Children's Theater Puts on a Show for 8th Grade

Piedmont's eighth graders were treated to a show this week. Thanks to funding by the Mecklenburg county ABC board students learned about substance abuse through an emotional connection to the characters in the play. Students were forced to confront the damaging effects substance abuse has on teens, adults and entire families through the play. 

Update-Now with Data!   Study finds cultural enrichment provided "significant benefits in the form of knowledge, future cultural consumption, tolerance, historical empathy, and critical thinking for students"  http://educationnext.org/learning-live-theater/  

"As schools narrow their focus on improving performance on math and reading standardized tests, they have greater difficulty justifying taking students out of the classroom for experiences that are not related to improving those test scores. Schools are either attending fewer field trips or shifting toward field trips to places they know students already enjoy. When testing is over, schools are often inclined to take students on “reward” field trips to places like amusement parks, bowling alleys, and movie theaters.

The nature of culturally enriching field trips is that they are often to places that students don’t yet know they might enjoy. "