Ready, Set, Van Gogh!: A Multi- Arts Curriculum for a Preschool Classroom

Susan B. Eaton, Ed.D

Introduction

           Ready, Set, Van Gogh! is an arts education curriculum in visual arts, music, and dance/drama for preschoolers with and without disabilities. Our model program is being developed at the Susan Gray School at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Plans are to produce a  teacher’s manual and supporting materials so that the project can be replicated in other preschool programs. In addition, given that there is little published research on effective programs and curricula that enhance multiple intelligences in visual arts, music, and movement, we are designing research related to changes in teachers’ attitudes about arts education and to assess if our program produces educational gains.

The Susan Gray School is Middle Tennessee’s largest early intervention and early childhood program. This school was founded in 1963 and serves children from birth to age five who have developmental delays and/or disabilities or who are at-risk for delays in their development. The school serves about 140 children and their families, provides programs in their homes, in their community childcare environments, or in the school’s center-based program. All children with developmental delays or disabilities are integrated with children who are typically developing. The school is a training program for teachers and researchers from Vanderbilt and other area colleges and universities. 

The Preschool program serves children 3-4 years old. Children attend 5 days per week from 8-3:30. The curriculum emphasizes school readiness, prekindergarten skills, and social skills. The program includes individualized planning for all children, coordinated, on-site services, and parent education and information. Free transportation to and from the school is provided within certain geographical areas.

The mission of the school is to provide 1) high quality early childhood education for all children; 2) intervention services for children with developmental delays and their families; 3) a setting for training future teachers and researchers and for demonstrating educational models that serve young children with special needs and typically developing children; and 4) to support research on early childhood development and developmental disabilities as well as early childhood education and special education.

            Ready, Set, Van Gogh! was extended this year to include staff from Project Reflect (PREP), a Nashville community preschool for children at-risk for academic failure. PREP  works with disadvantaged prekindergarten children, most of whom are from public housing environments. The mission of PREP is to do all that is possible to meet the children’s curriculum needs, thereby encouraging them to fulfill their academic potential. PREP is a place of love and understanding, where each child is enlightened with his or her own intrinsic worth. Teachers report that participation in the multi-arts program has enhanced the children’s language skills and enriched them with artistically interesting presentations. The PREP teacher attends the weekly teacher training sessions at Vanderbilt. In addition, she is provided with the materials necessary to carry out the program with the other teachers in the two preschool classes at PREP.

We use a mirror to see our face and the arts to see our soul.

--George Bernard Shaw

A number of educators (e.g., Eisner, 1999; Gee, 1999) have written persuasively about the critical importance of closely evaluating arts programs that sound good on paper but may lack substance. Gee (1999) asks the fundamental questions that are sometimes glossed over or ignored in program reports. For example: How many students are directly involved in the program’s arts experiences?  With whom or with what specific activities are the students involved? How many hours (or, usually, minutes) a week? Over what time period? We carefully considered these basic questions and other critical issues related to excellence in the design of our program.

               Ready, Set, Van Gogh! provides intensive classroom experiences in three art modalities: visual arts, music, and dance/drama. Our project began in fall 2002 with a six-week visual arts segment, and is continuing at this time with a six-week music segment in February-March 2003. During the six-week segment for each modality, arts specialists conduct a weekly 60-minute training session for teachers in the aesthetic, cultural, and skills goals of classroom lessons for each week. Teachers assist art specialists in these 20-minute classroom sessions three times each week at the Susan Gray School.

          In addition to the arts education at the Susan Gray School, teachers from PREP, a Nashville preschool for children at-risk for academic failure, participate in the weekly teacher training sessions. PREP teachers are provided with the materials to implement the lessons in their classrooms. This provides arts education for a greater number of children and will allow us to measure the effectiveness of our teacher training sessions in helping teachers implement this project with varying degrees of support.

                Art skills. This component is most familiar to teachers in the United States. The teachers’ disposition is to judge the quality of the curriculum by the quality of the art work the children produce. Our curriculum builds on this disposition to encourage teachers to value both the art works themselves as well as the education in the aesthetics and cultural/historical context. Therefore, the lessons are carefully developed to be attractive to teachers and to meet the children’s physical, intellectual, and emotional, and social developmental levels.

