Americans for the Arts

Stephanie Riven

I have just spent three months as a visiting practitioner at the Harvard Graduate School of Education/Arts in Education (AIE) Program. Steve Seidel, director of AIE, extended an invitation to me to study, teach, and serve as a resource for students during the semester.

So what did I discover after three months of talking and meeting with young people, auditing classes, and attending forums, lectures, and workshops on arts education, education reform, and leadership?

Three takeaways, among many, include:

1) With changes in the economy, the influence of technology and the expansion of entertainment and leisure options, there is a need for bold ideas and creative leadership in shaping a new vision to move the arts and arts education forward. It is our young leaders who possess many of these ideas. Edward Clapp’s collection of essays from emerging leaders in the field entitled 20UNDER40 is quite simply one of the most exciting and hopeful set of ideas for our field that I encountered. I encourage everyone to get your hands on a copy of this book and pass it around to your staff and board members to create an intergenerational dialogue about how to conceive of, program, and sustain the arts and arts education in the future. 

Last fall, 30 top-level decision makers and thought leaders from government, business, education, and the arts gathered at the Sundance Resort and Preserve for the Fifth Annual Americans for the Arts National Arts Policy Roundtable, to discuss this year's theme - The Role of the Arts in Educating America for Great Leadership and Economic Strength.

Their conclusions are profiled in a new report issued this week by Americans for the Arts that calls for individuals across the public and private sector to recognize the arts as the transformational tools they are for making schools stronger and students more successful.

The recommendations offer insights from this cross-sector group on how we can better work together to ensure policies and practices are in place to increase arts in our schools.

The business and public policy communities are building consensus that if the nation is to succeed, an education steeped in the 4 “C’s” (Creativity, Collaboration, Communication and Critical Thinking) is not a luxury, but a necessity.  

Munira Khapra

According to a survey conducted by MetLife, American students (grades 6–12) believe that studying the arts – in addition to history, government, and politics – is important to understanding other nations and cultures and international issues.

This is in contrast to their teachers, who view other languages and the arts to be less essential in the understanding of other nations.

"The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Preparing Students for College and Careers" examines education priorities for high school students; what being college- and career-ready entails; and the implications of this goal for teaching.

The results are based on a national survey conducted in the fall of 2010 of public school teachers, public school students, parents of public school students, and Fortune 1000 business executives.   

Katherine Damkohler

If we took math out of the school curriculum, and replaced it with a six-week outreach program from an external organization, should we expect our children to develop a knowledge of math?

Of course not.

Then, why do we do this with the arts?

Many schools have responded to cuts in arts education funding by relying on temporary arts programs in place of investing in an arts teacher for their school.

These part-time programs often cherry-pick only a handful of students to participate, and do not fully engage the students they do serve.

Many refer to these programs as arts enrichment. However, I have to ask: without the foundation of arts instruction in our schools, what are they enriching?   

Listening to my grandmother tell stories about her youth, I cringed at the gallows humor of her siblings grabbing chickens by the neck and swinging them around their head trying to make a quick break, or their mother harkening out not to chop the head off too close to the clothes line.

Today’s youth are learning how to make their way a wee bit differently, instead of killing and eating their beloved livestock, they have really cool games to play, with titles like the just released Homefront for Xbox 360.

The plot is fabulous, the year is 2007 and the U.S. is pit against North Korea on our own killing fields, American soil.    

Merryl Goldberg

I was in the principal’s office this morning, but not because I was in trouble.

I am working with a wonderfully committed principal in Vista, CA, Mary Contreras, on developing ways to use the arts as a methodology to reach English language learners on her site.

However, while I was in the office, two boys were ushered in because they were in trouble. I sat and listened to each tell his version of a story which essentially amounted to miscommunication involving bullying and a near physical fight.

As one boy left, the other started crying quietly.

After a moment or two, when gently pushed by Mary to talk about his feelings, the boy said he was sad because he was losing his friend. It was a really poignant and heartbreaking moment, and I truly felt for this kid.   

Lynne Kingsley

Though it’s a generally accepted concept that infusing 21st Century Skills into education for our nation’s students is vital for creating and maintaining a strong, globally competitive society, we, as a professional arts education field, are having a tough time letting go of 20th century habits.

What follows are three skills that come directly from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Arts Map. I ask that we, as arts education professionals and managers, consider, “are we practicing what we teach?”

Collaboration:

Which one of us has not felt the pangs of anxiety (especially in such harsh budget times) in hearing news of project serving audiences similar to ours being funded or winning awards? Territorialism takes over and the tendency to work in silos to achieve more than our colleagues (or, cruder, competitors) lingers over us like a dark cloud of doom.

Alyx Kellington

Across the nation, field trips are being eliminated from school district’s budgets. Teachers are restricted by the pressures from districts to show curricular results and to cover content in classrooms leaving little time for out-of-school excursions.

The logistics of test schedules, finding a substitute teacher, bus and fuel costs, and balancing curriculum needs with hands-on activities often leaves teachers overwhelmed. Field trips are often viewed as “fluff” or extra-curricular activities and, therefore, are easy line items to cut.

However, teachers and students advocate – and studies indicate - that field trips are a key component of school instruction; they broaden the educational experience and make a subject more relevant.

Students might be good at reciting and remembering things but they often don’t make the connection unless they experience it first hand. Field trips connect the dots for students by providing real experiences related to all content areas.  

Kim Dabbs

In my undergraduate training, I was given the opportunity to earn my degree in Studio Art History at Kendall College of Art and Design in Michigan. This program gave me a comprehensive art history background with a foundation in studio art.

As someone that didn't have the level of visual arts talent as my other art school peers, I struggled through my life drawing courses and endured harsh critiques in my three dimensional design classes.

But, at the end of the semester, I had a clearly noticeable difference in my skills in all of those foundation areas. My bodies looked like more like bodies and my sculptures became more balanced while I was finding my creative voice.

It wasn't the self-discovery that I credit my studio foundation with but the discovery of the world around me. While I was learning about our culture and the cultures of others through the frame of visual art, I was also learning to see the entire world in a whole new way by participating in the art making process.