TALLADEGA — Elementary students in city schools would have been shocked to know that their mean, boring teachers knew how to get up and shake a leg and giggle just like they do.The School System’s first presentation on Monday’s Teacher Professional Development Day was not the usual long speech but instead tips to help teach students through physical activity.
Mary Foshee, program director for the Children’s Dance Foundation in Homewood, led the activities, which are designed for students to be able to perform in the limited space of a classroom.
“Our whole learning machine is through our bodies, using our senses,” Foshee explained.
Around 100 elementary teachers simultaneously participated in the activities. Creativity was encouraged for most of the activities, so teachers often made up their own movements.
Nearly ever body part was used at some point, even the ear lobes.
For example, teachers were asked to recreate the elements that cause the creation of fossil fuels by moving their bodies. The teachers created their own movements meant to symbolize the forces of heat, pressure and decomposition.
Foshee said students are able to learn better by doing rather than just watching, and the physical activities help to expend some of the energy elementary students seem to possess by the bushel.
Dr. Frank Buck, curriculum and special education supervisor and dance participant, said Foshee was able to come to Talladega thanks to a grant from the Talladega City Schools Foundation.
“Presently, Graham is the only elementary school with a music teacher, and there are no art teachers,” Buck said. “Until that situation changes, the instruction in the arts our students receive will be what is supplied by the regular classroom teacher.
“For that reason, we see the need to give teachers some strategies on how to incorporate the arts into their classroom and teach other subject matter through the arts.”
The Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts made a matching grant to the foundation, which will go toward a later activity.
The Children’s Dance Foundation is based on the belief that dance is a foundation for learning for students of all ages, abilities and economic backgrounds. It was founded in 1975, and engages more than 2,700 children and adults in movement classes each week.
Teachers also received training in the use of defibrillators later during the development day. “We now have defibrillators in all of the schools,” Buck said.
