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'Fun' classes sneak in FCAT's fundamentals Increasingly, schools use music, art and other electives to teach kids the basics
Ohanian Comment: I can't summon the energy to comment on this.
By Denise-Marie Balona
At Friendship Elementary in Deltona, children sing about multiplication in music class.
When kids at Kissimmee's Boggy Creek Elementary go to gym, they practice counting money during a game of skipping and jumping.
Culinary-arts students at Apopka High School use math for recipes. They also explore the science behind bread making and how heat impacts ingredients.
In Florida's schools, teaching math and science is no longer the sole responsibility of math and science teachers. Principals are under intense pressure to boost test scores in both subjects, and so everybody on campus is taking on a bigger share of the instructional burden.
"We realize it takes everyone to help our children be successful," said Judi Winch, the principal of Westside Elementary in Daytona Beach, where youngsters hover over measurements and discuss angles and coordinates in art class and work on patterns and graphing in music.
Administrators say it makes perfect sense: The "fun" classes can help make tough concepts easier to understand. These teachers can also help kids see that math and science have real-life applications, that they're not just big words and numbers in books.
Critics, including some parents and teacher-union leaders, call it overkill.
Even before the state introduced the FCAT in 1998, many elective teachers routinely incorporated math, reading and other academic subjects into their lessons. At the time, however, most took a much more subtle approach. But once the state started grading schools based on how well kids did on the annual test, principals told everyone to pitch in and focus on reading, writing and math.
The Florida Department of Education added science to the FCAT in 2003, and student scores on that section began affecting school grades in 2007.
Last year, math scores fell statewide in seventh and eighth grades, as well as for fifth-graders in most of Central Florida. Fewer than half of the students who took the science exam showed grade-level mastery.
Finding all the right angles
In classrooms statewide, dance teachers are talking about right angles and assigning word problems related to the cost of costumes and putting on performances. Marching-band directors spend more time discussing sound waves. Drama teachers say they use math to do scale drawings of stage designs, and they explore the scientific properties of electricity and light.
Physical-education teachers have kids measuring all sorts of things — for example, the length of a tennis court or how long it takes to run a lap — and then using the information to create bar graphs or practice converting yards to feet and inches.
Teacher Josh Boyer said "numerous" students who enter his weight-training class at Leesburg High School have trouble with basic math.
He makes them take out pencils and paper to add and divide numbers related to how much weight they need to add to the bench-press machine.
"I have learned through this process [that] many of the students who have struggled with math finally get it — it just clicks," Boyer said. "I demonstrate the proper way to figure out percentages — through the longhand process — and it works."
Culinary-arts instructor Janet Appleton, who teaches at Apopka High, said she has long stressed math and science in her lessons.
"In Culinary," she said, "we take the natural interest of something students like — eating — and build on skills learned in math or science to understand the changes that occur in foods as they are prepared and stored and how these changes can be controlled."
Some people, however, argue that a heavy emphasis on math and science can deflate a child's interest in creative ventures. The president of Polk County's teachers union, Marianne Capoziello, said the trend has hurt an elective teacher's ability to fully delve into areas a lot of kids are considering as careers — for example, journalism, civics and psychology.
"It's not like everything is completely interchangeable," Capoziello said. "I'm telling you, I believe the thing that makes our education system great is the depth and breadth of our education system. It would be a shame to lose those other elements."
A recent Orlando Sentinel blog post about kids at a local elementary school singing about math in music class and drawing planets in art class sparked a heated conversation among parents and others.
Said one Seminole County mom: "Our school systems need to quit manipulating the curriculum every time they read about a new program. Our children are more than just test scores."
Another reader piped in: "Music and math are inextricably intertwined. Where would DaVinci's art be without math? Parents need to lighten up."
Elective teachers are glad some other educators have begun to appreciate their contributions to student achievement. But the focus on math and science is very much about survival for elective teachers. As the U.S. Department of Education presses states to improve in these two areas and education funding falls, elective teachers are fighting to show everyone how valuable they are.
Hard at work in art class
When children walk into Deborah Martines' art class at Starke Elementary in DeLand, it's obvious this is where kids learn about math and art. Alongside glossy posters of paintings by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol are math terms and oodles of geometric shapes.
Martines herself struggled with math as a kid. If her art teacher had used as much math as she does, she'd have understood it better, she said.
One morning last week, children were handed rulers and directed to draw a square measuring precisely 2 inches by 2 inches. "To make squares, you must have what kind of angle?" Martines asked the class.
"Right angle," they answered.
The kids seemed to enjoy it. Fifth-grader Tiernan Sutton, who already has good grades in math, likes to work with shapes. Classmate Cammi Sloan said she needs practice measuring things with a ruler, a tool her homeroom teacher uses to help kids understand decimals.
"I get messed up on where to start and where to end," she said.
Martines has tried to reinforce math skills by having youngsters draw cats made up of various shapes. They label the cat with math vocabulary words. One of the narrow ears is an "acute angle." Two small pink spots are "congruent figures."
One of those drawings hangs in the front office. They call it the "F-cat."
— Denise-Marie Balona
Orlando Sentinel
2010-02-15
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/os-arts-classes-teach-math-20100214,0,7973645.story
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