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One minute they're teasing, flirting,
yelling, chasing, climbing the walls. Fifteen minutes later each child is in a
separate, private world, eyes closed, discovering the details and nuances of a
body shape with the conscientiousness of an explorer.
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At 1:30 he's stumbling through a paragraph
that is two years beneath his grade level. In frustration and embarrassment, his
eyes wander out the window. At 2:00, in a bare room with three other students
and a teacher who is narrating a Dr. Seuss story, he demonstrates with
concentration and professionalism the choreography he was taught a week ago. He
weaves his way from upstage to downstage at the appropriate cue, adept at this
kinetic vocabulary, which he translates for the benefit of the slower movers.
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The children are learning about sound
waves. Through which medium does sound travel fastest: air, water or solids?
Their intuition tells them air, but when they line up in three "molecule
formations" (closest together as a solid and farthest apart as air) and
pass a "sound wave" shoulder tap through their lines, the solid
group finishes first, the air group last. Yes, they understand!
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The teacher describes extraordinary
accounts of escape and courage on the Underground Railroad. After turning out
the classroom lights, she plays spirituals on the tape recorder and leads the
children out into the imaginary woods. They hide behind trees, crawl on their
bellies, run from barking dogs, stretch from rock to rock across icy streams so
as not to get their feet frostbitten — all in silence for fear of being
caught. Suddenly the teacher’s foot is caught in an animal trap; the children
have to carry her, and carry her they do — right through the door of
history...
For more
than 20 years now, I have been using creative
movement as a language for teaching curriculum in elementary schools. My work
has been conducted through various artist-in-residency programs, many funded by
the New York Foundation for the Arts. I have delved into topics as diverse as
math, punctuation, science, literature, social studies and more, in lessons that
stress kinesthetic learning: learning through the language of dance and
movement.
Before they enter school, young children
experience and explore the world mainly through non-verbal language: by feeling,
pulling, pushing, throwing, swinging. No one has to teach children to jump for
joy, to roll down a grassy hill, or to pound their bodies on the floor during a
tantrum. Children react to the world in physical ways. By the time they get to
elementary school, they still feel comfortable in that non-verbal language:
creative movement. To ignore this natural resource is a waste; a barrier to the
process of education.
In his 1983 book Frames of Mind, Howard
Gardner documented seven kinds of intelligences common to human beings. In my
work I seek not only to expand on one of those modes of intelligence —
bodily-kinesthetic — but to use it to reach other intelligences as well.
The arts and education are truly inseparable:
You cannot study the arts without learning concepts of math, science, history,
and problem-solving, nor can you be truly educated if you are ignorant of the
role of the arts in culture and history. When we consciously integrate the arts
and education, the benefits of each are magnified.
The applications of kinesthetic learning are
remarkably wide-ranging:
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Increased comprehension:
Interpreting a concept through physical means (like the lesson on sound waves)
helps children — especially at the elementary level — to grasp, internalize
and maintain abstract information.
In mathematics, for example, children can
explore geometric shapes by stretching their bodies and long pieces of elastic
and discovering the relationship of one shape to another. To help with
fractions, children can make complicated rhythm charts that govern the timing of
their dancing — for example, eight runs take the same time as four skips or
two body swings, or one circle ending in a pivot turn. By linking different
combinations of these movements, children can practice adding mixed fractions.
Many science lessons, too, can be taught by
incorporating kinesthetic activities. The principles governing light waves,
animal adaptation, kinetic energy, body systems, simple machines, and even
aspects of molecular energy, can all be graphically and experientially
demonstrated through children’s bodies. Once "performed," these
principles will not be forgotten.
The solar system can be "mapped"
through the creation of a dance piece involving spinning: The child who is Venus
will be the only one rotating clockwise; Mercury will revolve around the Sun
four times faster than Earth. Multidisciplinary learning then occurs when each
"planet" develops a short solo dance representing some aspect of the
mythological god for which the planet was named.
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Whole language: Why not expand the
concept of whole language to include movement? Because it is expressive,
informative, and analytical, creative movement can heighten these language arts.
