Janet Olsen
Students nervously adjust the brightly coloured Métis sashes they wear as part of their dancing costumes. In a few minutes, these Caslan School students will take to the stage, demonstrating what they’ve learned since the jigging program was implemented as part of an Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) project a year ago. Proud of their third-place finish at Batoche’s prestigious jigging competition this summer, these students are still a little nervous—performing on stage is a new skill, but it will grow easier with practice.
In the kindergarten classroom down the hall, a local potter works with the school’s youngest students. The students are creating special plaques that include a handprint of a young student and that of a Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement elder. The plaque creation is one of many ArtsSmarts project activities. Using ArtsSmarts funding, Caslan School invites artists to work with teachers and students to integrate the arts into every subject of the Alberta curriculum. The plaque project integrates the arts into the kindergarten students’ studies on community and family.
Farther down the hall, student works illustrate arts integration in other subjects, including science. A wall mural depicting geology information and an explanation of how erosion occurs surrounds the water fountain outside one classroom. The Grade 3 students who created the mural cleverly included the water fountain as part of the mural’s waterfall.
“This project is part of our involvement with visual artist Doreen Curniski,” says Kelly Waters, Caslan School Arts Integration coordinator. “Doreen will be working with the school for three months. The wall mural illustrates student learning about rocks, minerals and erosion. Each student did an individual project, and then one of those individual projects was chosen as the inspiration for the wall mural, which all of the students are working on together. We’ve discovered the students are excited and pleased when their pieces are chosen as the inspirations for one of the many murals going up in the school. The inspiration pieces will be framed and incorporated into the mural.”
An innovative program gets started
Arts integration is a new initiative at Northern Lights School Division’s Caslan School, which is located on the edge of Buffalo Lake Métis Settlement, about 200 kilometres north of Edmonton. The initiative began in September 2003, in response to concerns regarding student attendance and achievement. Traditional methods of addressing these two issues weren’t working. Then, during a visit to Manitoba’s Frontier School Division, representatives from Caslan School saw that the opportunity to learn to play the fiddle was increasing school attendance. A decision was made to fund an AISI project that would teach Caslan School students, with their predominantly Métis heritage, traditional jigging and fiddle playing. The school and Northern Lights also asked the ArtsSmarts Foundation to form a partnership to help Caslan with its plans to integrate arts into the curriculum. ArtsSmarts agreed.
The first year of the project saw a multitude of changes in the way students cemented their classroom learning. For example, students learning about traditional No Japanese theatre in social studies made raku masks with local potter Susan Dean. The students created the masks in class and then visited Dean’s studio to watch this traditional form of Japanese pottery fired and the masks they had created come to life.
Other students worked with an artist to create quilts illustrating social studies concepts. Students in one class worked together on a quilt featuring Canada’s provinces and territories and provincial flowers and birds.
In still other classes, students worked with Métis elders to learn traditional Métis arts and crafts, including making corn dolls. The classes were enriched with the stories the elders told students as they worked together to keep a traditional art form alive.
At the end of the year, students collaborated with artists to put on a traditional Métis collective, featuring songs, dances, stories and poems written and performed by the students themselves. The community looked on with pride as the students explained Métis history and described the challenges that today’s Métis youth face.
What do students say about this new programming?
“Being part of the collective inspired my heart by allowing me to see into my future and express my feelings,” says Taylor, a Grade 6 student.
Kylee, a Grade 3 student, says: “It’s fun to paint, draw pictures, sing, dance and write stories.”
“It was a good experience learning to work with the sound equipment. It gave me confidence,” says Ryan, who learned to operate sound equipment as part of his contribution to the collective.
Signs of success appear in the school and community
In this, the second year of the three-year initiative, there are other indicators of success, says Tim Murphy, Caslan School principal. “The spirit of the students has transcended our school walls and captured the settlement. Parents, elders, the recreation board and the Settlement Council are looking for more opportunities to get involved with our students’ learning. We are only a small part of a student’s learning. The greatest indicator is the involvement of the community as a whole in our school. We are working to build connections to Métis culture, through arts, music and dance. There has been a definite spin-off effect in the community. A recent talent show had dozens of students singing, dancing, and fiddling. Last year there were few.”
David Skoglund, Caslan School’s assistant principal, has also seen benefits from the project. “We now have students attending school more and showing excellent enthusiasm in their class work. We’re better able to work with students to help them achieve their life goals when they are attending school, so we’re happy to report that attendance is up—significantly in some areas.”
What’s in the works for this year?
“This year, we’ll have longer relationships with the artists who come to the school,” says Kelly Waters, Caslan’s arts integration coordinator. “Last year, we got our feet wet. This year, we’re ready to go deeper.”
Waters says that artists are impressed with what the students have retained from last year. Artists new to the school are intrigued by the students’ skill levels in many areas, while returning artists notice that students are more at ease with the process and are expressing that ease in their work. Susan Dean, a potter, comments: “It’s fascinating to watch a project evolve with the teacher and students. The students are wonderful to work with—they are so engaged in what they are doing. I have a tremendous amount of fun working with them.”
Plans are in the works for a December celebration. Students will work with two artists to create a program to present their learning to the community. The program will have a language arts tie-in, Waters explains. This isn’t surprising, as every arts project in the school has a curricular tie-in to at least one subject area.
There are other benefits as well. Students have been presented with some unique opportunities to showcase their skills. Recently, students danced at a Métis Settlement General Council meeting. Last year, students performed jigs and fiddle tunes at some Alberta conferences. This fall, the students’ quilts travelled to Ottawa as part of an ArtsSmarts national exhibit. The students have seen their photos published in the Edmonton Journal and local newspapers; they’ve attended Northern Lights School Division Board of Trustee meetings and National Aboriginal Day celebrations.
Heather Welwood is a long-time trustee with Northern Lights and was board chair when the initiative began. “The Board has seen the students participate in their arts activities and realizes their enthusiasm enhances their academic endeavours,” she says.
Is learning occurring? The consensus is yes.
Janet Olsen is in communications with the Northern Lights School Division.
