Performance and Performativity in Classrooms- Elementary

The idea of performance and performativity can carry itself through many ideals and genres, such as the way children act and interact in a classroom setting.  A project that I addressed that concept with passionately was when I worked at an Elementary School co-teaching art and communication skills, fairly recently. The classroom scenario was quite unusual.  We combined 1st through 3^rd grade (ages 6-8) autistic  students with 4^th and 5^th grade (ages 9-10) gifted (High IQ)  students into the same classroom.

The typical scenario for autistic children is to be separated from the others and have their own space and boundaries. But why not mix these students in one group to observe personal development and growth?

We did just that. It was an astonishing result. The performance of both the autistic and gifted children working together was successful. The gifted students took on the role of a helper, immediately teaching their autistic classmates simple art productivity skills by giving thorough examples with care. The autistic children picked up art assignments quicker. The communications skills developed between both groups, and they all became confident speakers and were able to execute art in a bolder way without hesitation.

I learned that classroom boundaries must be expanded for the development of others. Separating gifted and autistic children based on their abilities is not a good idea because performativity will not be effective. The performativity of the communication skills and art skills when integrating these students expanded in such a short period of time.  Friendships were also formed and the bonds between the students matured. I would like to see this effective collaborative strategy occur in other schools and classrooms to improve the performance of young minds.