            In summary, Ready, Set, Van Gogh! encompasses three fundamental components of arts education: aesthetics, cultural context, and skills. Each dimension is addressed by experiences with visual arts, music, and dance/drama domains. We hope that compression six hours of teacher training and 18 classroom lessons into six-week segments in each art discipline will provide sufficient intensity for meaningful learning in the arts.

The next section is intended to illustrate specific details of our program design. The following one-week exemplars from the visual arts and music segments represent how we have attempted to realize these goals in teacher training sessions and practical classroom lessons.

Visual Arts Curriculum (Oct-November 2002). The teaching artist for the visual arts segment was Deborah Yoder. Ms. Yoder initiated an arts education course with kindergartners at Highland Elementary School in Portland, TN during the 2001-02 school year. The theme of their study was Van Gogh. Ms. Yoder’s  honors include selection for an exhibit at the juried 37^th Annual South Art Exhibition 2002 in Nashville. Her work was also accepted into the Tennessee Art League’s juried membership Show in the spring of 2002 where she won second place in the Watercolor Division. Ms. Yoder also has an extensive background in writing training manuals and conducting training sessions in children’s health for the state of Tennessee.Sample Visual Arts Instruction            The following sample describes the one-hour teacher training and three 20-minute classroom lessons for one week of the visual arts segment. The theme for the week is Van Gogh’s self-portraits.

Teacher Training

            The aesthetic element addressed this week is color. The following concepts were covered in the one-hour teacher training session:

·   Color is a product of light. As light changes, the color of objects changes.

·   Our perception of colors changes according to the color’s surroundings. Even in the same light, a color will appear different depending on the adjacent colors. (Show examples.)

·   Define and show examples of hue, value, and primary, secondary, and tertiary colors.

·   Discuss use of color in paintings related to emphasis, interest, balance, space. Discuss five color schemes in paintings and show examples: monochromatic, analogous, complimentary, split complimentary, and triadic (Lauer & Pentak, 2002).

These Van Gogh prints were used to illustrate effects of color discussed above. These prints are available at the following website:  www.vangoghgallery.com

Hue: Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass with Book

Warm colors: Thatched Cottages in Sun, Olive Grove Orange Sky

Cool colors: Olive Grove, Prisoners Exercising

Color as emphasis: Sower, Outskirts of Arles, The Drinkers

Color and balance: Field with Poppies

Color and space: Bulb Field

Color schemes:

                        Monochromatic-- Farmhouse with Two Figures, Field of Yellow Flowers

                        Analogous-- Wheat Field under Clouded Sky

                        Complimentary--Le Bercuse, Woman Sitting on Bale of Hay

                        Split complimentary--Valley with Ploughman Seen From Above

                        Triadic--The Red Vineyard, Sunset Wheatfields near Arles

Classroom Lesson 1

CONTENT: Discuss concept of self-portrait.  Examine Vincent’s self-portraits focusing on his physical traits. Note color of hair/eyes/skin.

ACTIVITY: Each child looks in the mirror and identifies their own hair color, eye color, and skin color.

Classroom Lesson 2

CONTENT: Review concept of self-portrait. Briefly look at Vincent’s self-portraits.

ACTIVITY: Make paper plate self-puppets. Use yarn for hair. Use crayons to draw facial features. Remind children of what color their hair/eyes/skin is. Use fabric scraps to dress puppets.

Classroom Lesson 3

CONTENT: Examine Vincent’s self-portraits and discuss how he might be feeling in all of them. Discuss meaning of feelings: happy, sad, mad, and scared.

ACTIVITY: Lay four emotion cards (happy, sad, mad, scared) on floor in front of children. Give examples of situations when a child might feel each of these feelings. Ask children to identify the feeling they might feel in that situation by picking an emotion card and demonstrating the feeling on their face. Then, ask children to practice feelings by making faces, and photograph the group making these faces in unison. Print the photographs for the Ready, Set, Van Gogh! book that will be given to each child at the end of the project.

            The intensive music segment was conducted by a teaching artist and a Vanderbilt education student working under a Kindermusik education consultant. These instructors shared the weekly one-hour teacher training time. Each instructor then conducted one 20-minute classroom lesson each week with the children. The classroom teachers conducted the third 20-minute classroom lesson, following guidelines presented by the arts specialists. We used two instructors during this segment in order to incorporate the skills of a professional music artist and to utilize the resources of the teacher training program at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt.

