Students learn lessons through movement

Students at Bigfork Elementary School are moving their hips to learn multiplication tables and parts of speech as part of a new dance program designed to use movement to put classroom lessons in a different light.

Dance education is actually required in school standards, BES Principal Jackie Boshka said, but most schools are ill-equipped to provide it.

Karen Kauffman, professor of dance at the University of Montana, began MoDE, or Montana's Model Dance Education project, as a way to address that.

MoDE provides funding to pair qualified dance instructors with classroom teachers. MoDE gives out a matching grant, where they provide money from their own grants and the schools supply the rest.

Bigfork Elementary School is one of seven schools utilizing the program and most of the rest are near Missoula.

The school brought in a dance instructor, Jennifer Walker-Wyatt, to help the students learn through dance this year. The program, which started this fall, is the only one in the county.

The program integrates dance with education – using it as a tool to get kids moving and teach them concepts in a new way.

While they are learning some facts and figures about dance, each lesson focuses on a traditional classroom topic.

"It's something I wish I could have had," Walker-Wyatt said. "I was always a natural mover."

The program has an additional benefit by supplying more physical activity for students, which is another priority, Boshka said.

With one gym and more than 480 students, the school can only supply 50 minutes of physical education a week. This adds to that.

"They love to move. To give them movement with control is helping them keep focused," Boshka said. "What I like most of what I've seen is watching the kids actually create dances. It amazes me. Every time I see it, I'm learning."

XiaoXiao Strong, 10, said she enjoys the active part of the dance lessons.

"You get to move around," Strong said. "We're learning how to do different kinds of dance."

Walker-Wyatt gets to spend seven to eight Friday sessions with each group of students. She's rotating through the grades throughout the year.

She has a degree in dance from the University of Montana and her dance involvement keeps her busy in the Flathead. She's currently working for the Dance Arts Center in Kalispell with the Northwest Ballet Company. She also runs the Azure Vision Dance Collective, an adult modern dance company.

Walker-Wyatt got a call from a University of Montana dance professor about the program in Bigfork and she was very interested.

"I was extremely excited," Walker-Wyatt said. "It's a really great opportunity for myself and for the kids."

Walker-Wyatt started her dance career at age 7 with ballet. Her expertise is now modern dance but she still has a soft spot for ballet and has thrown in some ballet terminology and moves into the dance lessons.

What she teaches through dance depends on the regular classroom teacher. For instance, she has focused on geometry through all the sessions for some grades, but the fifth grade teachers have been changing it up with topics ranging from biology to nouns.

"It's challenging," Walker-Wyatt said. "I feel like I'm in college again. I just have to trust that I'll come up with something fun."

Her hardest lesson so far was teaching the 6, 7 and 8 multiplication tables, she said, but she managed to find a way to make it work.

"I was showing them how a dancer needs counts and demonstrated the waltz," she said. "That's my job as a dancer."

She then taught them 6, 7 and 8 phrase dances and was able to call out tables so they would have to figure out what to do.

"I was also trying to get them to look at dance and recognize repetition," she said.

Boshka said she's been most surprised with how male students have taken to it.

"Obviously, they love to move," she said.

Walker-Wyatt said in dance she typically works mostly with girls and this allows for an opportunity to expose it to boys.

"They're doing really, really well," she said.

Daniel Sewell, 11, said he has enjoyed the class and thinks students at other schools should get similar opportunities.

"My favorite part is jumping around and sweating," Sewell said. "We learn how to dance and learn at the same time."

The program lasts a year, but Boshka said she'd like to see it continue.

"I would love to (have it again)," Boshka said.