Americans for the Arts

Maybe “to certify or not to certify” was our original question, but when in September and October last fall we convened teaching artists around the state of California, it became clear that consensus is emerging that the real question is “how to certify with integrity, flexibility and proper support”.

Nearly 200 teaching artists participated in person and in written responses in regional conversations focused specifically on the issues surrounding questions of professionally strengthening our field. One of our core strengths is the depth and diversity of pathways artists take into teaching artistry, with a continuum from self-taught, informally or formally mentored, individualized training, and formal academic training all providing valid and challenging forms of professional development. With increasing calls for teaching artists to step up and step in as partners in education, social services, social justice and community settings, our collaborative network thought it was high time we grappled head on with the challenges of documenting competence and making mastery visible.

Brian Schneckenburger

I serve as the Educational Specialist in Visual and Performing Arts for the Baltimore City Public Schools, where I oversee implementation of curriculum, assessment, and some aspects of teacher evaluation. The district is concluding a six-year period that has been marked by several large-scale reforms that included the implementation of a funding model that placed unprecedented decision-making power in the hands of principals, as well as expanded school choice options for students.

The system is now turning its attention to several transformations that have a direct effect on teaching and learning in the arts. As in other districts, City Schools is overhauling its curriculum to align with the Common Core State Standards. Additionally, City Schools is undertaking a ten-year overhaul of the district’s buildings including modernized spaces for the arts, and developing processes to ensure instructional and leadership effectiveness that allow for professional growth around not only arts-related content, but in the unique ways that arts learning supports Common Core principles. The district has also instituted new support systems that govern the ways that leaders and teachers are supported, developed, and evaluated.

Effective leadership is an important component of any successful school system. To support administrators and teachers, City Schools has piloted and implemented an Instructional Framework that has taken into account effective teaching practices in all disciplines. The framework parses the act of teaching into three areas: plan, teach, and reflect and adjust. These three areas follow a cyclical pattern, where reflection and adjustment inform planning.  Current work in progress includes the formulation of a set of key teaching actions that outline instructional procedures and techniques germane to arts education. The key actions documents will act as discipline-specific complements to the techniques listed in the framework, and will provide administrators with a valuable reference with which to guide support and evaluation conversations.

Dale Davis

I am a Teaching Artist. Teaching Artists are theater artists, visual artists, writers, filmmakers, poets, video artists, photographers, dancers, storytellers, musicians, puppeteers. We work alone in isolation from a national community to bring us together to share the excitement and challenges of our work, ideas, concerns, and resources. We work as employees of arts organizations, on rosters of arts organizations, and as independent contractors. We work in schools, libraries, prisons, jails, juvenile detention facilities, museums, homeless shelters, cultural organizations, senior citizen centers, and in our communities. We work in urban, suburban, and rural areas in densely populated and sparsely populated states.

How does this translate into a practical career track? Liability insurance, independent contractor or employee, health insurance, retirement, intellectual property, copyright, certification, master’s degree programs, fellowships, career track - these are high up in Teaching Artists’ concerns.

Rosalind Flynn

Everyone I know who works as a teaching artist has amazing success stories of student learning experiences with, through, and in the arts. There are stories about reaching the “unreachable” student, motivating whole groups of resistant learners, creating breathtaking products, deepening understandings about curriculum subjects, and engaging the minds, bodies, and imaginations of young people in extraordinary ways.

This is great stuff. This is the kind of information that should be shared.

• How do effective Teaching Artists get the results we get?
• What are our methods?
• What precisely do we do in a class session or series?

We know that what we do works and we know why it works. But are we sharing this information with a wide enough audience? I don’t think so.

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” -Albert Einstein

Perhaps the most compelling support for learning at all ages comes from participants:

Road Scholar participants chat with Maestro Perlman after an attending an exclusive rehearsal by the BSO. Photo by BSO.

“Many of us have been going to hear the BSO for DECADES! The classes of “Behind the Scenes at the BSO” fulfilled many of our dreams. Thank you so very much for creating such a splendid series of classes.”  - Student at Johns Hopkins University’s Osher program; May, 2014

Children and parents listen and interact with musicians during the Music Box concert “Bugs” on April 5th, 2014. Photo by Jim Saah.

“The program for the tiniest audience members was truly inspired. My grand-daughter (age 3) said the music was ‘beautiful’ and ‘magical.’ I appreciated that the mix of music for Bugs included a range from ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ to Bach and Fauré. The children were remarkably well behaved which speaks for their attention to the program being offered. Please accept this check as evidence of my support for this kind of programming. Cheers!” - Grandmother attending the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Music Box Concert, April 2014, at the Music Center at Strathmore

Kandis Horton

…and not just because they make awesome shoes!

In addition to the Vans Custom Culture Contest the company puts on for high schools nationwide every year, they have partnered with Americans for the Arts to contribute $2,000 to ten high schools in order to further art programs that have big goals or aspirations to improve facilities for students. The Las Plumas High School (LPHS) Art Department teachers–Kandis Horton and Julie Tooker–applied for the Vans Custom Culture grant in November of 2013 in order to serve the art students of the area in a manner that would enrich their arts experience and education.