Bronx Principal Fighting To Give Students Arts Education
After this year’s city budget cuts, one Bronx public school is fighting hard to make sure its kids get a more well-rounded education – one where the arts takes center stage.
Third graders at P.S. 24 in the Bronx play music not in a music class, but in their regular classroom with their regular teacher, who happens to have been taught by the New York Philharmonic how to teach music in her reading and math lessons.
“It incorporates literacy. We put in poetry sometimes,” explained teacher Kerri-Anne Wallace. “It [incorporates] math because they see the tempo, and how it’s stretched out.”
This is known as cross-curriculum teaching, bringing art out of the band room and art room and into every classroom – par for the course at the Bronx school, where the arts are everywhere.
The school’s approach can even be seen in the hallways, where Principal Philip Scharper teaches the Charleston.
It’s not too surprising, since Scharper’s a former professional dancer who is also determined that P.S. 24 kids get the dancing, music, drama, and visual arts education the state requires in every grade school – something a recent survey found most city grade school students are not getting.
According to the Center for Art Education, the situation was only made worse by this year’s budget cuts.
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