Jacob's
Pillow Curriculum in Motion®
School
Residencies
Three Berkshire County schools annually participate in Jacob’s
Pillow Curriculum in Motion® residencies. The residency
process involves pre-residency planning, a strong co-teaching
relationship between artist and classroom teacher, regular post-class
check-ins, an end-of-residency showing, and reflections, both
written and oral, between teachers and students. Boys and girls
are equally engaged at all grade levels and teachers find that
the process excels in helping students to learn and retain complex
concepts.
Example:
Guided by their high school Algebra teacher and a Pillow artist-teacher,
students are creating movement phrases about a key idea in factoring—the
process of FOIL (first, outer, inner, last) in multiplying pairs
of numbers in variables. They work in quartets, each group developing
a way to demonstrate the four-part idea. As they work, it becomes
apparent they do not understand the idea and are unable to choreograph
the pattern. The teacher assigns evening homework and the next
day, students re-group to solve the problem. For the artist-teacher,
the breaking down of complex material into parts emerges as a
key choreographic idea. Because factoring occurs both backwards
and forwards, the artist introduces students to retrograding movement
and then has each group incorporate excerpts of the original and
retrograded phrase into each quartet’s complex “dance equation.”
As the residency concludes, the teacher is excited to notate one
of the newly created dance equations, so she can use it to teach
factoring next year.
Example: A collaboration between a Pillow artist and an
English as Second Language class during fall 2001 provided a way
to deeply process current events. Students examined the events
of September 11, 2001 and considered how they related to valued
American freedoms and how those freedoms attract others to this
country. Misconception, judgment, and variations in interpretation
were resources for developing movement that contrasted and compared
the September 11 event with events from their countries of origin.
Students compared these events with the time period and urgency
for freedom that led to the writing of the Bill of Rights. The
final showing of the work was accompanied by students’ written
reflections, formed into a text score by the artist.
