Fine arts teachers finding venue in video, audio files
Southeast Elementary School theater arts teacher Holly Holder works with fifth graders Iyanni McCoy, left, and Ja'niyah Briscoe on the student-designed set of a holiday play that will premiere Thursday evening on Zoom. LCPS fine arts teachers are relying on technology to less than their academic colleagues to help students practice and give them a venue on which to perform. Submitted photo.
Any other year, Woodington Middle School band director Zach Wills and his young musicians would be practicing and performing at an allegro pace, moving briskly through a holiday schedule of parades and concerts. This year, though, Covid-imposed distancing has dictated the tempo and, instead of on stage, performances have gone online.
“Since Covid came along, all teachers have had to make adjustments about how they’re doing business in their classrooms,” Wills said. “For us really latching on to the technology aspect is the way we can move forward.”
No less than teachers of English or social studies or other academic subjects, teachers at the heart of LCPS’s fine arts program are connecting with students through a blend of face-to-face and remote instruction and are finding a virtual venue in video and audio files.
Wills stitched together about 25 audio files – different instrumental parts his eighth-grade band students performed individually and submitted separately – to produce a concert band performance of Randall D. Standridge’s “Adrenaline Engines” that sounds as if was recorded in the school auditorium. Instead, it’s posted on the band’s webpage. (https://tinyurl.com/y7rlgots)
On Thursday evening at Southeast Elementary School, the virtual curtain will go up on what theater arts teacher Holly Holder called “a holiday Zoom play” that combines a live Zoom performance, video that she produced with her face-to-face students and videos submitted by her fully remote students.
“The short play that’s in the program, that’s put on by the face-to-face students,” Holder said, “but remote students have sent in video recordings of themselves singing different holiday songs that I’m editing together so it sort of looks like a chorus.”
The show is already a hit in her eyes because it involves all students who wanted to be a part of it and it’s taught them something by doing.
“They set-designed the entire thing, they costume-designed the entire thing, they’re acting in it, some parts of the show they wrote themselves, they’re directing it themselves. I’m standing back being the facilitator. They’re learning by putting on the show themselves,” she said.
A passion for music or theater or art – and the opportunity to perform, even remotely – can motivate students in ways that math class might not, but the fact remains that fine arts classes are still classes, with assignments and homework and grades.
“A lot of my students are remote, so I send out videos each week for different lessons, different types of theater for them to respond to,” Holder said.
For Kinston High School band director Leonard Palmer, Zoom has become an annex of his band room. “I have the face-to-face students and the remote students playing the same thing at the same time,” he said of a typical rehearsal session. “It’s challenging, but the remote students can actually be home and hear the instruction and play along with what’s going on in class.”
With most of Palmer’s band members fully remote, the individual attention integral to an in-person band practice now often comes down to sharing video files. “I’m able to upload a lot of stuff to them, so they can play along,” Palmer said. “When it comes time for the grading process, they can upload and submit their video and I can hear them.”
Woodington’s face-to-face band members practice outside if the weather allows; if not, Wills’ focus turns to “knowledge-based as opposed to performance-based, on rhythm, for example,” he said. “For the online group, a lot of that is similar to the face-to-face group but is much more asynchronous for us in that I’ll ask them to record something and submit it on one of our digital learning platforms.”
For a group enterprise like band or theater, the school district’s solid foundation in digital learning provides an alternative when grouping isn’t possible.
It’s an alternative with exceptions.
“I do try to keep them motivated when it comes to practicing, but they do miss the parades and things of that nature,” Palmer said of his band. “I believe they look forward to showing everyone some of the great things they are accomplishing.”
And it’s an alternative with value.
“Theater in general is really good in this environment because it gives students an energy outlet,” Holder said. “When I go in the classroom, I hope it’s a signal that this is a place where you can get silly and the rest of the world doesn’t have to exist for that 45 minutes. I think that’s something that’s been meaningful for everyone, myself included.”
