me arts ed

Workshop: Dances of the Decades – by Karen Hartnagle

Erma Colvin photo by Shalimar Poulin

Dances of the Decades was a great example of what can be done with an innovative teacher and a dance artist! Jim Morse is a social studies and math teacher at Camden-Rockport Middle School and he uses the arts to teach social studies.

Jim divides his social studies class into units based on different decades, for example, the 50’s, 60’s etc. He gives the students lists of important people, events, etc for each decade and the students research it along with fashions, music and fads of that decade. They develop a slide show that connects all the elements they have studied.

Jim partners with Erma to develop dances for individual decades. Erma has the students for a week to teach them different dances. Parents donate “costumes”, along with treasures found at Goodwill and it culminates in a performance for the parents/community!

One of the many positive things about this project is that every child participates in some way on an equal basis. So, in the workshop we got to experience some of this energy! Erma taught us one of the dances and brought the costumes so we did our dance with costumes! She and Jim showed us the slide show the students created and a video of the students doing some of the dances.

This is an outstanding example of what an involved, innovative teacher and a dance artist can create to bring a subject to life. The strength and depth of the arts is so apparent here, I am sure these students will never forget what they learned from this total experience. With this kind of program in all schools we would never have to worry about getting high test scores!