Before a packed audience of hundreds of children at the Bliss Center for the Performing Arts, an estimated 70 teachers from the Belize District area received certificates for completing phase 1 of an expressive arts program being taught at the Bliss in drama, dance and music, under a program organized and executed by the Ministry of Education.
“There is no denying the fact that the arts programs in schools provide opportunities for you, the students, to develop your intellectual, emotional, creative and expressive capabilities,” said Jahmor Lopez, manager of the Belize District Education Center, in his remarks. “…the arts make it possible for you, the students, to develop critical thinking skills, and creative abilities…
“As a result, the Ministry of Education continues to support this initiative, which is very vital. It is vital because the arts should not be treated as a trivial matter, it should not be shared with you, the students, during club time, but rather it should be taught as a subject, because it is a part of the national curriculum.”
During the course of Friday morning’s certificate ceremony, the drama students presented Leroy Green’s patriotic poem, Remembrance, first as a group poem set in parts, and then as a choral speech. The drama students also presented pantomines set to traditional brukdong music, as the teachers depicted – using only actions and facial expressions – the preparations traditionally made for Christmas celebrations, climaxing with their Christmas Day bram.
Before their presentations, teachers demonstrated the nine stage areas, and showed how facial and body expressions can be used to convey emotions.
The music trainees played Jingle Bells on recorder, reading from musical notes – some of them for the first time.
The final creative arts presentation was a dance by teachers to festive Christmas music, presented after a warm up session that included head rolls and jumping jacks, which elicited hearty applauses from students in the audience, who cheered as loudly to see their teachers jumping up and down on stage as they did when they were receiving their certificates.
National Coordinator of Expressive Arts, Leroy Green, told Amandala after the ceremony that, “It’s a program that the Ministry is pushing forward to teach teachers how to teach drama, dance and music, not as something just for the stage, but as an integral part of the child’s education. So it should be taught for the whole year as a regular part of the timetable and not just as clubs.”
Since October this year teachers have been attending classes every Friday – except the period for which the floods kept teachers, especially rural ones, from being able to attend classes. This is the second batch of teachers in expressive arts training, as last year, the first batch of 48 students were trained and certified to teach expressive arts in primary schools.
The Ministry of Education wants the arts to be taught at least one hour every week, but the skills must be taught to the teachers before, so they can pass it one to the students, officials say. The hope is that the training will improve the level of excellence in arts showcased in the annual Festival of Arts in 2009.
The next phase of training is from January to March, while phase 3 is from April to May.
“By stretching it over three semesters, what we are doing – showing the teachers exactly how they can implement this in schools, so it can last the whole year, because it’s both content and pedagogy [the science or profession of teaching],” said Green.
Several of the participants took more than one type of training, and a notable few took all three – drama, music and dance, and so left the Bliss this morning with three certificates in hand.
According to Green, every principal got a letter at the beginning of school, for training from October through to May. Soon, he said, the Ministry will make it mandatory for all teachers to come to training. Right now, it is only the Belize District teachers that are being trained, but the Ministry is hoping, come next year, to open the program to the rest of districts.
“What you saw here this morning, was one term’s work, in dance, drama and music, and I was happy to have Ms. Stephanie Coye doing the music as she combined the theory with practical. You had teachers who never knew how to read music before, reading and playing. Dawn [Adderly] had teachers who didn’t know anything about dance on stage this morning and then, of course, you saw the drama – and that’s exactly the kind of thing we expect them to go into the schools with – actually they are teachers in the schools,” Green explained.
The training is being provided free of cost to teachers.