The teaching artist in music was Marcia Jones Thom. She has performed leading and supporting roles with Des Moines Opera, Tennessee Opera Theatre, the Ashlawn Highland Opera Festival in Virginia, Chattanooga Opera, Nashville Opera Association, Kentucky Opera, and Opera Memphis. In 1991, she made her Alice Tulley Hall debut in New York City as a winner of the Liederkranz Competition and in 1998 was named the Vocal Recipient of the Tennessee Performing Arts Commission Grant Awards. Nashville Scene named her the Outstanding Opera Singer in April 2002. Ms.Thom has been a Teaching Artist for the Humanities Outreach Program of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center and toured extensively with Opera Iowa as a performer and teaching artist. She is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing with a private voice studio of over 50 students.

            The music education specialist was Molly Robertson. Ms. Robertson is a senior student in the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt. Ms. Robertson’s lessons were part of an independent course of study in music education under the supervision of Amy Alley, Lecturer in Music Education at Blair and Kindermusik Education Consultant in the precollege division. (I also want to give credit here to Ms. Alley for the wonderful project title, Ready, Set, Van Gogh! )

Sample Music Instruction                     

The following sample describes one of the weekly one-hour teacher training sessions shared by Ms. Alley, Ms. Robertson, and Ms. Thom.  Two 20-minute classroom lesson outlines for one week of the music segment are also presented. For the third 20-minute classroom lesson, the classroom teachers presented a lesson that followed the guidelines given by the artist and education specialists. The theme for the week is Van Gogh’s “Yellow House” painting.

Teacher Training Notes

The teacher training began this week with Ms. Alley discussing the National Standards for Arts Education (USA) as they relate to effective music teaching for pre-kindergarten children.  Being aware of this information assisted teacher to make wise choices as they incorporated  music in their classrooms.

The push for national standards in arts education began in the USA in January 1992, when the National Council on Education Standards and Testing called for a system of voluntary national standards and assessments in the "core" subjects of math, English, science, history, and geography, "with other subjects to follow." The arts were the first of the "other subjects" to receive federal funding. With the passage of Goals 2000: Educate America Act, the national education reform legislation that includes development of world-class standards, the arts have been recognized for the first time as a fundamental academic subject.

The years before children enter kindergarten are critical for their musical development. Young children need a rich musical environment in which to grow. The increasing number of day-care centers, nursery schools, and early-intervention programs for children with disabilities and children at risk suggests that information should be available about the musical needs of infants and young children and that standards for music should be established for these learning environments as well as for K-12 settings. The standards for Pre-K children reflect the following beliefs:

·   All children have musical potential.

·    Children bring their own unique interests and abilities to the music learning environment.

·    Very young children are capable of developing critical thinking skills through musical ideas.

·   Children come to early-childhood music experiences from diverse backgrounds.

·   Children should experience exemplary musical sounds, activities, and materials.

·   Children should not be encumbered with the need to meet performance goals.

·   Children's play is their work.

·   Children learn best in pleasant physical and social environments.

·   Diverse learning environments are needed to serve the developmental needs of many individual children.

·   Children need effective adult models.

       Following discussion of the standards, Ms. Alley presenting the following music education guidelines. She has developed these guidelines over her years of experience teaching children in order to promote quality instruction for music in early childhood.

Guiding concept for music education:

“The fact that children can make beautiful music is less significant than the

fact that music can make beautiful children.”

Characteristic of lessons:

·   contain songs and games for singing

·   include movement activities (structured & unstructured)

·   contain active listening

·   include instrument playing

·   are process oriented rather than performance oriented, allowing children to use their imaginations, to think, and to respond

The songs:

·   are short

·   have a limited range

·   include repetition

The instruments:

·   are easy to play, but not toys

·   are kept separate from toys and other non-musical items

·   are abundant enough so children can play the same instrument at the same time.  Basic instruments are sticks, bells, drums, and shakers.

·   should represent a variety of sounds/timbres; e.g.,  metal, wood, membranes, instruments to shake or scrape

The teacher:

·   is animated, energetic and enthusiastic

·   is comfortable sitting on the floor and participating with the children

·   is flexible and knows when to improvise or adapt

· creates an environment that encourages ideas, curiosity and individual expression

Following Ms. Alley’s instruction, Ms. Robertson, the music education specialist student, continued the teacher training session by describing the activities she planned with the children in the classroom lesson later that week (See below Classroom Lessons 2 and 3).                                                

The teacher training session then continued with the Teaching Artist, Ms. Thom, discussing the aesthetic element “melody”. The following concepts were covered:

·   A melody is a combination of pitches with relation to each other.  These pitches may be high, low, or remain the same. 

