The Kennedy Center Comes to Cattell
Kennedy Center teaching artist Randy Barron spent Tuesday working with students at Cattell Elementary School.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. seems far removed from Cattell Elementary School in Des Moines, right? But they’re only a stone’s dance apart. It’s like this:
Randy Barron has danced and choreographed professionally since 1978 with ballet and modern dance companies across the United States. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, with minors in Chemistry and Psychology, and has been a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist since 1995. For over thirty years, he has designed and led arts-integrated residencies for students and professional development workshops for teachers, across thirty-six states. Barron’s also been a charter high school director, a charter school founder, a curriculum writer – even a school bus driver.
This week he’s here, working with students and teachers at the Turnaround Arts cohort of schools in the North High feeder pattern thanks to a partnership between DMPS and Des Moines Performing Arts rooted in providing professional development in arts-based teaching strategies. Tuesday’s visit to Cattell Elementary allowed teachers to observe how to teach science concepts through dance and creative movement.
Tuesday morning Barron was at Cattell Elementary, seamlessly merging choreography with geology in the 4th grade classroom of Dawn Lewis where the students have been chipping away at a science unit about the cycle of rocks.
Desks were pushed aside to create enough space for everyone’s very own kinesphere (that’s a space bubble to a layman). A misshapen human circle was formed and Barron made the rounds of it, introducing himself personally to each of the stony students. After some protocol calisthenics the class erupted, yes erupted, into interpretive reenactments of the formation of all kinds of rocks; igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. Metamorphic; you can say that again. From 4th graders to giggle-spewing volcanoes in half an hour: that’s an extreme metamorphosis.
A list was compiled of what sorts of movement rocks are capable of when sufficiently prodded and that led to energetic, enthusiastic demonstrations of sliding, rolling, flying, melting, breaking and squishing rocks, ancient ones, in the guise of nine year-old Cattell Mustangs. Think it’s easy being a rock? Sure, it’s “crazy” and “funny” according to one round, igneous pebble and a small sedimentary chip off of some old block, but it’s also tiring if flushed cheeks and wiped foreheads are to be believed.
According to Karoline Myers, Education Manager for Des Moines Performing Arts, Barron’s visit is the culmination of a course that has featured four additional Kennedy Center artists who have visited Des Moines throughout the year, covering topics ranging from using music to teach poetry to how to use drama to teach skills like cooperation and focus.
Tonight Barron will be working with teachers in a workshop at the Civic Center, where they’ll dive into the educational theory behind the strategies. Tomorrow he’ll be back at school demonstrating what it looks like with students. The risk of volcanic activity is high. And be on the lookout for a swarm of two-legged bugs (Carol Weaver’s 2nd graders are studying insects). But stay calm – no one’s in danger of anything except a stretched mind.
