May 10
Tuesday
Personal Justice
An educator contemplates social justice as an essential part of learning, and especially of teaching in the arts
Column: Critical Intent
by Joanna C. Horton
I recall the first time I did an arts activity that woke me up. I was in 4th grade and we were acting like were on a slave ship. We were studying history and the lesson focused on American slave ownership and oppression. There were no children of African descent in my class. This was after all Falmouth, Maine, where the vast majority of residents were white like myself. Why didn’t we just use books? Why didn’t our teacher just tell us that slavery happened, and just describe to us the impact on people of African descent, as well as revealing the painful truth that our country is founded on oppression, hate and ignorance?
I swayed back and forth, a “slave” on the ship transported across the sea. The facilitator of the activity was a theatre artist, Gretchen Berg. She was a visiting artist teaching our class, taking the history lesson onto its feet and giving us a way to access the materials – and ourselves in relationship to it – through movement and imagination. Continue…
Author Archive
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1 response - Posted 05.04.16
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3 responses - Posted 04.28.16
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no responses - Posted 04.27.16
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no responses - Posted 04.24.16
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5 responses - Posted 04.22.16
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15 responses - Posted 04.20.16
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14 responses - Posted 04.18.16
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