·   Young children are quite capable of learning simple melodies – often children do not even realize they are “singing” when they repeat simple melodic patterns while at play or work. 

·   There should be no delineation made between production of sound and actual singing – each should be met with a positive reaction on the part of the teacher. It is only essential that each child sings and that every tone is encouraged and applauded.

·   Teachers must be actively involved in the role of encourager and nurturer regardless of the product.  We must be “process oriented.”

Classroom Lesson 1 (Ms. Thom)

Classroom Lesson 2 (Ms. Robertson)

·   “Hello Song” – This greeting song begins every music class and children respond physically to questions in song.

·   “A House For Me” – unstructured movements to music as children move around the room swinging their dust cloths to the rhythmic ostinato, “dust, dust, dust.”

·   “Color Song” – a cumulative song that begins “There’s a white house on a

green hill with a blue sky up above.” Teacher points to pictures in a large

book as children sing with CD accompaniment.

·   “There’s a Bird in My Kitchen”—Children listen to discover what animal is in the house and where?! Subsequent verses name other animals and what they are eating in the kitchen.

·   Question-Answer vocal play – Teacher sings goodbye to children individually using listening tube and different voices (singing, speaking, whispering).

Classroom Lesson 3 (Classroom teachers)

            In the third 20-minute classroom lesson for the week, the classroom teachers incorporated activities from lessons 1 and 2 with their class as they preferred.

Dance/Drama Movement Curriculum (May-June 2003).

This curriculum is “under construction.” The teacher training and classroom lessons will focus on aesthetics and skills in dance/drama and build on the theme of Van Gogh’s cultural era.              

In summary, the design of our arts education program for young children is multi-faceted. The most important characteristics of the design are that

1) visual arts, music, and dance/drama segments are presented in separate, intensive segments;

2) all three arts disciplines relate to the overall Van Gogh theme; and

3) each arts segment provides education in aesthetic elements and performance skills related to that discipline.

There is a lack of published programs that attempt this type of integration in arts education. In my opinion, a critical weakness in most programs is that they address only isolated pieces of arts education. For example, a sizeable number of individual lesson plans about the artist Van Gogh are available through a cursory search on the internet. However, such lessons make no attempt to integrate education in aesthetic elements of the visual arts, do little to incorporate cultural/historical perspectives, or relate of Van Gogh’s visual art to other arts disciplines. Furthermore, such isolated experiences cannot provide the depth and intensity necessary for meaningful learning about arts.  

Another problem in the United States is that arts disciplines frequently operate in isolation from each other. Such isolation is influenced by competition for scarce resources and historical patterns of arts education. Clearly, further research and development is critical to establishing effective arts education programs.

Unfortunately, much of the literature on arts education does not achieve a high standard. A common problem is the deceptive idea that occasional, short-term arts experiences constitute an adequate arts education program (e.g., Gee, 1999). This idea has become increasingly popular in the United States in recent years, and is the subject of lively discussion in the literature. The notion is that short-term arts experiences—for example, student visits to an art museum or a 30-minute lesson once a week provides adequate arts education. Although such arts experiences can be wonderful supplements to a viable arts education curriculum, they cannot by themselves constitute a quality arts education program. After all, no one would pretend that a school had provided a quality math education if students only attended a couple of mathematicians’ conferences and a math professor lectured to them a few times. In the same way, transient arts experiences cannot substitute for a substantial arts education curriculum.

Clearly, we must require a higher standard of research in arts education. There is simply no substitute for clear thinking and rigorous research design. We need trustworthy research that can answer important questions about arts education and inform the quality of our teaching. Such research would include essential design components such as appropriate comparison groups and clear definitions.

