BROCKTON – A group of kindergartens at Mary E. Baker Elementary School sat on a large, dark blue carpet, eagerly waiting for Catherine Piazza to hand them a colorful egg-shaped shaker.
As she walked through the pond of the young students, Piazza reached into the bag and pulled out small musical instruments, giving them one by one.
Piazza returned to the front of the classroom and began music – a Ghanaian folk song sung in the Akan language. As the music played, some students shook their shaker as hard and fast as they could, while others shook them slowly to the beat of the music.
Piazza visited the class as part of ImagineARTS, a program created by the South Shore Conservatory to bring art, music and dance education to classrooms in kindergartens across Brockton each week.
“It’s a 45-minute lesson that’s just, from start to finish, completely imbued with art,” said Holly Jennings, program director.
The program began 10 years ago as a way of mixing art with the literacy and academic goals of each school.
The aim of this lesson was to encourage improvisation and creativity by exposing children to music from different cultures. Earlier in the class, students listened to a song called Mbube, which means “lion” in Zulu, while they rattled wooden sticks to the steady rhythm of the music.
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Each ImagineARTS lesson is tailored to what the class is learning at the time. In this classroom, students are currently learning about rhyming and animals, so the whole ImagineARTS lesson of the day is focused on those topics.
Each week between October and May, a staff member from the South Shore Conservatory comes to the classroom and provides a unique lesson that includes their own artistic expertise. Piazza is the co-chair of the dance department at the conservatory, so she uses dance and movement throughout the hour.
At the beginning of the class, Piazza took the students through a dance to a Swahili song called Funga Alafia. One of the movements involved pushing the arms up and over the body, which Jennings said was an important movement for children of that age to understand and exercise for their physical and motor development.
A watch is not just a typical music or art class. In addition to these typical art classes, teachers include activities from ImagineARTS lessons while teaching regular subjects such as science or math.
“We are focusing on expanding their teaching tools so they can use art in their kindergarten curriculum,” Jennings said.
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Combining art with academics, Jennings said it reaches out to students who could learn differently or fight in a regular classroom. Many of the students they work with speak English as a second language, and the lessons are still easy for them to follow.
“You don’t have to understand English to understand shaking eggs or playing rhythm sticks,” she said.
According to a study conducted by the conservatory, ImagineARTS classes lead to 10% more student engagement than teachers see during the rest of the school day. Even during the pandemic, when ImagineARTS continued with schools virtually, students were more engaged compared to the usual day.
“We consistently heard from teachers that attendance was better in the days when there was ImagineARTS,” Jennings said.
The program is fully funded by donations and is free for participating schools.
Some days, guest musicians from the South Shore Conservatory will bring their instruments to class, exposing students to unique types of music and sounds.
“At the kindergarten level, students can see and experience instruments like bassoons or percussion outside just drums,” Jennings said. “I’m a classically educated musician … and I didn’t see the bassoon until I got to college. And these kids will see it in kindergarten.”
This school year marks the tenth anniversary of the program. Jennings has been with the program since it began, first as a teacher in a class like Piazza, before moving into the role of director.
The program even holds family evenings, where parents can come to school after hours and experience the ImagineARTS lesson with their children, and then they can take these activities and include them at home.
“We’ve also been very dedicated in the last few years to making sure the students we work with can see themselves presented in the content of the story we bring to the classroom,” Jennings said. “We really care about taking a global approach to the music and art content that we bring into our lessons.”
Returning to the classroom, Piazza packs small instruments in her bag while students sing Donna Summer’s refrain “Nah, Nah, Hey, Hey”: a weekly farewell song. The teacher gathers the children in their place so they can prepare for lunch.
“These students have a richer, more complete human experience because they have been exposed to so much art at the level they get,” Jennings said. “It just enriches their lives in such a huge way.”