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 The Weave of the World: What's Dance Got To Do With Math? Just About Everything. The two men arrived at this conviction by way of different life experiences. Art has played a steady role in Lang's life. As a child he learned piano, and now he plays guitar every night for his own children. But it wasn't until he saw an exhibit of Escher prints at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., that he began to perceive how art might give rise to "teachable moments" in mathematics. The prints depicted mathematically conceived images based on geometry and symmetry. Lang could see how students, likely to be intrigued by the fanciful images, might also be drawn to the mathematical concepts the artist employed in his craft. "That was a pivotal moment for me," he remembers. It led him to think about other areas of art that might facilitate students' understanding of mathematics, such as weaving, music, and dance. For Reiner, athletics have been at the center of his creative life. Basketball and baseball as a youth, and now golf, have taught him to develop his own physical skills and also perform in front of spectators. He also knows what it is to be a good team player. In this instance, he listened to his "teammate," Lang, when he suggested that they collaborate on an interdisciplinary unit in which students would learn the concept of tessellating polygons by choreographing their own dances. "I said, 'You want to do what?'" recalls Reiner with a laugh. "It was so far from traditional teaching-the dance part was just not me! But the more we talked about it, I began to think, why not? Middle school students need movement, and this seemed just perfect." Nevertheless, Lang and Reiner experienced some anxiety about doing the unit. They worried about the extra planning time it would require. They worried about preparing students to meet the state's benchmarks in mathematics. And they worried what parents would think. To ensure that students would gain important mathematical knowledge, the teachers incorporated concepts and activities recommended by the Oregon state standards for mathematics and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. "I had to justify it for myself by going to NCTM and the state standards and making sure that there were direct links between this project and the standards," says Lang. "You're always worried about the community's reaction to what you do in the classroom. I was worried that parents would think I was supposed to be teaching 'math,' not dance." The teachers also had to overcome a mild case of stage fright. Teachers involved in Bernstein-funded projects receive training in how to integrate arts into other disciplines. One training activity required Lang and Reiner and other teachers to perform a skit for each other. Although they stand before an audience of students every school day, the teachers found performing in front of their colleagues to be unnerving. But they summoned their courage and, in the end, the skit turned out to be quite a romp, with extravagant costumes borrowed from the Portland Opera. For a day, the adults played like children. "We really became middle school kids. And now we have a lot of empathy for the students, because it's hard to be up in front of your peers," says Reiner. more... |
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