            One promising research initiative in the United States is in fine arts assessment. Jim Friedebach and Orlo Shroyer in the Missouri Department of Education have constructed a fine arts assessment now being instituted state-wide for grade 5, with plans to expand to grades 4-12. These researchers worked with teachers in music, visual arts, drama and dance to develop test items that reflected students’ artistic skills and aesthetic understanding of elements common across arts areas. For example, the students’ mastery of the concept of rhythm is assessed by questions that use examples in music, visual arts, and dance. The test developers realized that an integrated arts assessment would not be easy to achieve, but believed that this was a more meaningful approach than separately formulating questions in each arts discipline. The Missouri test format is a videotape medium. Students mark responses to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions on an answer sheet while viewing a video that presents exceptional quality works of art as stimuli for assessing students’ conceptual understanding. A performance assessment is also administered to a sample of students. One important benefit of a well-constructed assessment such as the Missouri model is that it can encourage quality arts education and curriculum: Assessment results produce accountability databases that identify strengths and weaknesses in arts education programs. This information, in turn, motivates schools to strive for arts competence for all students.

Research concerns have been part of the plan for the Ready, Set, Van Gogh! curriculum from its inception. We have focused this year on the challenge of developing a rich multi-arts program appropriate for classrooms of children with and without disabiliites. Next year, we plan to design a practical research program to measure changes in teachers' approach and implementation of arts activities in their classrooms as well as development of children’s knowledge and skills in visual arts, music, and dance/drama.

 Trustworthy research is neither easy nor inexpensive. How can we justify the time, money, and effort required for quality arts education and related research?

One idea that has recently gained a good deal of attention in the United States is the notion that arts education programs are justified because they remediate academic and social problems. To test the claim that studying arts is associated with improved academic outcome, Ellen Winner (2001) of Project Zero at Harvard University reported a comprehensive review of more than 1000 research records. The report is simultaneously alarming and reassuring. It is alarming because analysis reveals little credible support for many popular claims of the positive effects of arts experiences on academic achievement. It is reassuring because the report clears away much confusion and articulates a trustworthy foundation for useful research design. If we attempt to justify arts education by non-arts outcomes, we are building on, in Dr. Eisner’s words, a “treacherous foundation.”  We must not inflate claims about the benefits of arts education without convincing supporting evidence. Sound reasoning as well as passion is essential to drive worthwhile arts program design and research.

Primarily, if we want arts education to flourish, we must justify the study of arts as valuable in itself, not because of any supportive or supplementary role it may play in other areas of learning. The arts foster novel ways to perceive and deepen our understanding of other people and the world. They satisfy a particularly human need to create and to share our creative expressions with other people. Fundamentally, arts education is a humanizing, civilizing force that can foster intercultural understanding. The study of visual arts, music, dance, and drama is valuable in itself. Attempting to justify arts education programs primarily by supportive or supplementary effects the arts may have in other areas of learning is unnecessary and may prove detrimental to arts education in the long run.

How do arts education and arts-related learning relate with the theory and practical applications of multiple intelligences? I believe that discussion of this issue can be helpful, and I will look forward to dialogue with colleagues that may help detail contributions by the arts from each standpoint. For example, Mills (2001) presents a range of issues related to the context of musical intelligence and music education. In general, it seems clear that the concept of multiple intelligences incorporates the belief that abilities related to the visual arts, music, and movement are of unique importance (e.g., Armstrong, 2000; Gardner, Feldman, Krechevsky, & Chen, 1998). This shared understanding may produce stimulating and fruitful dialogue.

Ready, Set, Van Gogh! is an arts initiative that fosters collaboration among classroom teachers, art teachers, artists, administrators and researchers. It is a challenging venture. I am grateful for the group of exceptional individuals with whom I am participating on this project including Ruth Wolery, Ph.D., Director of Susan Gray School, and Janelle Glover, Principal of PREP. I  look forward to exchanging ideas with other colleagues in the arts and early childhood education. To encourage such dialogue, I present here a number of questions for your consideration and comments.

1. What percent of education time, effort, and money is appropriate for a school community to spend on arts education? Does this percentage vary with a child’s age?

2. Is it important for arts programs to balance the development of arts skills (such as learning to paint or play musical instruments) with education in aesthetic and cultural/historical elements in the arts?

3. Which arts disciplines should be thoroughly taught to all children? 

4. Is it useful to integrate instruction across arts disciplines? Can it be done effectively, i.e., relating the arts disciplines but retaining the integrity of each?

5. Is it problematic to use the arts to teach other subjects?

6. The idea of cultural exchange through sharing viewing or other participation in art activities is traditional. Can arts education in aesthetic elements provide a common vocabulary that will foster greater intercultural understanding?