Middle School Theater Classes
August 13, 2011Troy Howard Middle School
Jason Bannister will be one of the few middle school theater arts teachers in the Maine Public School system this fall. Bannister, who taught 4th grade and 7th/8th ELA for the last 8 years, will be teaching theater arts full time to all 7th/8th graders at Troy Howard Middle School. In the past, students at THMS took visual art all three years (6th-8th), along with music 7/8. They were not taught theater arts, as required in the Maine Learning Results. With Bannister teaching theater arts, students will have the special opportunity to meet standards in music, art and theater during their 3 years at the middle school.
Bannister, who has a B.A. in Theater and M.A.T. in Education, is very excited to be teaching theater to the kids. He will be able to bring his experience as a professional actor into the classroom. As a former ELA teacher he will be able to work with the other academics in the school to incorporate their curriculum into the class, using their ‘texts’ in performance. With the stage right next door to his new, large classroom
space, Bannister hopes to offer many different activities, including acting, stagecraft, writing, filmmaking, and dance.
In addition to the class, Bannister also directs the school’s drama club, Center Stage Ensemble. Under his tutelage the club performs a fall play, a winter musical, and hosts the newly created Maine Student Acting Competition. The MSAC offers middle school students from around the state a day-long acting/singing/dancing tournament. In its first year in 2011, the MSAC had five schools competing, with around 30 competitors. Next year Bannister looks to double that. Anyone interested in learning more about
the MSAC can go to http://mainesac.wordpress.com/ or email jbannister@rsu20.org. You can also learn more about THMS’s drama club at http://thmsdrama.wordpress.com/ and Jason Bannister’s classroom at
http://thms.rsu20.org/performingarts/.
me arts ed 
This is exciting. Kudos to Troy Howard Middle School for their commitment to theater arts education for kids!
At what cost to the visual art classes? I understand there is a major scheduling conflict.
Thanks for your comment Chuck. I trust that the educators at the local level have discussed programming for arts education programs K-12. This type of decision impacts PK-12 arts education.
Sadly, there has been no discussions regarding the PK-12 arts programing in RSU20. Decisions are made with no input outside individual buildings and principals. Leadership in the form of the 9-12 coordinator position has been eliminated by the school board. The scheduling changes at the middle school level came as a surprise to the entire, dismayed, Visual Arts staff.
Theater arts is coupled with Visual arts in the Maine Learning Results. Students are supposed to be taught VPA K-12.
To clarify previous comments, Visual arts is taught K-12 in RSU 20, with the exception of grade 6 at Troy Howard Middle School. Theater arts is not taught K-8, and at Belfast Area High School only 1 class. A Theater arts class was created at THMS for 7th/8th graders. Music was moved to 6th grade. Yes, in order for this to happen, visual art is not taught in 6th grade. Music is not taught 7/8, but students can take band and/or chorus 7/8.
The students are losing one year of visual art (that’s a total of 12 out of 13 years) in order to get back two years of theater arts (2 out of 12 years). Let’s look at this visually. X stands for the number of years (K-12) a student going through the Belfast side of RSU 20 would receive visual and theater arts, music, and dance (all of which are in the Maine Learning Results):
visual arts: XXXXXXXXXXXX
music: XXXXXXXXXXX
theater arts: XXX
dance:
The system is still overwhelmingly unequal. In my opinion theater and visual art, along with music and dance, should be taught K-12, as the Learning Results recommend.