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SALT LAKE CITY — The sixth-graders at William Penn Elementary School in are dancing their way through the Middle Ages, using the art as a learning tool.
The children at the Salt Lake City school learn by dancing as kings, nobles, knights, and peasants in an art class that goes hand in hand with their core curriculum study of the feudal system.
"It's a good way to learn stuff, not just sit down and have somebody talk to you. You can do actions for it to help you remember it," said sixth-grader Jacob Johnson.
"We do science, we do math, we do language arts, social studies, we do it all, and it's really amazing because it really helps," said teacher Lisa Price.
Tuesday, the students met Beverly Taylor Sorenson, the founder of Artwork for Kids — which make this program possible at William Penn and 54 other Utah schools.
"When I first went to the Legislature, they thought that the arts were fluff. They don't feel that way anymore," Sorenson said.
She remains passionate about continued funding from the legislature. Again this year, the program needs $4 million.
"And that's what I want (Utah children) to know, that they are special, and they're somebody, and they deserve the best," Sorenson said, adding that she has been meeting with legislators, hoping to keep the necessary funding and expand the program to even more schools.
The students say they really enjoy the creative process, but they also say the program teaches them life skills.
"We use the life skill flexibility if we forget something in the dance, and we can just improvise, and then do something that we already know," explained sixth-grader Maisyn Christensen.
Because they have literally danced the history, it stays with them.
"The kids go home and tell their parents, ‘We danced this today.' And I have parents tell me about dance all the time. It's the thing they remember. It's the thing they love doing because they experience it they're out of their seats and they're living it," said Jana Shumway, dance specialist at William Penn Elementary.
Email: cmikita@ksl.com
