The art of education

For a new Boston high school, the arts aren't just an extra -- they're a tool to get kids into college. Even if the kids have never performed before.

by Alicia Potter

Hurl Booth III doesn't seem like the kind of 15-year-old who would happily spend his weekends at school, but here he is on Saturday morning, sauntering on stage for rehearsal. Carrying a dog-eared script and wearing a Marine Corps sweatshirt that says PAIN IS TEMPORARY. PRIDE IS FOREVER, he takes a seat at center stage.

Hurl Booth is a rising star. Last year, the sophomore was plucked from among 240 kids who auditioned for the 160 spots at the Boston Arts Academy, the city's new public high school for the visual and performing arts. This fall, he landed a plum role -- Papa -- in the theater program's adaptation of Art Spiegelman's Holocaust comic book Maus. Tonight, when the play opens, he'll put a semester's worth of work to the test.

"Some people say, well, [theater] is sort of gay," says Booth, who aspires to be a comedian. "I have to explain to them that this is what I want to do, that this can get me to a part of my life where I can be successful."

Booth exudes a certain magnetism. He has an expressive face and an easygoing confidence that seem natural for a performing-arts student. Yet for those weaned on the leg-warmered world of Fame, where everyone seemed to be an adolescent Mozart or Markova, Booth's theatrical résumé might seem a bit, well, short.

Booth, who grew up in Dorchester, didn't spend his grade-school days incubating in community theater. He wasn't even in the drama club. In fact, save for a walk-on part in a junior-high production of Romeo and Juliet, Maus is his first play.

His new school, the three-month-old Boston Arts Academy, is an experiment: an arts-oriented public high school that isn't just a staging ground for performers and artists, but rather a college-prep school that uses arts as the basis of its curriculum. As a result, the academy does not, like New York's LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts (the inspiration for Fame), cull just the cream of the crop. Rather, it mixes experienced young artists with kids such as Booth, who exhibit raw, untapped ability. Still others are accepted not so much for their potential as for their passion.

It's not hard to see the risk in this approach. It could put stars in the wrong eyes. And in the increasingly competitive world of selective colleges, high-school arts classes are seen as irrelevant by some admissions officers. So if the Boston Arts Academy isn't grooming a school full of Mariah Careys and Yo-Yo Mas, then what is it doing? Proponents say it's getting kids interested in learning in a way they've never experienced before. They also say it's producing well-rounded students with a love of the arts -- one that administrators hope kids will nurture long after graduation, no matter what careers they pursue.

For now, such big-picture concerns hardly trouble Hurl Booth. He's more worried about learning his lines -- and escaping the wrath of drama teacher Rosalind Thomas Clark.

"Hurl!" she snaps, her precise British accent straightening his spine like a drill instructor's bark. "I need to hear you! Project!"

Booth repeats his line, this time almost yelling.

"That's better," Thomas Clark says, then addresses the group. "Let's try it again." With that, the Nazis square their shoulders; the Jews slump with despair. Booth scribbles a notation in his well-worn script.

"Lights!" shouts Thomas Clark. "And action!"

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When it opened its doors in September, across the street from Gate B of Fenway Park, the Boston Arts Academy ended 15 years of false starts and speculation that it would never happen at all. Although Boston boasts a world-class ballet, art museum, and symphony, it has been one of the last major cities in the country to launch such a school.

In 1984, the city's arts colleges began collectively to consider the need for a high school focused on the arts. The Professional Arts ("Pro Arts") Consortium -- an alliance of the Massachusetts College of Art, the Boston Conservatory, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Architectural Center, Berklee College of Music, and Emerson College -- was already working with secondary schools across the state to drum up interest in college-level art. The creation of an arts high school in Boston seemed like the next logical step: a "feeder" of young talent right in the colleges' own backyard.

Yet the '80s were not kind to the arts, and the proposal to open a specialized -- read: expensive -- school with an arts-heavy curriculum was repeatedly abandoned. State and federal funding earmarked for arts education and programs dried up; political support was inconstant, as superintendents and other educational leaders came and went. Simply put, arts education plummeted in priority.

The Pro Arts Consortium, however, remained intrigued with the idea, and when the state passed its pilot-school initiative in 1993, approving the creation of more-innovative public schools, the group's proposal was accepted. The Boston Arts Academy was to be one of 10 alternative schools designed to revive Boston's flagging public-education system.

