FollowThe Arts Education Council of Americans for the Arts envisions a future where all American students have access to consistent high-quality, sustained comprehensive learning in the arts. In order for this vision to occur, three interconnected areas, explored in this Green Paper, need to be explored and sustained by arts education advocates across the country.
Green Paper Authoring Organizations: Arts Education Council of Americans for the Arts
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FUTURE OF ARTS EDUCATION AMBASSADOR Rob Davidson serves as program manager for VH1 Save The Music Foundation, working with, among many others, the public school districts of Boston, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Palm Beach County, Philadelphia and the District of Columbia to advocate for and restore music education programs. Rob joined VH1 Save The Music after ten years' experience in education and orchestra Management. Most recently, Rob served as the director of education and community engagement with the Brooklyn Philharmonic where, during his tenure, he doubled the number of services offered for New York City public school students and brought the organization into the national music education advocacy arena. Before Brooklyn, Rob spent four years in the education and community engagement department at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Prior to his orchestra management experience, Rob taught music and performed with Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, PA and worked with the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Rob holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in vocal music performance from Truman State University (Kirksville, MO) and a K-12 music education certification from Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh, PA). |
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Original THE FUTURE OF ARTS EDUCATION Green Paper:
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THE FUTURE OF ARTS EDUCATION (pdf, 92KB) |
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Welcome to the Green Paper discussion on Arts Education. We encourage you to read the full Green Paper available in the tab above and make general comments at this time. Be sure to keep your comments brief—Rob Davidson, the Ambassador for this Green Paper will soon begin deeper, threaded conversations around specific paragraphs, sections or themes that appear in this Green Paper. Follow this conversation thoroughly by adding the Arts Education feed to your RSS reader!
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The green paper is a good framework for a deeper conversation. Well thought out and student centered makes me know that the creation of this document wasn’t about checking off a task, rather it was about what is good for kids. Dialogue, understanding, and investment about and in arts education is good for education as a whole. The issue of flexibility in teacher certification seems out of reach as states continue to impose stricter certification requirements with less and less consideration for real world practical experience.
As far as a movement in support of arts education it must begin with students and parents. We talk about stakeholders and investors and in my mind the students are the stakeholders in the education system and the parents are the investors through their tax dollars and ability to elect school boards. Students and parents are the grass-tops in an advocacy movement to sustain and increase arts education opportunities in schools. The question is how to mobilize such a force?
And finally, the Trends Report and Arts Education Policy Scan are tools I can use in my community. Thank you.
I especially agree with the section that discusses bringing together the many different stakeholders in arts education, including the students. My theatre company has entered into several unique partnerships with local businesses that have produced some really exciting educational programs for students. These are companies that truly understand the importance of the work weare doing right now. It’s not enough to get their money, though thats not bad, we need their support and we need the large microphone they carry with them!
We do need to return to our students, they are the reason for all of the work we are doing, all too often m day is spent seeking partnerships and grants to pay for the work we HOPE we can somehow do.
Here is a question I would love to discuss: how do we raise capital to make professional development opportunities cheaper for teaching artists. I would love to send my artists to professional development conferences and classes, but these are expensive and my budget simply doesnt support it, I had to spend my own money to get myself to my last conference. I love the ideas of webinars, but we cant forsake real face to face PD ime for artists. How do we raise awareness in the business community for the need for teacher development? It is not nearly as sexy as actual student programming, but it’s pretty damned important.
“Face of art studies”
Material science has got various many other subjects today like genetics science, nano-technology etc. But art subjects cannot grow or develop in right direction in today’s condition. Today our socio-political system is completely based on profit. And art has to be beautiful. Without any real beauty art cannot be created. A beautiful art can be great when it is social and society depends on truth. Now we can understand the objective problem faced by a developing study in art that there is a condition in art that if art has to grow in great then it has to be not only beautiful but also it has to be socially correct and profit making is at all not correct socially. That is why studies in art cannot grow and develop in right direction. Here we must understand that scientific social studies can never grow and develop in the right direction on the basis of untruth. Here we must understand that society never upholds lie in the sphere of knowledge.
And secondly subjectivity of art studies is also in danger. Here reason is that art never exists without real pleasure and real pleasure can never come out of an ugly way. In today’s society where exploitation of man by man is there and the common men’s psychology is made for eat, drink and be married, which is totally ugly then how the real pleasure can take place in this profit motive nature of system of our society? It has vanished all the ways of development of art studies today.
I am replying to the above commenter’s assertion that “art has to be beautiful.”
This is unequivocally wrong! Art is not about beauty. Art is about creation and expression – neither of which are limited to beautiful things (which is a vague and hard-to-define concept in itself). Is the Sistine Chapel beautiful? If I say “no,” who are you to say I am wrong? Is Duchamp’s “Urinal” beautiful? If I say “yes,” then I am expressing a personal perception, something that cannot apply in a general sense to the piece.
It’s a matter of taste. I hate mushrooms. You might love them. Like it or not, they are still FOOD to both of us. Similarly, whether art is experienced as beautiful or not has no effect on it’s art-ness. You can still react to it as art.
Robert Rauschenberg’s work would not be considered beautiful in the classical sense, but there’s no denying that he is considered one of the most effective artists of the past century.
Art and beauty…though there is often a symbiosis, it is by no means a requirement or defining factor.
@ Dinesh kumar
Thank you for your comment. I’m afraid we may disagree on the definition of art. Much of the world’s celebrated art came not from an expression of beauty, but from an expression of tragedy, oppression or violence. For instance, Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony portrays the January 9, 1905 massacre of peaceful Russian protesters; From photography – think of the famous photo of the gentlemen in Tiananmen Square standing in front of a line of tanks. From popular music, John Fogerty’s “Fortunate Son”protesting the Vietnam War; the examples go on and on. If we assume your assessment of the state of our culture is correct, I’d argue that your stance only underscores the importance of arts education for all children. We must equip our children with a means of expressing their frustration with their world, not only to document it for future generations, but to have a means of commenting on their situation and empowering them to force change.
I want to underscore the comment in the Green Paper and above about building partnerships across organizations as an essential step in changing the status quo in arts education. I have seen this happening more than ever before. It seems our field is realizing that if we try to advocate from within a silo, we lose ground. No matter how well we do it. I see cities and regions fostering inter-organizational networks and conversations. I hear more willingness to change entrenched patterns to take on collaborative projects and plans. I see more inter-disciplinary cooperation and support. Arts education has clearly risen to the top one or two national concerns in the arts community, and it is now time for us to change old patterns and work together to change the status quo. And I am seeing this begin to happen in small ways around the country.