, remembered Blan’s interest in folk art, as well as her exper tise in the classroom. Traditionally, educators integrate art within curricu lum through the choice of one mas terpiece, weaving a single piece of artwork into math, science, history, and language arts. Bryan contacted Blan, explained the grant and requested that she develop the project for Barrow schools, using Russell as the pilot pro gram, and choosing one piece of folk art from Barrow County’s rich arts his tory as the springboard. “Well,” Blan continued. “You can imagine! There was no way I could choose one piece, one genre, one artist or one medium.” Consequently, three artists, represent ing four different media, were chosen. I recently visited Russell to interview the students in Blan’s gifted language arts class, as they near completion of the first phase - folk painting - of the Harrison Grant. The room, brightly decorated with samples of student work, buzzed with excitement and enthusi asm for “the art grant.” Ashton Locke was the first to give an expla nation of the process. “Russell received the grant to bring art and peer help into our class rooms,” Locke said. “After learning about lots of folk artists, a group of five of us got to go visit Billy Roper, who lives at Talking Rock. We observed him, studied his work, asked questions and Ms. Williams (Aprille Williams, RMS media specialist) videotaped us doing the interview. Those who went to Mr. Roper’s house, came back and taught the other students about his work. Later, we "re all going to do a big power point presentation about folk painting for everyone. We had fun doing our own visual storytelling pictures, based on our own childhood memories.” Jack Bryant chimed in: “Meeting Mr. Roper was really inter esting. He lives deep, deep in the woods, with artwork all over the place. He has a very interesting personality. He paints these bright pictures, using lots of different colors, and he writes stories on the back of each paint ing. He writes the stories just like he talks, and if you ever met him, you’d recognize his paintings just from that. continued on page 6B BUTLER BRYANT What is Arts Integration Education? Recognizing that all students do not learn in the same way, arts integration educators believe that incorporating artistic forms such as music, painting, pottery, storytelling and writing into everyday curriculum teaches students to think, reason and solve problems. Arts integration appeals to all academic levels of students, supplying creative students with an outlet, while providing nontraditional students with concrete, hands-on opportunities to learn. Arts and Character Integration models, such as the one in the Harrison Poultry Grant, are frequent implemented in at-risk school systems with non traditional, low-performing student populations. While Barrow County does not meet those criteria, national and state test scores, especially in reading and math, have been proven to rise dramatically when Arts and Character Integration Projects are implemented. Harrison Arts and Character Integration Grant The grant will be administered in four phases. During each phase, five stu dents will visit, interview and observe a different artist, and teach other stu dents about the artist and his or her technique. All of the students will create art in all four phases. In addition, each student will choose a medium and artist to research, demonstrate and present in a power point presentation. Each phase and artist featured will integrate into several academic areas, including science, mathematics, physics, ecology, language arts, both collaborative and individual research, social studies and local history. Character education, such as discipline, patience, kindness, and environmental awareness will also be inte grated throughout the study. Coming up: A schedule for artists, as well as the academic areas to be targeted, has been developed for the year’s study: •November and December 2008: Visual storyteller Billy Roper, pain ter, language arts, history, social studies and science •January and February, 2009: Green artist Lisa Pirkle, science, ecology, mathematics and research. In addition to the Harrison Grant, Blan’s students are competing nationally in the Siemens We Can Change the World, an incen tive grant to pinpoint a local environmental issue, leading to a positive conclu sion. Marci Gussio, science teacher, will assist. •March and April, 2009: Folk potter Michael Crocker, language arts, state and local history, chemistry, geology and mathematics. Teacher Jocelyn Davis will assist. Media specialist Aprille Williams will assist the students in a reading/ research project on the Newbery Award book, “A Single Shard,” which details the development of complex chemical glazes used in early Korean pottery. •May, 2009: The students will present a power point presentation and an art display. R U Sick & Tired Of being Sick & Tired? Crawl N, Walk N, just get N 2 RAGLAND CHIROPRACTIC CENTER 82 West Candler St. Winder, GA 770-867-2115 4860 Atlanta Highway • Bogart-Athens One Mile West of Sam’s Club • 770-725-1977 www.marvstackfeedDet.com WE HAVE A HUGE PET DEPT. See us for all your Pet & Animal Products Nutra Max Puppy, Large Breed Puppy, Large V Breed Adult, Senior & Weight Management $21.99 35# We have all your pet health care products, De-wormers, vaccinations, toys, clothes, grooming aids, crates, kennels & cat poles. 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