But plans stalled as the academy, like other pilot schools, struggled to find a home; its first scheduled opening, in September 1997, was scrubbed when the proposed site fell through. Finally, the city bought the building at 174 Ipswich Street (which the academy shares with another pilot school, Fenway Middle College High School) and financed a $6.8 million renovation.

The result of that renovation is four floors of shiny blue-flecked linoleum, freshly painted lockers, and graffiti-free walls. The school houses a $135,000 state-of-the-art black-box theater (the only one of its kind in a Boston public school), plus painting and sculpture studios, an art gallery, a darkroom, editing rooms, and a video-recording studio. It's one of the most wired schools in the city, built to accommodate computer and media-arts labs and classroom Internet connections.

The Pro Arts Consortium connection means it is also the only arts high school in the country affiliated with institutions of higher learning. The presidents of the consortium's colleges now serve on the academy's board of trustees, graduate students from the colleges have opportunities to student-teach at the high school, and students from the academy are able to take college classes and use the colleges' libraries and facilities.

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Not surprisingly, the sounds that fill the halls of the Boston Arts Academy aren't those of your typical high school. First of all, there are no bells: academy staff wanted to give the school a more collegiate feel. In any case, the students probably wouldn't have been able to hear them.

One morning, Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" rocks a practice studio; "Silent Night" swells from the music suite; and down the art-festooned hall, in the dance studio, an African drumbeat sets bodies in motion.

This isn't a typical day. Then again, there are no typical days at the arts academy. The schedule varies, mixing traditional 55-minute classes with two-hour blocks for arts studies and three hours a week of intensive writing. Even lunch is different: four days a week, the students are allowed to leave the school, open-campus style. On Friday, however, everyone must brown-bag it or endure shoe-leather pizza and Tater Tots; that's "open mic" day, when students perform for each other in the cafeteria.

The school's freshmen and sophomores (junior and senior grades will be added as current students advance, for a full enrollment of 350 students by the 2000 academic year) devote about 28 hours a week to traditional academic subjects; on top of that, they spend up to 10 hours of class time a week studying their "major." Drama students learn about the history of Greek theater as well as technical subjects such as stagecraft; visual-arts majors work on collaborative self-portraits; and in the music and dance programs, kids use class time to hone their technique. They're also exposed to professionals: recently the theater students attended the Huntington Theatre Company's production of August Wilson's Jitney and later participated in a scene workshop with the playwright. George Faison, choreographer of The Wiz, gave the dancers a hip-hop history lesson. And in February, cellist Yo-Yo Ma will conduct a master class for the music program.

The academy's curriculum clearly stands out among the city's public schools. But it also stands out among other arts high schools nationwide for its vein of realism. "I'm not going to graduate kids who are illiterate in math and science and can't write a coherent essay," says headmaster Linda Nathan. "I'm not interested in promoting more starving artists."

The academic workload -- writing, math, science, Spanish, and a class called "humanities" -- is rigorous and aimed at getting the kids into college. If students do not have a B average in their academic subjects, then they cannot participate in community performances. It's the artist's equivalent of riding the bench.

But even the "straight" academic program is heavily saturated with arts content. In science classes, kids create children's books and comic strips to learn about the earth. Math classes incorporate writing and focus on word problems. Humanities classes tie in other areas of learning; for example, in conjunction with the production of Maus, students are studying a curriculum devised by Facing History and Ourselves, an organization that teaches young people about human-rights issues arising from the Holocaust.

"I had never heard of [the Holocaust] until this year," says Hurl Booth, who last year attended Madison Park High School in Roxbury. "I was shocked."

By appealing to these kids' creativity, the Boston Arts Academy hopes to turn out more-enthusiastic learners. It's a goal supported by a growing pile of research, including reports linking involvement with the arts to achievements ranging from higher SAT scores to excellence in math and science.

"Arts relate to everything kids do," says Kathy Tosolini, senior program director of arts education for the Boston Public Schools. "[Education] can't be about rote learning anymore. Kids need the analytical skills taught only in the arts."

Researcher Shirley Brice Heath of Stanford University cautions that the relationship between arts and achievement isn't as simple as "take an art class, do well in math." Still, Heath's own 10-year examination of kids enrolled in rigorous inner-city after-school arts programs delivers good news. Released last month, it concludes that such students are eight times more likely to win a community-service award, three times more likely to win a school attendance award, and four times more likely to win an academic award such as honor-roll recognition.

The study concludes that these arts-immersed kids raise their self-esteem and willingness to take risks; they also sharpen their linguistic and cognitive-thinking skills -- such as long-term planning, critical analysis, and focused attention -- which they then apply to other learning and social situations.

