Americans for the Arts

Katherine Irey

The next time you hear yourself justifying inclusion of the arts in an educational setting stop and ask if this could be true:

ART IS THE MOTHER OF ALL LITERACY.

EACH ARTS DISCIPLINE IS A DISTINCT LITERACY IN ITS OWN RIGHT

Then back up and ask yourself:

•          Is my art form a vehicle for communication?

•          Does my art form support personal engagement and community participation?

•          Does it distill my insights and synthesize my meanings?

•          Do I use a symbol system that emerged to support my art form?

•          Does my discipline support idiomatic expression for me and my community?

•          Does my art form invite engagement and gain meaning from critical interpretation?

•          Is it guided by particular structures, rules or agreed-upon [cultural] customs?

•          Does my discipline adapt with relocation or change over time?

Let us assume, for now, that the answers to the above are all yes!

Sandy Seufert

The concept of “practice” has always been a word attached to my own personal art form of music. But the very verb-ness of that word has taken on a completely different dimension as a noun of serious proportions in my current work with visual artists to develop curriculum to support the new Next Generation Science Standards.

At my work at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California, I have the incredible opportunity to work with a brilliant faculty of highly trained and creative teaching artists in a program called, “Children Investigate the Environment.” While this program has existed in a variety of forms since 1986, it was the release of the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in April of 2013 that prompted an idea to increase the rigor of the science content of the program.

Working in grade level teams with the teaching artists to create the curriculum, it took a while for us to wrap our heads around each of the aspects of the NGSS – Performance Expectations, Disciplinary Core Ideas, Cross Cutting Concepts, etc. However, the first thing that resonated with all of us was the focus on Scientific and Engineering Practices. In reflecting on our own various practices as artists, we realized that we had found an important connection. It was there that we started.

Tina LaPadula

I facilitate arts education workshops and conversations nationally. Teaching artists often ask me why it’s important to discuss arts education and social justice. I’m still honing my response, but here’s my current thinking:

We live in a country with undeniable barriers in education and the arts. I’m not even going to get into the differences between private and public schools, or the historic divide between formal arts training and cultural and community arts in this post. (Although, you should take a moment to read this great piece from the The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and Helicon which makes the case that more foundation funding in the arts should directly benefit lower-income communities and people of color). If we accept the idea that social justice is a vision for a society in which all people, of all identities, are treated equitably then we also have to admit the landscape is currently inequitable.  

Lenore Blank Kelner

I have been a teaching artist for many years—long before the profession had this name.

I work with students and teachers in all grade levels integrating drama with oral language development and reading comprehension skills and like all teaching artists try to stay abreast of educational shifts and trends so that my work can be relevant and meaningful to students and to teachers. I have written two books on drama and the classroom and one book on integrating drama with reading comprehension skills.

After 35 years of performing, directing, presenting, writing, and teaching, I am still amazed by the joy and passion I still find daily in my work.  When a student tracked as “low ability” unexpectedly utters a jewel of dialogue during a drama that demonstrates the student not only understands the text explicitly but implicitly I still often get the feeling that I had better sit down quickly or I may fall down. When a teacher after a professional development workshop or after observing a demonstration lesson looks at me in amazement and says, “This is the way I know I can reach my students.”  I again feel so lucky to be able to do this-- amorphous, hard to define, and difficult to quantify-- work. 

Adam Natale

If School of Rock taught us anything, it’s that art can have a major impact on students’ lives, and that even a slacker musician can inspire the next generation.  What it also showed us was that maybe the world of teaching artists is too ad hoc and doesn’t really have any form or professionalization to it – someone can just walk in to a classroom, hook up an amp, and start jamming (ahem, teaching).

Well, that film debuted over 10 years ago.  In the last decade, we’ve surely seen a surge not only in the professionalization of teaching artists, but also in the field as a whole.   With organizations such as the Association of Teaching Artists (of which I am a board member) providing resources and research to the field, and certificate programs popping up through university continuing ed programs, teaching artists have far more resources available to them than they had even five years ago.  Even within many arts organizations, programs led by education directors are focusing on the training of teaching artists as opposed to the simple execution of lesson plans. 

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.

Russell Granet

I graduated conservatory in 1988 and my first job out of school was as a teaching artist.  I moved back to New York City after completing my studies at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.  I was looking for work and had no interest in returning to my previous life in college as a bellman - a gig that paid well, but this was before luggage had wheels.  I asked a buddy of mine from high school, who had also moved to NYC to pursue a career in professional theatre, what he was doing and he said he was a teaching artist.  I had never heard the term before so I asked him what it was and how I could become one.  He said the job had three requirements and in this order:

1. You had to like kids

2. You had to be a morning person because school started early and you couldn’t be late

3. You had to have an expertise in an art form

Sounded reasonable.  I applied for a position at the same organization where my friend worked.  I got the job.  My first assignment was to co-teach with a woman from Schenectady NY, neither one of us had ever stepped foot in a NYC public school.  I was given a name of a teacher, room number, and grade level and so began my career as a teaching artist.

Jeff Poulin

As a field, we have come to understand, as articulated in the recently published A Shared Endeavor document, that Teaching Artists are a vital part of our arts education ecosystem.  To this point we have invited 25 leaders in the field, throughout the ecosystem, to discuss the challenges, opportunities and best practices of teaching artists in the field of arts education.

As there are so many angles to discuss on this broad topic, we have clustered the posts in related areas of interest. Throughout the week we will cover the history of the role that teaching artists play in the field to best and most innovative practices for both teaching artists and organizations that work with teaching artists. See the schedule below!