Ira Shankman: Arts High School (2min)
For one thing, we did audition students to come into the school. Students had to show an ability to either sing, dance, play an instrument. They got a concentration of 2-3 periods of Arts education every day in addition to the 5 other academic subjects that they had. Now there has to be a little bit of a give because giving three periods of Arts education, something has to go. Maybe we weren’t able to offer a wide variety of electives, our students came into school, they got an academic diploma, New York City of course they had to pass Regency Exams and our kids went off to college. We didn’t have a football team; we had dance class at the end of the day. We didn’t have a wealth of electives that kids could take; there was a prescribed curriculum. They took their four years of English, their four years of social studies, three years of science, math and a language and then this concentration in their arts area. We couldn’t offer 17 different types of English classes because we put our resources into teaching them the Arts.
We integrated the Arts into the other subjects so that we used the hook that drew them into high school to go throughout their educational career. They were not only experiencing dance for dance’s sake, they were able to take that dance and bring it into their other classes. They were able to take that music and bring it into their other classes. Teachers made connections between what was going on in their classroom and Arts education.