Bountiful » Swine flu. H1N1 virus.
Whatever it's called, it seems to be the topic of conversation everywhere you go.
Even at Bountiful's Muir Elementary School, where fifth-graders taught fellow students about the epidemic last week through, of all things, a dance performance.
"If you can't laugh about H1N1 right now, what can you do?" said Principal Jan Rawlins.
To teach their classmates how to stay healthy, fifth-graders, each representing either inherited traits, pathogens, symptoms or antibodies, pranced and twirled across the stage.
When it was the yellow-T-shirt-clad symptoms' turn to perform, they acted out runny noses, muscle spasms, chills, vomiting and sneezing through surprisingly graceful movements. When the pathogens were up, the green T-shirt-wearing group burst across the floor, infecting everyone and everything in their path.
"Even the healthiest person can be hit by a virus," narrated Tina Misaka, the school's dance specialist, as the students-turned-pathogens carried away their teacher during the school-wide assembly.
Thanks to the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Elementary Arts Learning Program, which provides grants to schools to hire arts specialists, Muir Elementary School hired its own dance instructor last year.
Through the medium of dance, Misaka -- a former Repertory Dance Theatre performer -- helps reinforce learning in core subjects, such as math, social studies, and in the fifth-graders' case, science.
This year, the fifth-graders' science classes have been supplemented by dance. Next up, sixth-graders will have their World War II unit enhanced by dance. Each grade will have a similar opportunity to learn the three R's through shaking their booties this year.
"Kids are kinesthetic learners," says Misaka, who works with individual classes for 45 minutes twice a week. "They can't sit still. Movement connects the brain to the body. ... We don't all learn the same way. It gives everybody a chance to succeed."
When fifth-graders Braxton Felix and Danny Hosman first learned dancing would be intertwined into the core curriculum, the then-fourth-grade boys were skeptical.
"But after a few weeks, it was so fun," Hosman said. "You can blurt out ideas. ... I learned a lot about white blood cells."
Misaka says it takes time to gain students' trust and encourage them to feel comfortable in their bodies. Only then do they feel the freedom to create.
Fifth-grader Jane Richards enjoys that freedom.
"You can move however you want," Richards said after the assembly. "There's no certain way to move. I love going to dance [class]. Miss Tina is wonderful. She's really creative."
Fifth-grade teacher Megan Nelson says dancing allows her students, who don't typically excel academically, a chance to stand out. It's a boost to their self-esteem, she says.
"[Misaka] is very positive," Nelson said. "She has a way of directing students in such a positive way."
Says Rawlins, "It's a fabulous way to learn."
Misaka's stay at Muir Elementary, however, is a limited-time offer. The Bountiful school received a four-year grant to fund Misaka's salary. She's in her second year. Money for education, Misaka says, is always dwindling.
"I wish I could always do it (take dance classes at school)," said the once-skeptical Hosman, who now eagerly anticipates his time with Miss Tina. "Hopefully, she'll be back next year."
