Ruth Torres Walker, Arts Integration Specialists with Los Angeles Unified School District (Local District South) strongly believes the arts can reach everybody through the public school system. With Los Angeles being one of the most diverse metropolitan cities in the nation, Ruth serves the needs of students primarily who are English language learners, immigrants, have special needs, in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) programs, and are of African American, Native American, Hawaiian and Mexican cultures. She works with visual and performing arts (VAPA) teachers and a multicultural group of students and their families in 9 cities that make up Local District South including, south Los Angeles, Watts and Compton. Her role is to guide and focus instruction, identify learning goals, evaluate and support teachers in meeting the needs of their students. Ruth shares,  “If the students are having arts they will be successful academically. I want my teachers to be able to express that and understand it.”  Her day to day duties are imbued with this passion, that learning is incomplete without the arts.

One of Ruth’s proudest moments in education was being an advocate for immigrant students and their families. In collaboration with Banning Senior High in Wilmington, she started the Teaching English through the Arts Program for immigrants from Central America, their families, and unaccompanied minors. Students attended a series of both weekly dance classes and family dance classes at their school site. Ruth comments, “I am most proud of the work I have done with workshops with parents. I was able to leave a message to the families that dance and the arts will make their lives better and improve the academics of their students. I feel most successful with the immigrant families. That’s where I belong in the public system, with immigrant families.”

Through Ruth’s participation in trainings by Luna Dance Institute for Family Dance and the Leadership Institute she identified ways to advocate locally for students and families through dance. “With Luna, I have learned to organize and clarify my thoughts and to have goals around advocacy. Luna really made me see more of the value of creative movement and of dance in schools for children.”

Ruth has experienced the benefits of the arts for students. Ruth’s next big project is working on the Grand Arts Dance Festival with Local District Central on April 1, 2017. “We are trying to include all kinds of dance, especially creative movement and student performances that honor all different kinds of dances.” Ruth stressed the importance of reflecting the students’ cultures through the dance festival.

As a lifelong learner and arts advocate, she is curious about how to make the arts available and better in the school system within the school day. “How do I share the benefits of the arts with parents, families, administrators and the board of education, while asking for what I need to include arts in schools the way they should be?” Ruth grapples with how the arts can function successfully in public school systems, which is not the same as a studio setting or arts center. Right now her focus is on helping VAPA teachers express the value the arts have in academics within these learning communities and supporting students and their families artistically and academically.

Dance educators and artists are impacting the field of arts education in many ways. One such person, Jakey Toor, shares her efforts to bring creativity to children and adults through the art of dance and writing. Jakey teaches in San Francisco Unified School District as an arts educator in their Visual and Performing Arts Program (VAPA) and keeps an active dance blog. “My blog for me is a big creative outlet. I can construct whatever I want, points of inspiration, articles, dance notes.”

Jakey attended UCSD as a dance minor & theater major, taught writing classes to college freshmen and eventually got her teaching credential. Coinciding with her education she taught workshops to children in Mexico and at The Arc of San Diego, where she worked with children with Down’s Syndrome. Creative expression through performance has always been a big part of her life, and education is yet another way for her to share creative experiences with others.

Jakey first heard about Luna Dance Institute (LDI) in 2011. Attending LDI’s Summer Institute (SI) had been on her radar for a year, but in 2011 the time was ripe. “Patricia Reedy was my coach. When I did the SI 2011, I was completely overwhelmed and surprised. It was a program where dance pedagogy and child development came together in a solid way. I had never experienced that before. I have had such a passion for both fields-seeing both content areas coming together-dance concepts and Piaget; it felt like a dance teacher training that I never had. I really appreciated it because I think that way. It felt like the credential program that I should have been in.”

Jakey continues to be a life-long learner, evaluating her teaching, student learning and community building experiences. For two years she has been investigating if it is possible to manage a classroom without a negative consequence in a dance class setting. Can one teach in a way where there are no negative consequences for negative behavior, specifically for the itinerant teacher? Can dance teachers keep it so engaging that everyone wants to participate? The idea was born out of the reality that she is always working with other teachers’ students. Some teachers have very established cultures and itinerant teachers are coming in doing their own thing. Sometimes classroom and itinerant teachers can collaborate before hand and sometimes not. “I don’t do well with punitive discipline, so I keep it moving. It usually works pretty well.”

Jakey brings dance and creativity to 1500 children every year. She is most proud of working with whole schools and communities. It began as an experiment at one of her schools. She was interested in finding a way to authentically weave dance into the school community at Cesar Chavez. She ended up choreographing a whole dance for the school to perform on the black top. This became an annual tradition, that continues, and has expanded to other schools in San Francisco. Now Jakey brings them together for a multi-school community sharing. Jakey commented:

It is surprising that other students [from different schools] know the same dances as them, and they are standing next to each other doing the same choreography. At the performances, you hear a lot of positive verbal feedback, “That was amazing!” You will see siblings and parents dancing too. This tradition brings families in. People are generally very excited and you will see people practicing.  Some teachers started crying when they watched their students dancing-either all school or individual classes.  They get emotional. I would like to find a way to create some kind of pen pal program, where they [students] can write to each other before and then come and dance.

Another thing Jakey is very proud of are her yearly blogs that bring educators, parents, and administrators together virtually to celebrate student creativity. They also provide an opportunity for her to reflect as openly and honestly about what is happening in the field of dance education, and share her challenges and successes as an itinerant dance teacher.

“I always thought going into this work that any body can dance. Once in awhile there are a few students who don’t participate, but in general it is incredibly accessible, mobilizing and uplifting.”

Christina Ayala lives and teaches in Oakland, CA. She first learned about Luna Dance Institute when she was a student in Patricia’s pedagogy class while getting her credential at Mills College (2011). At that time she had questions about advocacy and was curious about how to create arts programs in schools where they previously did not exist. However, she did not begin her teaching career as a performing arts teacher, but as a classroom teacher at a K-8 public charter school in Oakland. Committed to arts advocacy, in 2015 she joined Luna Dance Institute’s Summer Institute program. During her year-long participation in the program she shared, “Something I learned from Luna is that there is no ONE correct way to teach creative dance, and that it is flexible to meet the needs of learners (and educators). Depending on a student’s developmental level, experience, interest and ability, they may need to go in different directions, and the Luna approach encourages that kind of differentiation.”

Christina was instrumental in designing the arts program that she had been advocating for since 2011. She now teaches dance, music and writing at her school.

Luna changed not just my work, but my life, in a very meaningful way. After the SI, feeling stuck in a rut with my practice, I began to reinvent my own philosophy and approach to education, which led to me advocating for and creating a position for performing arts education at my school. Now, in addition to classroom teaching, I have the immense privilege of guiding students into their bodies and creative spirits through music and dance.

I feel like I’ve come full circle. When I was at a K-8 school growing up that was where I first learned to dance. Then I was a classroom teacher for several years, and now not only do I get to teach dance, but I get to be the very first dance teacher at my school.

To learn more about Christina and the work she does visit her blog: http://ascendarts.blogspot.com/