The Arts: Conduits of Learning

By Roxanna Johnson

Scott Flox’s first grade classroom is comfortable. Art and graphics cover every available hanging space. There are two cozy sitting areas. In one, Mr. Flox is reading a story to 22 children who are predicting what will happen next in the book. One can sense the students visualizing the predictions they blurt out. As he responds to them, Mr. Flox’s deep bass voice is fluid, and never does it lose that intangible element that assures his first graders they are being listened to.

Flox has been a first grade teacher for 30 years. He decided to teach when he was in the sixth grade—he says he wanted to prevent others from going through what he had experienced. A twin and a preemie, Flox described his early development as delayed. When he was 11, he taught himself to read using the lyrics from the Beatles songs.

Having learned to read through music, Flox began to understand at a young age how instruction in the arts could help children who struggle in school. He says, “Art connects extraneous data between a student and his world. It’s a conduit.” Flox explains how the arts also support instruction for students at any level: “The arts provide great ways to be problem solvers, because in art nothing ever goes the way you think it’s going to go.”

However, Flox doesn’t think that teaching students to draw is the same as merely telling them to draw. “You can’t teach what you don’t know,” he says, adding that in the same way letters become a word and words combine to become a sentence, lines become a form and forms become a picture. “I engage students in art,” says Flox. “Students learn to follow directions, and I teach them the steps to drawing. It is interactive teaching. I use correct terminology, and the children begin to understand it. I teach them to learn.”

This method applies to every subject, according to Flox. “Math is exactly the same way. You talk about the concept, and then you break it down into component parts. Music is the same thing. You put notes together, and you come up with a tune.”

Flox says that just as math must be taught regularly, instruction in the arts must have continuity. “It has to be done on a daily basis. It can’t be done once a week or once a year. When there is regular instruction, art changes the way students see things, which is what intelligence is: a different way of seeing things.”

Evidence that these core beliefs can influence children positively is seen in the experience of Garret Roundy, a current recipient of BYU’s Gordon B. Hinckley Presidential Scholarship.

Roundy’s friends today would never believe that in kindergarten he was labeled as “one of those children.” It wasn’t that he couldn’t keep up—quite the opposite: Roundy recalls being bored, and he responded by causing problems.

“In kindergarten I was in the smiley-face program, and I received all smiles only once,” says Roundy, who remembers that unique accomplishment because he got to celebrate it at McDonald’s.

Roundy’s first grade teacher was Mr. Flox. Roundy says, “Mr. Flox turned the image I had about myself around. Instead of considering me the problem, he praised me.” Part of the praise was centered on Roundy’s attempts to learn to draw. “I never saw myself as being good at art. But in Mr. Flox’s class we would create art all the time. Mr. Flox would sometimes comment about my pictures, saying, ‘This is amazing. This is better than mine.’ I realized I could do art.”

Roundy continues: “The report card in first grade wasn’t a grade; to me it was what Mr. Flox said. It was encouragement. To me it said, ‘You’re funny, you’re smart, and you’re a good artist.’”

However, Flox’s influence on Roundy was more than just a wonderful teacher-child connection. Flox’s precise instruction in visual arts, music, and creative writing taught young Garret Roundy a principle of learning that essentially changed his life course. Roundy explains this discovery: “I figured out that you don’t have to be just one thing. You don’t have to choose. You can do it all. I don’t know if art was like another frontier to me, but as Mr. Flox broke it down into manageable steps, he demystified art as well as other subjects. Any skill could be a part of my life.”

This realization blossomed further during subsequent years in other classrooms. But it was his first grade experience, Roundy believes, that put him on a course for discovery. “I am not afraid to try new experiences,” Roundy says. “I am a psychology major with a bachelor’s degree in everything. I really appreciate the broad experience of life.”

Hearing Roundy’s story, Scott Flox smiles gently and shakes his head, almost in disbelief. In his deep voice he recalls telling jokes with a younger Garret Roundy while teaching him to draw: “He was a funny kid.” Then Mr. Flox adds what one would consider the essence of his life: “I love watching children discover who they are.”