FOR ART’S SAKE

MAT-SU — Dozens of Mat-Su School District students showed their artistic sides Friday at the annual Valley Festival of the Arts at Colony Middle School. For many of the Valley’s elementary school students, it was a chance to show off their talent and be exposed to new art forms.

And for some, the event was a way to incorporate more arts into the education they may not be getting from their schools. In the Mat-Su Borough School District, one of the district’s 20 elementary schools has a dedicated art program outside of music.

At Shaw Elementary School, Kim Reid teaches physical education and art. The situation is a compromise to include an art class into the students’ weekly routines, she said. Instead of having PE twice a school week, students have PE once a week and art once a week.

“Ours is very well-organized,” Reid said. “It’s once a week and and I teach them a full arts program. What we traded is what mostly other elementary schools have, which is PE twice a week.”

Many teachers include artistic elements in their classrooms and help prepare school concerts and plays, said Kelly Rentz, mustic teacher at Finger Lake Elementary. She brought several percussion instruments and conducted students through two performances Friday.

“It’s good exposure to let the community know what we’re doing, and to get parents involved to see that music helps in every area of developmnet,” she said.

For many students, music class is the main exposure to the arts they get during the school week, Rentz said.

“Because art was cut (at the elementary level), music is so necessary to help their development,” she said.

Tobias Lambert teaches music at Colony Middle and organizes the annual festival. Having a night where parents and students can focus on the educational value of the arts is one of his goals.

“In my viewpoint, because the arts can tie into so many other things, it’s very important,” Lambert said. “Generally speaking, at least with my music kids, in terms of a full education, most of them tend to achieve much higher, are much more disciplined in what they do.”

Nan Potts and Carmen Summerfield are board members for Valley Arts Alliance and had fun Friday talking with students and parents about the different forms of art they brought for display, which included photography and iron casting.

“This is great exposure for them into other areas of arts, whether it’s visual or musical art,” Potts said. “This is a video of one of our castings two years ago. It’s a lot of fun.”

Although emphasis in elementary education is mainly on the basics of mathematics, reading, science and history, arts are often seen as an unneccessary luxury, Potts said.

“If you don’t have art, how are you going to creat aesthetics? Art is aesthetics, right? You have to have aesthetics in order to move your civilization, your society, forward.”

Art actually stimulates the creativity it takes to be successful in other purely academic pursuits, Summerfield said.

“If you can create in art, you can create in science or in any other field,” she said. “It’s always the frist thing to be cut, not considered a priority, which is a mistake, I think. All the great ideas in biology and in other fields come from people thinking out of the box. How do you think out of the box without immagination?”

It’s that commitment that drives Reid and Shaw to be creative to make sure art is part of its education plan.

“Oh my gosh, it’s so important,” Reid said. “The kids absolutely thrive in here. PE used to be their favorite special (class), now about half will tell you art is their favorite.

“With all the pressures of our testings and reading and high standards in the other areas, it’s refreshing for them to be doing something else.”

In addition to being a half-time PE teacher and half-time art instructor, Reid said the art program is supported through grants she tries to find and donated supplies from parents and the community.

“It’s not hard to have an art program on a small budget,” she said. “We don’t get to use a lot of expensive clay or paints, but you can still paint with the cheap stuff.”

The only regret she has is that, at Shaw, making room for art means less PE instruction.

“It’s a big drag,” Reid said. “It would be great if we could have full PE and art.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.