A collaborative teaching effort in Jackson

Teachers at Jackson's new East Elementary School are collaborating to bring lessons to students.

Through a concept called Encore, teachers of music, art, library, physical education and counseling for kindergarten through fifth grade identify common topics across their lesson plans, then identify how to show students how that topic applies in various disciplines.

"So if they're talking about Native Americans, (students) might do some weaving," said East Elementary's Jessica Maxwell, who brought the Encore program to the school.

Each day of the week is dedicated to a different subject, once a month, a "mass" class is held, during which students gather for an activity focusing on the topic.

There's been a lot of focus in recent years on what the best approach is for teaching and testing students. While standardized testing provides a good overall look at how a student or district is doing, it's not necessarily a barometer for the methods of teaching being used. But when students are able to discuss different angles of the same topic in several classes, it stands to reason they are better able to learn how that topic affects many facets of life, history or civilization.

Kudos to the teachers for taking the extra time to coordinate these lessons.