Norris Elementary STEAMs ahead
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Breyden O’Neal and Charleston Leverton in Ashley Cox’s third-grade class at Norris Elementary School work on boat models with Nashville visiting artist Carlos Calderon. This activity is part of the school system’s arts integration program.
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Norris Elementary School students work on an arts integration activity. The school is looking to receive more training and to expand these programs.
Subjects like science and math aren’t always tied to song and dance, but at Norris Elementary School they are now.
“One thing I have learned is when you teach students through the arts, their retention of that lasts way longer than if you teach it with just a worksheet,” NES art teacher and certified arts integration specialist Alison Greenhouse told the Anderson County Board of Education at a work session.
Greenhouse received that certification in 2021.
“I think that it’s significant and really exciting to see when the kids are like ‘I remembered that because we sang about it,’” she said.
NES Principal Renee Branham requested and will receive $26,000 from the Board of Education over three years.
The money will help at least four more of the school’s teachers get the national certification training for arts integration programs through the Institute of Arts Integration and STEAM.
STEAM stands for “science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.”
The school board approved this funding at the Thursday, March 5, meeting unanimously, although John Burrell was absent.
The $26,000 is only part of the $52,000 the school needs to raise over the next three years for the training, Greenhouse said.
Anderson County Director of Schools Tim Parrott said Greenhouse had worked with other Anderson County schools to teach them her arts integration methods.
“If you’ve been up there and seen the students doing the ballet dancing in cowboy boots and doing the arts integration and music and everything like that they really and truly have done a fantastic job with this,” Parrott said at the work session regarding NES. “Our parents are wanting the students to go there because they’re seeing the value in this thing. And I, for one, 100% support it.”
“I know STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is important, but arts is what stimulates the other side of the brain,” said Board of Education Chairman Scott Gillenwaters.
Arts integration refers to teaching academic subjects like science and math through arts activities like visual arts, music, theater and dance.
Branham describes STEAM programs as using science, technology, engineering arts and mathematics as “access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue and critical thinking.”
The program started with simple exercises like “sketch notes” on vocabulary sheets and songs to remember math facts. The Institute of Arts Integration and STEAM announced last December NES qualified to get more teachers trained.
Earlier the Tennessee Arts Commission awarded the school an Arts 360 Grant.
“This really helped ramp up our arts integration goals by bringing more visiting artists to our school. We added a dance class for all students and extended teacher training with continuing Arts Integration PD throughout the school year and summer training at TN Arts Academy in Nashville for our faculty and staff,” Branham said.
Greenhouse said the school had already started raising money for the upcoming $52,000 training through fundraising, including $14,000 this year. She also said the Tennessee Arts Commission may also supply grants.