INVESTING IN THE ARTS

An effort to improve training in the fine arts for Missouri teachers has received nearly a half-million dollar boost from the federal government.

Southeast Missouri arts educators have received a two-year national Goals 2000: Educate America grant that totals. Money will be used to improve training in the fine arts for elementary education majors, first-year teachers, veteran classroom teachers and school administrators.

The idea is to help educators bring the arts, including music, visual art, dance and theater, into the classroom. In addition to teaching the arts in specialized classes, art class or music class or drama class, the grant writers want to introduce the arts across the curriculum.

The principal grant writers are Drs. Robert and Ann Gifford of Cape Girardeau. Both are faculty members at Southeast Missouri State University.

"The goal of the grant is to impact the teacher preparation program concerning the integration of the arts," said Ann Gifford.

"We want to change the curriculum for future teachers, especially elementary classroom teachers," Robert Gifford said. "We hope to make them feel more comfortable teaching the arts in their classes."

Imagine that an elementary teacher didn't consider herself an expert in math, so she didn't introduce math in her classes. "That wouldn't be tolerated," Robert Gifford said. But he fears that is what happens in many classrooms concerning the arts. "Teachers think they aren't talented singers, so they don't sing songs. They don't think they are talented artists, so they don't draw," he said.

Grant organizers hope that by exposing teachers and students to the arts, by showing them ways to use the arts in classes, they can eliminate the ideas that the arts are only for gifted artists.

Southeast Missouri's fine arts grant is being organized by a number of organizations including Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau Public Schools, Harris-Stowe State College, Southeast Regional Professional Development Center, the Missouri Alliance for Arts Education and the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts.

While a final budget hasn't been written, Robert Gifford said the grant calls for seminars and workshops for college students, similar programs for classroom teachers, and production of a series of video tapes that will be available to university students and teachers statewide. In addition, they will be changing parts of the curriculum for teacher training programs to bring arts into all subjects. The grant gives the coalition $223,000 for each of two years to get this done. Funding for a third year is possible.

The grant follows statewide and national efforts at education reform. Arts education is a key element in the national Goals 2000: Educate American and Missouri's Show Me Standards, both movements aimed at improving public schools.

While the grant is aimed at improving Missouri's arts education, Ann Gifford said Southeast Missouri students and teachers will benefit immediately. As the curriculum changes are being developed, local schools and students will receive new instruction and will be exposed to different experiences. For example, students at Southeast Missouri State University and Washington Elementary School in Cape Girardeau on Friday learned about dance from professional ballroom dancers.

In May, a professional dance troupe from Austria will be in town to demonstrate and teach Austrian folk dances. A public performance is planned.

Ann Gifford explained that the grant development group decided to focus on dance first because it is the area of fine arts in which the professionals working on the project have the least expertise.

Similar workshops will be developed for each area of the fine arts.