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THE
STORY
OF
BRONX
ARTS
Bronx Arts on Studio 360
December 20, 2003
WNYC
Bronx Arts' first year is being covered in a series of radio segments by Alicia Zuckerman of WNYC. In this segment, the Bronx Arts story was shared with a wider audience on WNYC and Public Radio International's popular national program, Studio 360.
A transcript of the show is below. To hear the radio broadcast on Studio 360's site click here.
KURT ANDERSEN: One day early last summer, we got a fan letter from a Studio 360 listener that was more then the standard, short, sweet "love your show, thanks". It was from a woman named Xanthe Jory. Who is the founding director of a new school in the Bronx, New York City's poorest borough, that would be opening for classes this fall. It's a primary school that teaches all of the basics, math, reading, history through the prism of the arts - by having the kids make pictures, build models, create music, dance, write, perform.
The same way, Xanthe Jory wrote in her letter to us, that Studio 360 looks at the whole world through the prism of the arts. In an age of rampant public school horror stories, particularly when it comes to inner-city neighborhoods and arts education, the Bronx Charter School of the Arts looked to us like exquisitely hopeful, even thrilling adventure.
And so we've asked Alicia Zuckerman to pay regular visits to the school during its first year, this year, to chronicle their journey. Here's her first report.
CLIP: Class, stand, we're going to do our multiplication tables.--Kids: Yessss!!!
ALICIA ZUCKERMAN: It's like a scene from a movie--Eric Plaks-Mr. Plaks to the kids-tells these third graders it's time for math, and they act like it's time for recess. Outfitted in Bronx Arts t-shirts-that's the official school uniform-about twenty students stand in a circle, swaying their bodies and bobbing their heads to the tune of All Blues by Miles Davis. One boy plays air piano on a desk. Their singing drowns out the rumble of the elevated train that passes by this, and most of the other classrooms, every few minutes.
CLIP: let the three's breathe
AZ: They get just as excited about the fours, fives, sixes, and sevens, … and as music class ends, they're still begging for the tens.
Xanthe Jory: We don't even really consider that to be true arts education. That's simply an example of good teaching - using whatever devices and methods and catchy things you can to get kids to remember stuff that otherwise might be considered boring.
AZ: Xanthe Jory is the school's executive director-that's charter school lingo for "principal." Jory came up with the concept for Bronx Arts and fleshed it out during grad school at Harvard four years ago.
Xanthe Jory: The original kernel of the idea, which was actually very simple, was just that there was a need for better education in the South Bronx, and my thought was that one way that could be achieved was by utilizing the arts.
AZ: The students at Bronx Arts take eight art classes a week-dance, music, theater, and visual art. Self-portraits by kindergartners and first-graders transform a hallway into a "portrait gallery". And the non-arts teachers incorporate an arts sensibility into traditional academics. The portraits, for instance, were part of a family history project.
To build the school, Xanthe Jory started making phone calls to some of her friends. She'd met several of them through the Teach for America program. Eric Plaks, the school's music teacher and director of arts, was one of the first people she called.
Plaks: For each one of us, it would be like the fulfillment of a dream. There was a big moment in about June of this year when the staff went from six people to 26 people overnight.
AZ: To recruit students, they'd walk around the neighborhood, handing out flyers at corner groceries, libraries, and beauty salons. The 162 students-kindergarteners through third graders-were chosen by lottery. They didn't need to have any experience in the arts, and they don't pay anything. Charter schools get some private funding in the form of donations and grants, but they also get public funding, in this case from the state. They agree to meet certain academic standards, and if that doesn't happen, the state can shut them down.
Plaks: Right now it's 5 o'clock, our school day has been over for 15 minutes, and nobody's thinking of going home right now, even though most people have been here since seven.
AZ: Teachers stay late most days. Today, it's to meet parents at the school's first open house of the year.
AZ: Eric Joseph is here with his very smiley 8-year-old daughter Erica. He towers over the child-sized tables that fill the classroom, as he talks to her teacher. Last year, Erica attended a private Christian school.
Eric Joseph: They were academically really, really, really tough, but I think they lacked in allowing the kids creative side and to express themselves.
AZ: Joseph says Erica seems a lot happier this year.
AZ: What do you think when you wake up in the morning?
Erica Joseph: I think I'm gonna have a good day, and I'm gonna get to play with my friends and everything's gonna go right. And no more hollering with the teacher.
AZ: Later this year, she'll learn a musical instrument.
AZ: What instrument do you hope to learn to play here?
Erica: Drums!
AZ: Her dad, who works in a recording studio, looks surprised. A huge, beaming smile comes across his face. He says he tries to expose her all kinds of music.
Erica: hip-hop, jazz, old-fashioned …
Eric Joseph: (laughing) Old-fashioned? Yeah, blues, all of that. You call that style "old-fashioned," our music? (laughing hard)
AZ: A few weeks later in Erica's music class, she actually gets chosen to play drums, but she's too shy to do it.
AZ: The school integrates the arts into almost everything. These kids will probably never forget the multiplication tables they're learning this year, but they're also simply becoming better singers, even just in one class.
CLIP: Autumn Leaves … kids singing
AZ: He doesn't think they sound so great. He tells them to listen harder this time.
Plaks: How did you think our intonation was on that version of Autumn Leaves? Stephanie?
Plaks: (laughs) OK. Any other opinions? I'm about to tell you how I thought
it was. I didn't think it was so great. I didn't think you guys were listening
very carefully as you could have been to the keyboard and I know we did a better job last Friday…so we're gonna practice a couple of lines from the song before we go on.
AZ: Plaks wants you to know his falsetto is not his strength as a music teacher.
CLIP: Plaks' falsetto, followed by kids responding
AZ: He's singing in this range, because that's the kids' range, and pretty much right away, they start hitting the notes.
CLIP: more sound of Autumn Leaves, sounding better
AZ: For Studio 360, I'm Alicia Zuckerman.
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