In other words, arts keep kids engaged, period. Heath sums up the effect: "These kids don't have time to fool around or do drugs. Kids who can't focus, focus. Kids who act out become more centered."

Take Diego Ribeiro, for example. At the Maus rehearsal, this 15-year-old, who has ideas about everything from inflection to stage-blocking, stops to write Rosalind Thomas Clark's instructions in his script, pausing to ask a visitor, "How do you spell kneel?"

Ribeiro can barely read. Since coming to the Boston Arts Academy, he has been diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder and severe learning disabilities. He was supposed to repeat his sophomore year at his old school, Boston English, but instead he's doing so here, where he receives one-on-one attention. He tape-records his lines to help him memorize them.

"Last year, I really didn't care," he says. "My teachers told me I was lazy and stupid. . . . You can count more the days I didn't go to school than the days I did. I probably would have quit in two years."

Yet Ribeiro thrives in theater. Thomas Clark reports that he's completely focused: he sits through class, he sits through rehearsal, he sits through two-and-a-half-hour plays. On top of that, he was one of two students asked to perform for August Wilson.

Says Thomas Clark: "Because he is so smart and theater is his passion and he wants it so badly, he will make it work."

Ribeiro has yet to skip a day this year.

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Most kids in public school don't get this kind of chance, according to a Department of Education study released last month. The study -- the first national assessment of arts education in 20 years -- surveyed 6660 eighth graders in 268 schools. It reported that even though most American schools offer some type of arts program, only one in four students gets the opportunity to sing, play an instrument, or participate in theater each week.

Seventy-four percent of the schools surveyed failed to offer theater at all. Dance was so poorly represented that researchers couldn't find a statistically significant sample of students. (Says Leah Principe, 16, who came to the academy from Revere High School to study dance, "At my old school, the only choice was to be a jock or a cheerleader.")

In Boston, according to the Boston Public Schools' Tosolini, arts education has been in decline since the mid-'80s, when many school districts axed such programs -- often instead of cutting athletics -- to save money. The result is that interested students might never be able to take classes in their strengths. Melissa Parkinson, 16, a visual-arts major at the Boston Arts Academy who says she has been drawing all her life, reports that for the first time, she's "learning about lines and contrast. I didn't know what they were."

Says Tosolini: "They just cut everyone in arts like a red line on a budget. They figured kids could get dance or piano lessons on their own."

Yet for many of the kids at the school -- products of tough neighborhoods like Dorchester, Roxbury, and Southie -- after-school lessons were not an option. Eighty percent of the students here are kids of color, and 20 percent have special needs; four are deaf. More than 50 percent fall within the federal definition of poverty.

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Their backgrounds explain why the Boston Arts Academy, to serve the city adequately, must be open to raw talent: most of these kids have never had a chance to develop their abilities

As a result, when students audition (next call is in February), the school's performing-arts directors must look beyond a shy stage presence or a lack of technical know-how. Instead, they must look for "It."

"You can tell if they have it in their soul. . . . You see the honesty," says dance teacher Fernadina Chan, the school's artistic dean. "It's kind of hard to describe what you see in them, but you certainly see something there that you like. . . . I think Martha Graham said it the best when she said, 'Movement never lies.' "

To audition, the kids must write essays, submit recommendations, and perform in classes where their skills and personal qualities -- motivation, work ethic, community involvement -- are evaluated. The academy does not consider academic records.

Though the school is home to some accomplished young artists (one boy has studied with the Boston Ballet for eight years), Chan stresses that "experience does not always equate with talent. . . . Sometimes we see kids and can tell they've [had lessons], but their ballet is so boring, and their technique isn't very good. But then you see a kid who is totally raw, and you think, If this kid got some training, this kid could be fabulous, because she has energy and is willing to take the risk to try."

This approach necessarily involves some risk on the part of the academy. What if a kid ends up having two left feet? A tin ear? Chan agrees it's a gamble sometimes, but she emphasizes that the school is not a "pre-conservatory" school, a steppingstone to a position in a dance company or the halls of Juilliard.

"I see this as a place for kids to experience a genuine arts experience, a very broad arts experience," says Chan. "If they graduate and go on to other areas in college, they're still going to be really good advocates for the arts."

A quick poll of students found that fewer were interested in becoming performers than in preparing for out-of-the-spotlight jobs. Many wanted to study sound engineering, theater administration, architecture, law. There's even one dancing nurse-to-be.

