Strategies
Eat, Drink, and Be Wary is an experiential method of teaching students how to connect the principles of Chemistry to relevant environmental issues. In technical terms, this approach combines the tenets of aesthetic education, science education, and environmental activism (ASE). Put simply, this method integrates the performing arts, specifically drumming, dance, and drama, along with design (3D and 1) into the Chemistry curriculum. Furthermore, this process incorporates an inquiry-based curriculum model that propels student activism into urban environmental quality and human health issues.
"When well taught, the arts provide young people with authentic learning experiences that engage their minds, hearts and bodies. Engagement in the arts—whether the visual
arts, theatre, dance, music or other disciplines—nurtures the development of cognitive, social and personal competencies. When the arts become central to the learning environment; schools and other settings become places of discovery (22)."
"Children and adults have the capacity to respond to a work of art in ways that can stimulate fresh insights, encourage deeper understandings, and challenge preconceived notions. Without the limitations imposed by "right or wrong" answers, the process of responding to a work of art develops each student's ability to think in fundamental and powerful ways (23)."
"Through an educational process of aesthetic inquiry, the Lincoln Center Institute (LCI) approach cultivates two interrelated capacities: receptivity to experiencing any given artwork, and the ability to reflect on that experience. By cultivating these capacities, the LCI approach helps students develop an inside understanding of the artistic choices that contribute to any given work of art. Students gain practical insights and strengthen core skills that readily apply across the curriculum and throughout life. Two examples include abstract thinking and problem solving—skills as relevant to studying a ballet performance as to conducting a Chemistry experiment or solving a mathematical equation (23)." This mode of thinking will help the students examine and classify plastic packages in the marketplace, as well as create a glossary of common additives and preservatives in foods, beverages and cosmetics.
As a result, unexpected connections are made, alternative points of view are considered, complexities explored, and doors to new and imagined worlds opened. The Institute's experiential approach to art and education brings students into the world of the work of art through explorations that actively engage students in perception, research, reflection and discussion. This process is a catalyst for change in the way teachers teach and students learn (23). It compels us to feel inside the box and think outside of it.
"Accuracy of analysis depends on the tools of analysis. Science is first and foremost an empirical discipline that provides humanity with powerful access to understanding the nature of the physical and living world (24)." It provides us with a mode of inquiry—the scientific method—to investigate the possible causes and effects of various phenomena. Although scientific results are limited by the sophistication of available technology and even the parameters of the questions posed, we have learned a tremendous amount about life in our Universe, using the scientific method.
I think it is so important to teach science in a creative way. It is frustrating for students to hear boring lectures for hours each week. This one dimensional approach misleads students. They learn to detest science and consider it a bland subject. "According to the Dalai Lama, through education, through training the mind and using intelligence, we can see the value of compassion and the harmfulness of anger and hatred. Research has shown that we can successfully teach children to overcome and manage emotions such as
fear, hatred, anger, and anxiety through Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs. These programs have proven that children can develop lifelong abilities such as self-awareness, anger management, impulse control, and positive qualities such as empathy and compassion. This is the educational ideal of the Dalai Lama, as well as of Western educators pioneering the new field of SEL (8)."
"Today we are so interdependent, so closely interconnected with each other, that without a sense of universal responsibility, a feeling of universal brotherhood and sisterhood, and an understanding and belief that we really are part of one big human family, we cannot hope to overcome the dangers of our very existence, let alone bring about peace and happiness (8)."
"It's not good enough to know about reality; you need to change how you see reality. Real education is transformative. The conscious student is caring, compassionate, peaceful, and tolerant; the student who sees all humanity as brothers and sisters; the student whose heart is as well-educated as their mind (8). Thus, working together in cooperative learning groups, students will create an effective labeling system for plastic packages."
"People who work to change our world can be called advocates or activists. An activist is someone who believes strongly in a cause and who stands up for that belief. Being an activist is satisfying and gives meaning to your life. It is a way to make your behavior match your beliefs. And it is a way to take control of—and responsibility for—the events in your own world. All activists have to learn to set realistic goals. They have to be reminded that no matter how hard they work as an activist the world will never be perfect. There will always be problems to solve (26)."
"We must work on ourselves first, and then be prepared to do the work on our culture and institutions. If each of us adopts the attitude, "change begins with me," we will be able to create a consciousness, the compassion, and the action for fundamental change.
While both statistics and intuition indicate that most of us support a shift to an inclusive society, a movement has not yet coalesced (5)."
If we are going to create a self-healing society, "we have to mobilize enough people to catalyze a profound transformation. In innovation diffusion theory, researchers have discovered that a change becomes inevitable when 5 to 15 percent of a population accepts the change. This means that activists will need to mobilize around 26 million people in the United States. To paraphrase Lao Tzu, a movement of 26 million signatures begins with a single pledge; mine (5)."
Experiential learning can help students develop their social emotional learning aptitude and connect with the essence of their humanity. Therefore, I will guide the students in the production of an Earth Day performance (Edu~Concert) that educates as well as entertains the community about the environmental health concerns of single-use plastic bottles.
Drumming
Eat, Drink and Be Wary is an experimental and experiential curriculum unit. My overall goals are to motivate urban minority youth to develop creative problem-solving skills and enhance their social and emotional intelligence through the performing arts, particularly drumming. "Because music evokes emotions, the playing of music accelerates and enhances the ability of learners to make rapid emotional assessments and to act accordingly. Music making forces us to create, reflect, bare our souls, and formulate in ways we have never done (26)." Ultimately, I want to inspire my students to formulate a viable set of solutions to the mounting problems associated with single-use plastic H 2O bottles. Using the drum as a catalyst for change, students will experience the power of rhythm to unify cultures from Africa to America and throughout the world.
The reason the drum is a universal element in the world is that Aborigines use it to synchronize the disparate energies in a village. Their ceremonial drumming is at the same rate as the heartbeat of a healthy person at rest. "One of the things that is hard-wired into our bodies is a phenomenon called entrainment. Simply put, the cells in our bodies try to synchronize with the rhythms of the environment. If you took a cell from my heart and a cell from your heart and put them in separate dishes, they would beat independently. On the other hand, if you placed them side by side in the same dish, they would synchronize their beats. We learned how to do this millions of years ago. The first and most prevalent rhythm to which we entrained was the roughly one beat per second of our mother's heart (5)".
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