Integrating the Arts

This summer, I had the opportunity to attend Dr. Stevenson's summer convocation for Jeffco Schools. There, I was struck by many of the the issues we discussed and learned about. However, It was one line that the superintendent said that really stuck with me. In her opening remarks, she said that she expected every Jeffco student to graduate as both "an artist and an academic." Yes!

As a teacher at Pomona in the Arts and Humanities core (PAH), I was elated to hear this come from Dr. Stevenson. Because, as my colleagues in the PAH program already know, arts and academics, when purposefully integrated, create a magical learning environment. And, I say this knowing that not everyone is an artist- and that is OK. It is a passion for what the arts can do that I am interested in when I work with my students. The ability to think at the highest levels of Bloom's Taxonomy- to create- is where arts and academics work together perfectly. I

And, as we have seen at Pomona, when we teach with an emphasis on integration, and allow the kids to work with and around their passions, students perform at the highest levels. The PAH students have the highest growth data, outscore their peers on CSAP, and were the only subgroup at Pomona to meet the College Readiness Standards set by the ACT. In fact, their class average on the ACT was a 26- this compared to the 20 averaged by the rest of the student body. Now, this is not to belittle any other student or any other program. But, the data doesn't lie. And we are proud to know that when academics are honored as artists, good things can, and do, happen.