As we look for innovative ways to offer various arts
programs to our students, we are looking for ideas from other successful
programs. For our October fine arts cohort session, we were able to visit
Opelika City Schools. The visit provided an opportunity to sharpen our vision
in relation to the organization of our programs and with possibilities within
each arts discipline.
Our initial meeting with the superintendent and central
office administrators gave insight to the development of the Opelika arts
programs over many years. The system leaders showcased the district-wide
leadership and financial support to arts education. They also highlighted the
high-quality expectations for all of the arts from the community, parents,
students, and faculty. This culture has
evidently been built over many years as their programs have grown and produced
award-winning products in choral music, theatre, visual arts, and band.
As we observed across most of their schools, we were able to
get ideas and affirmation in relation to our own programs. While visual arts
and music in the elementary schools were organized very similarly to ours, their
secondary arts courses were numerous. Even though we are smaller in size, we
were still able to see ways that we could collaborate between arts disciplines,
with other departments, and with community groups to possibly offer more
programs for our secondary students.
Our observations also provided some examples of great
instructional practices. The middle school choral music teacher displayed very
efficient use of class time and excellent classroom management with strong
energy and positive teacher-student interactions. Seeing a diverse group of
middle school students energetically performing show choir numbers was a
highlight of our visit and an image we would like to apply to our own vision. We
were also able to learn new ways to organize resources for elementary visual
arts lessons that can involve hundreds of students, and we were able to see a creative
and positive classroom climate in regular theatre classes and structured
production practices.
The whole visit provided us ideas that we can immediately
apply in our classrooms and that we can use as we plan for the future of arts
education in Sylacauga.
