The Wisdom of the Elephant and the Swan

As far as third-grade student Anthony Young was concerned, the matter was not open to discussion. He was going to be the elephant in the big “Fantastic Creatures” show at the Los Angeles Zoo, come rain or come shine.

The elephant, he proclaimed, could pick up a lion and toss it across the jungle.

It fell to arts teacher Lara Naughton to set young Anthony straight. We’re going to pick animal names out of a hat, she told him, so you might end up a kangaroo. Maybe a tortoise.

To Anthony, any such outcome was a virtual impossibility. Then came judgment day at the Accelerated School, a South-Central Los Angeles charter school. Esperanza Lopez, a soft-spoken and bashful girl, reached into the hat, pulled out an animal, and shook Anthony’s universe.

Esperanza got the elephant.

Anthony, who has a 24-hour flair for the dramatic, fell out of his chair. His day did not get any brighter when his turn finally came.

Anthony picked the swan, which has never been known to toss a lion across the jungle. His attempts to bribe Esperanza out of the elephant were intercepted by Naughton, who urged Anthony to reconsider the wonder of the swan.

She told him about “Swan Lake,” all those graceful birds soaring like gazelles, and Anthony practiced twirling. She brought in the video, and that sealed the deal. “That’s my kind of music,” said Anthony.

I can now report, in this dispatch from a rehearsal at the zoo, that Anthony Young will be an inspired swan on Nov. 15, when Symphony in the Glen features Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals with Arthur Rubinstein conducting.

Anthony, Esperanza and their entire Accelerated School class of 21 will parade before 700 public school students in costumes they designed themselves, and read poems they’ve been fine-tuning for days.

Esperanza has penned a striking impressionistic take on the elephant, which, as everyone knows, enjoys a good plate of macaroni.

My feet are the sun when they walk in the sand

My head is the moon in the sky shining below

I dance ballet and move like the water

I am a nice animal

I eat ice cream, spaghetti, chocolate cake and strawberries

When I first wrote about the Accelerated School, where test scores are more than twice as high as those of surrounding schools and far above the Los Angeles school district average, I said I’d revisit periodically to explore the reasons.

The arts program--music, visual arts, dance, creative writing and theater--is one of them.

UCLA education professor James Catterall, who has studied arts curricula nationwide, says he does not know of a more extensive or ambitious program anywhere in the country.

What’s most impressive, he said, is that it has been designed to dovetail with, and enhance, comprehension in the more standard curriculum. The irony is that arts programs have been dismantled nationally in an effort to pump up standardized test scores in reading and math.

“A well-done, integrated arts curriculum helps children read better, especially very young ones, and musical experiences are tied to cognitive or thinking skills, which are particularly helpful in mathematics,” says Catterall.

Dianne Crutchfield, the third-grade teacher, says she was expected to provide arts instruction, without any training, at her previous public school. You end up doing crafts around the holidays, she said, and that’s about it.

Now, her students leave the classroom a minimum of two hours a week for arts instruction that’s integrated with the rest of the curriculum.

“It’s made my job so much easier,” she said, because the students bring creative instincts back into her classroom, along with skills that can help in writing, reading and other subjects.

The obvious news, says Catterall, is that kids get caught up in the dramatization of stories. In preparing for the Big Show, Naughton and creative arts director Victoria Stevens have seen shy students--a group that does not include Anthony--develop the confidence to deliver their poems in front of the class, often with flair.

In rehearsing their grand entrance to the mark where they’ll recite their poems before a huge audience, Esperanza and several other students proved to be compelling mimics of their respective animals. Kangaroos Lauren Roberts and Henry Cornelio were particularly good.

A section of more avant garde performers, centered around a group led by Anthony, found artistic interpretation in an often-overlooked form--the cartwheel.

Naughton quickly called a huddle of the swans and the cuckoo bird--played by Darrell Hunter in an inspired turn that recalls the best work of both Big Bird and the Coco Puffs cuckoo. “From now on, only one cartwheel per animal,” she commanded.

The rehearsal took place near the elephant pen, and for a moment, Anthony was draped over the railing with a long face, watching his beloved beasts lumber about. But he seems to have redirected his energy into imagining--no, becoming--the swan. Strength. Grace. Beauty. Anthony has taken ownership of each.

His poem, in which he reveals that his swan is as rich as the president of the United States and flies over the sky and beyond the moon, was delivered flawlessly. It began like this:

My swan

Flies like a butterfly

Stings like a bee

Just like Muhammad Ali

He’s glory to me.

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Steve Lopez writes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com.