And what about the siren call of fame? Lakeyda Merritt, a 15-year-old music major from Dorchester, looks at it this way. "Being involved in this school is already fame," she says. "You have a talent, and everyone sees it. You are recognized."

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At least, you're recognized at school. Beyond the yellow-brick walls of the Boston Arts Academy, many outsiders still consider arts education an extra, a frill, the easy A.

Some college admissions officers think that way, too. When the National Art Education Association, an organization for arts educators, surveyed a random sampling of colleges and universities, it discovered that of those schools that calculated the grade-point averages of incoming students themselves, 65 percent threw out arts classes.

Marcela Muniz, assistant director of admissions at Stanford University -- a school that does not tally arts classes into GPAs unless they're advanced-placement courses such as art history or music theory -- said, "We note when [art classes] are taken . . . but the rigors of an art class at one school may be different from another. It's difficult to know the content of the courses."

Kathy Tosolini has her own interpretation of this statement. "What they're saying is that arts are nice, but they don't count. I don't know where we lost it, but we've lost the idea that being a Renaissance person is being an educated person. In all this push to get back to basics, we lost the idea that you need to know everything."

It's ironic that the very techniques that are getting public-school kids interested in learning are not necessarily valued at the college level. Still, headmaster Nathan considers getting kids into college to be the school's foremost goal. To that end, admissions counselors at the Pro Arts Consortium colleges consult with academy administrators to make sure the academic curriculum is up to snuff.

There are signs, too, that the rest of society may be coming around. Already, Boston's public-school system is integrating uniform standards for arts curricula and has added 65 arts teachers to its roster.

"It's going to take a lot of work," says Tosolini, "but it's changing."

The Boston Arts Academy Winterfest As the end of the semester draws near, the Boston Arts Academy is showcasing its first student work at a weeklong exhibition, "Winterfest." The following are open to the public: Maus, written, performed, and stage-managed by the academy's theater majors. December 18 at 7 p.m., December 19 at 2 p.m. At the school's Black Box Theatre, 174 Ipswich Street. Suggested donations: adults $5, students $3. "Poputopia," an exhibition of pop-up books created by the academy's visual-art majors. On display in the school gallery, 3:30 to 5 p.m., through December 23. Free. Joint concert by the academy's dance and music students. December 22 at 7 p.m. at the Boston Conservatory Theater, 31 Hemenway Street. Suggested donations: adults $5, students $3. For more information, call (617) 635-6470.

For now, things have changed enough for the city to get the arts academy off the ground, but not to fund it lavishly. As a public high school, the Boston Arts Academy receives $6300 per student from the city's school system. But in reality, the academy's annual cost per student averages about $8500. The discrepancy -- not to mention phenomenal start-up costs such as two baby grand pianos and a $100,000 air-conditioning system -- is left to the school to scrape up through grants, fundraising, and corporate partnerships.

Most recently, the Boston Chamber Music Society signed on to perform a benefit concert for the school; BankBoston is underwriting the costs for current student exhibitions (see "The Boston Arts Academy Winterfest," right); and the Harcourt General Charitable Foundation is donating books to the school's library. Still, ask Nathan what the school's biggest threat is, and she rubs her forefinger and thumb together: lack of money. "It costs three to four times more to run a school like this than any other," she says.

For now, though, she pronounces the school stable. For these kids, it seems, the days of drawing with broken Cray-Pas and making music with woodblocks are over.

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Back at the stage, the Saturday-morning rehearsal is winding down.

"I need the Nazis and the Jews to be quiet!" Thomas Clark shouts to a group of kids giggling in the wings.

"What are you doing?" she asks one boy, who is sprawled spread-eagle on the ground.

"I'm dead," he says.

Thomas Clark nods approvingly, then takes her place in the audience as the kids work hard to focus, project, and ace their Polish accents.

"I alvays sink of her," intones one kid, in character.

Thomas Clark exclaims, "Good!"

At rehearsal's end, she gathers the group in a circle to assess the morning's performances, wrapping up the pep talk with a reminder that "there are no small parts, only small actors." The weary cast musters a round of applause.

For the more inexperienced kids, it's hard to imagine what opening night will be like. The costumes. The lights. An audience of more than just Thomas Clark and fellow classmates. Yet Hurl Booth has an idea of how he's going to feel.

"I'm going to be like, 'Yes, I did it! I got it over with!' " he says. "When we perform that day, I'll know when I do good, and you'll see my expression."

Tonight, Hurl Booth III takes his bow.

Alicia Potter is a contributing writer to the Boston Phoenix. She can be reached at apotter@tiac.net.