NORTH ADAMS — Dr. Lisa Donovan’s first collaborative book project arose on a whim. A dozen years ago, while working at Lesley University as the director of creative arts and learning, a math professor suggested the pair collaborate on a book about math and the arts. “[At the time] we were teaching teachers to use the arts across content areas, and we were having great success,” Donovan told The Edge.
Donovan was keen on change, which she had imagined would come through the likes of her research (Leveraging Change: Increasing Access to Arts Education in Rural Areas was featured by the National Endowment for the Arts), but ultimately arose through her work as co-editor and co-author of “Integrating The Arts,” a five-book series published by Shell Education. The second edition was released earlier this year.
“I said yes, because (in my head) math is the more challenging area to integrate arts,” said Donovan, who was ultimately forced out of her comfort zone to try something new — the very thing her book series asks of educators. The project, successfully pitched to Shell Education and co-edited by Donovan and Linda Dacey, includes five volumes aimed at integrating the arts in mathematics, language arts, social studies, science, and across the curriculum.
So what exactly is arts integration? It’s the investigation of curricular content through artistic explorations. In this process, the arts provide an avenue for rigorous investigation, representation, expression, and reflection of both curricular content and the art form itself (as defined by Diaz, Donovan and Pascale in 2006). Donovan’s work to reinforce her research, namely the connection between this integration and deep learning, has been evidenced by increased time on task and a deep sense of ownership and relevance for students.
“[When] kids care about what they’re learning, signature learning moments [arise]” said Donovan, pointing to her model: using the arts to motivate, excite, and inspire students during all arenas of instruction. Each book provides practical strategies for integrating storytelling, drama, poetry, music, visual arts, and creative movement into the content-area classroom. Each strategy is accompanied by a model lesson which includes overview information, standards correlation, discussion questions, reproducibles, and specific examples for each grade range (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12) to enhance the learning experience.
“[With] books in hand, teachers started collaborating, getting fresh results, [which brought about] more change happening from the practitioners advancing the work,” said Donovan. This is something she finds interesting, considering how many teachers can feel marginalized when attempting to go it alone in their respective classrooms.
Donovan stresses that the arts are not extra. In fact, considering the wealth of cultural assets packed into the 946 square miles of Berkshire County — from The Clark and MASS MoCA in the north to Chesterwood and the Norman Rockwell Museum in the south — access to arts integration in the Berkshires is at educators’ fingertips.
Denise Chesbro of Florida, Massachusetts, agrees. The veteran BRAINworks educator used tableaux — a drama strategy where students use their bodies to create a frozen image — in conjunction with Rockwell’s iconic 1941 painting “Freedom of Speech,” to teach her 2nd grade students at Abbott Memorial School about empathy. “She created a whole lesson around [the painting] and then documented how it shifted children’s perspectives about community, and how they understood others by embodying their roles,” Donovan said in a nod to the social emotional component of arts integration.
In fact, the second edition of her series is aimed at “thinking through the lens of social emotional learning and culturally responsive teaching,” said Donovan, who points to key content remaining unchanged with “freshening up [in the form of] some very rich examples … and more culturally diverse readings and resources.” Having spent close to a decade at MCLA, actively living and working in her own community, Donovan now has her sights set on regional alignment.
“The cultural assets that we have here are just mind boggling, and we are not making enough of them,” Donovan said, citing individual organizations throughout the Berkshires doing amazing work, but collectively falling short of what she calls “a regional lift” were they to collaborate in some concentrated way. “If we could synch our efforts … [we could] really crack open access for arts education for every child across Berkshire County’,’ said Donovan who, in order to reach more educators across the county, recently added an online option for local educators, through the Canvas Portal (and worth 10 PDPs), to learn these strategies free of charge. Donovan evoked the sentiments of Berkshire Hills Regional School District Superintendent Peter Dillon when she underscored a simple fact: Going to school in Berkshire County should be substantively different than going to school anywhere else.
“We have so many resources right here,” said Donovan, who also leads the Creative Compact for Collective and Collaborative Impact and the Berkshire Cultural Asset Network, and serves as co-director of the Berkshire Regional Arts Integration Network (BRAINworks). “If it was going to happen anywhere, to [achieve] this kind of intentional alignment and create greater access to the arts, this is where it should happen.”