For example, by improvising creative movement to explore the feelings and themes
in stories, children do a non-verbal character analysis and experience the
cause-and-effect of events, which they can then verbalize. Creative movement can
also help them remember sequences of events or fill in details of a story's
setting. Some personal favorites that lend themselves to movement include Swimmy
by Leo Lionni; the African folk- tale The Calabash Children; Aesop's fable The
Wind and the Sun; The Lorax by Dr. Seuss; or The Great Blueness by Arnold Lobel.
For ESL children or those having difficulty
with the written word, dancing an autobiography can be a very effective
"coming out." Children can create simple movements that express
something about who they are or what they like to do; that reveal their earliest
memory, or a significant event in their lives; that share an aspect of their
ethnicity; that show a vision of themselves as they would like to be in the
future. Let them bring the movements together into an autobiographical dance,
and have the other kids respond and interact.
A lesson involving the creation of symmetrical
and asymmetrical group tableaus can teach students aspects of design, focus
their observance of detail, and help them understand the development of a theme
or sequence of events (fundamental reading skills). Even as simple drill lessons
in basic grammar and punctuation, physicalizing the long and short vowel sounds,
creating letter shapes, or "walking" through sentences while dancing
the punctuation marks, can create new pathways in the brain for remembering.
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Multicultural insights: Dance
provides a wonderful way to explore both the universality and particularity of
human cultures. By learning ethnic dances and physically interpreting the
poetry, literature and folklores of diverse cultures, children develop deeper
insights into the aesthetics and value systems of those cultures. Including
multicultural dance in the curriculum also offers an excellent opportunity to
invite professional artists to share their expertise with children.
Some of the stories that lend themselves to
this approach are: Abiyoyo (a South African folk tale retold by Pete Seeger);
Arrow to the Sun (a Hopi tale retold by Gerald McDermott); Shadow (a poem about
eastern Africa translated from the French by Marcia Brown); and the story of the
Chinese Ribbon Dance.
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Affective education and social skills:
The skills emphasized in creative movement have application throughout our
educational endeavors. Trust, communication, cooperation, discipline,
persistence; introspection, creative thinking, problem solving; observation,
analysis, criticism — all are part of the process of creative movement.
As part of a two-day training for public school
peer mediators through the Dutchess County Mediation Center in New York, I offer
a kinesthetic workshop, which uses creative physical activities and non-verbal
improvisation to highlight mediation skills. In the area of conflict resolution
children explore empathy, and win-lose vs. win-win solutions.
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Disruptive energy made creative: For
the child who "cannot stay in his or her seat," kinesthetic learning
is often a magical key. It’s not surprising at a joint teacher evaluation to
find that the "problem child" for one teacher is a prized student for
the kinesthetic teacher. It’s much easier, after all, to channel disruptive
energy into creative paths when a teacher is working with a physical language.
Simply providing an opportunity to express pent-up physical energy often
produces surprising amounts of concentration and focus.
For teachers who may feel intimidated or
overwhelmed by the idea of using movement and creative improvisation as a
teaching tool, remember that you do not have to do the movement yourselves. The
children will supply all the physicality needed for a successful lesson. Your
job is to supply the direction, the guided imagery, the permission to be
physical, and an encouraging gleam in your eye. The idea is not to have the
children imitate your movements, but to discover their own physical language.
Music, props, fabrics, a shadow screen, or beautifully illustrated children's
books, can also add to the stimulation and motivation of your children.
For those not comfortable with what might seem
like uncontrolled energy, set up a system of freedom and restraint that will
supply a secure structure for everyone. (When I bang once on my drum, everyone
freezes no matter what they're doing. We even practice holding a position with
one leg in the air.) Set up certain routines like warm-up and closings; starting
simple and building up; starting with solos, then partners, then small groups.
Children too will feel better knowing you are in control.
You will find that representing academic
concepts in physical ways makes the learning more accessible and memorable for
children, and fosters creative and dynamic energy in the classroom. Besides
learning specific curricular content from these kinesthetic activities, children
exposed to creative movement as a language for learning are becoming more aware
of their own natural resources. They are expanding their concepts of creativity
and of how they can use their own bodies. They are learning through their own
creations. The combination of discipline and imagination is an invaluable
foundation for creative thinking. Encouraging children to work both alone and
with others, to give and to take, to evaluate and to edit, to feel and to think,
proves to be empowering to students, and ultimately, therefore, to teachers.
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