Integrating Performing Arts in Classroom Pedagogy

The idea of including music, dance or theatre in the classroom often leads to concerns from subject teachers since these are activities that are marked out as extra-curricular, that is, activities that are beyond the scope of regular education. Since traditionally these activities were either done outside class hours, or even at the cost of losing class hours, they were never considered a possible teaching-learning tool, especially in middle school and above. At best, they were given some space in the English classroom, at worst, they were frowned upon as a waste of precious time. This is exactly the kind of misconception that the art-integrated pedagogic approach tries to address, where these subjects that were hitherto considered “extra” or add-on to the classroom teaching-learning experience, gets integrated within the pedagogic practices. This may be a cause of concern to a lot of teachers who are already worried about the loss of class hours due to the pandemic and are struggling with the online shift to education. However, I would argue that it is these so-called “extra-curricular” or “co-curricular” activities that have the potential to turn an offline as well as an online classroom into a joyful experience for the students while building their creative and critical faculties.

One might argue that art-integration at school level is not a new thing and some schools have long been accommodating subjects such as Art and Craft, Music and Dance within their timetable. However, it is important to note here that an art-integrated pedagogy does not espouse teaching of these art forms as part of the curriculum, rather as a method of teaching History, Geography, Literature, or, even Sciences. The NEP 2020 defines art-integration as a “cross-curricular pedagogical approach that utilizes various aspects and forms of art and culture as the basis for learning of concepts across subjects.” The policy promises that such an approach would aid in the “experiential learning” of students and help in linking education to culture (NEP 2020: 12). Such a method could help inculcate creativity among students, foster team spirit and collaborative work, improve recall value of content, build observation skills as well as the skill to initiate debates and discussions, make connections between ideas, and most importantly, be kind, empathetic and responsible citizens of tomorrow. While many of these are important 21st century skills that we need to instil in our students, they also pave the way for teachers to teach students to question existing knowledge and create new knowledge. Since we live in an age where information is available literally at our fingertips (the word “digit”, or fingers, is embedded in the word, “digital”), it is crucial that our students not only learn to reproduce existing knowledge but also produce their own. This is exactly where integrating art into pedagogy can help make students engage more deeply with the content of the textbook and learn to question existing concepts in order to produce their own.

Here is an instance of integrating art in a Social Science classroom of Grade 7 where students are learning about medieval India. They are referring to the chapter, “Cities, Traders, and Craftspeople” in Landmark, which informs them, among other things, about the different ports of Surat, Masulipatnam and Hampi, and traces the historical development of trade in these towns.

Teacher nominates three student volunteers to act as trades people from the medieval times (they are free to dress accordingly, if possible) who narrate their experiences of visiting these ports. In the process, they refer to the material in the text to describe the places, the people and the products they exchanged in the port. A separate set of volunteers are invited to write the script. Once enacted, the existing words of the text come alive in front of the eyes of the students making it easy to recall the text at the time of their assessment. Such an activity explores the creativity of the students, teaches them to work in collaboration with each other, and be mindful of historical specificities. Thus, the existing knowledge of the text becomes a part of their lived experience.

Let us take this experiment a little forward and see how this approach can help students build skills of producing new knowledge, in other words, their critical and analytical skills. What if the three tradespeople from medieval India time travelled to the current timeline? What would they see in these port towns? Teacher nominates a group of students to research online about these towns and share their material with the set of students who are acting as medieval tradespeople. Budding writers in the class volunteer to write a skit on a conversation between these people on what they see of their ports today. Even a mock TV debate could be organized with the teacher as the moderator, each port’s representative vying to establish their port as the best. The teacher could initiate a discussion on what makes Surat a burgeoning trade centre in present day India while Masulipatnam and Hampi are reduced to heritage sites of little economic consequence in the Indian economy. As homework, the students are asked to conduct an interview of someone they know who has conducted business or worked in two different cities in India to understand what makes a city ideal for business today. This could lead to an assessed task to write an essay on the same topic or even a group project to formulate a policy to revive ports like Masulipatnam! What a little bit of art-integration can therefore do, is to open up a host of opportunities for the students to critically engage with the subject they are studying and pay attention to concepts such as the relation between economy and politics, beyond the mere information that the text offers.

But is art-integration an easy process?

Integrating art into our teaching process can be easy. What is however important to note is the level of comfort students and teachers share with art-integration in their class activities. It is a common misconception to treat performing arts as something that requires separate training. From the point of view of teachers, it is important to understand that teaching as a profession includes various kinds of performance. As teachers, we sometimes act as strict disciplinarians, sometimes as understanding and kind guardians. While we speak in class we pay attention, consciously or unconsciously, to voice modulation, to the energy we bring to our classrooms that ensures a student sitting in the last bench does not get distracted. It is no easy feat to capture the attention of a classroom full of young children and as teachers we have already mastered this performance skill. If teachers extend their performance skills and encourage students to do the same by planning activities that will help learners embody the content they are consuming in their textbooks, it would not be difficult to integrate art into the classroom pedagogy. As for students, it is important to break down the activities into smaller tasks which require various skills: writing, research, acting, singing, debating, etc., and to seek volunteers from students. This ensures that those who are uncomfortable performing in front of a class are not forced to do so. At the same time, it is important to not judge these performances by their aesthetic standards. One must remember that this is a subject classroom and not one of performing arts and access to such skills is a matter of cultural capital and privilege. So, the students’ ability to convey and communicate a concept should be given more importance over aesthetic quality while assessing or even appreciating such performances in class.

Once teachers begin to pay attention to these details, art-integration can help create a lively classroom environment where students learn to collaborate with each other and work together rather than look at their peers as their competition. This inculcates the joy of learning among students who then do not treat the text as something external to their lives but as a part of their lived experience. This is the essence of “experiential learning” that art-integration helps to achieve, as promised by the NEP 2020. While teachers and educators try to incorporate performing arts into the classroom, they must also be mindful that this should not prove to be an additional burden to parents and students by taking up extra dance, theatre or music classes. The inclusion of fine arts or drawing classes in the 1990s already saw the proliferation of art schools in every locality where children were sent to at least once a week, irrespective of their interest in art. This new attempt at integration of performing arts should not do the same. Let art be integrated within our subject to make the concepts come alive, and not act as a separate subject to be accommodated in the child’s already hectic schedule.