Ben Burdick
A great article I read today by Mark Bauerlein, entitled “Advocating for Arts in the Classroom,” really got me thinking about the increasing ideological divide I think public education is facing. With budget shortfalls becoming the norm at the federal, state, county, and municipal level, public education and the funding it receives are becoming a topic of great interest, scrutiny, and concern for its proponents and opponents alike. Education reform, overhaul, rethinking, whatever you want to call it, is the name of the game at times like this. People want to see results, no matter how drastic the measures might be to see positive change. But while everyone wants to arrive at the same place (increased literacy, higher graduation rates, lower dropout rates, college/workforce preparedness, etc.), the path to get there is splitting. Those creating education policy (U.S. Department of Education, state school boards, etc.) are increasingly at odds with those who are tasked with carrying out those policies in the classroom (teachers). While some policymakers believe that bringing “free market ideas” into public education, with a great example being the recent “Race to the Top,” is an innovative way to spur change, I think many teachers have a hard time believing that creating competition in a field where collaboration is incredibly important is going to be effective.
Bauerlein’s article covers some of the same ground in arts education, seeing a divide between those who advocate for arts education, and those who teach the arts in a classroom. While I don’t think using the “arts-saves-kids” argument that he talks about is a bad thing for arts advocates to supply to policymakers, I think he makes a good point about how it can do a disservice to those who teach the arts. From his article:
The arts-saves-kids rationale crops up frequently near the centers of political power. I heard it repeated time and again while working on arts education policy at the Arts Endowment from 2003 to 2005. In gatherings such as the thrice-yearly meetings hosted by the Arts Education Partnership (AEP), a venture funded by the Arts Endowment and the U.S. Department of Education, arts education directors at state arts councils, officers at foundations, community arts school leaders, and various education-school professors outlined programs and research that related arts in classrooms directly to students in classrooms, especially to low-income, minority, at-risk, and underserved populations. Participants tended not to be classroom teachers, but to come from a network of public agencies, nonprofits, and academic centers, such as the Arts in Education Program at Harvard University. Their job was promotion, not instruction, their audience funders and politicians and school administrators, not students.
He follows that up with:
Turnaround tales and the like carry too much emotional freight to be displaced by talk of art history. Perhaps those engaged in arts ed lobbying believe that class- and race-based melodramas best sway elected officials and philanthropic organizations. Or perhaps they genuinely find the social and personal benefits of arts instruction more compelling than the arts themselves.
Those lobbying for arts education, in turn, do little to, as he says, “validate the arts as an academic discipline.” It’s a humbling argument, especially for someone like me who considers himself an arts, and overall, education advocate.
So is this where we are? Where people who have the same goals of improving education and providing access to arts education are fighting against each other because they’re not listening to the other side’s viewpoint? Or is the problem here that we have people lobbying for and creating policy who have never set foot in a classroom to actually teach?
Time will tell, and perhaps if and when the economy improves this will be a blip on the radar, but I think the divide between education policy and practice could spell serious consequences for teachers in the classroom.
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I think you are right, but I would also point out that arts are some of the few educational concepts that need advocating, because they are the ones most often first eliminated. You don’t see people lobbying to save algebra, even though in the end, that serves little purpose to many students once they are done with the class.
My point being that if there were an algebra lobby, it too would probably be at odds with those in the trenches trying to teach it.
I wonder then, if the answer might be to ingrain the arts in schools as something as every day as say, the athletic program. (When is the last time you heard of a school in a budget crisis cutting that?) If arts can become as expected at a school as basketball or football are, the lobby/teaching dichotomy may disappear, because the benefits would then be obvious.
Unfortunately, athletics programs ARE being cut all over the country and students/parents are being asked to pay more for less each year in the art room and the gym. In response to Ben’s blog post, it takes a lot more than teachers to advocate and set policy. I can’t see a problem there. Students need to be taught early on that quality education isn’t always consistent across subjects and their voice is perhaps the strongest in the court of public opinion.
Fewer and fewer people, according to polls, identify with the “Arts,” and performing arts centers throughout the States are experiencing a long-term (preceding the current recession) slide downward in attendance. We need a new paradigm, one that connects more intimately with our communities. I have even begun substituting references to the arts with “the creative spirit,” as in “unleashing the creative spirit in us all,” or “unleashing a creative citizenry.”
This shift can bridge the arts-policy gap referenced in the above article, embedding a spirit of creativity throughout our community–from education to the design of our communities, to the preparation of our youth to more adequately compete in this globalized world.
This is complex, but if you want to see this shift in action, click on this link http://bit.ly/1p8Mox of the Los Angeles Music Center Active Arts program. Or if you want to read a brilliant philosophical treatise, read anything by Professor Christopher Small, especially “Musicking: The Meaning of Performance and Listening.” http://amzn.to/bXyPiJ
Ben raises an interesting question: Are teachers at odds with this new brand of reform? If so, which among them? Is it generational? Are the high-quality teachers in favor of merit pay? Is there a divide between teachers from high-poverty and high-wealth schools? Is there a divide between charter teachers and traditional public school teachers?
There is little to no data about this. We know well where the unions fall through their spokespeople, but not necessarily what the thousands of American teachers think.
There are also a host of arguments like Bauerlein’s about the disservice that instrumental arguments for arts education create. However, I’ve yet to see a successful advocacy effort exclude these arguments and I’ve yet to see a successful advocacy leader exclude these arguments.
My assessment thus far of this debate is that the only individuals that argue against instrumental arguments for arts education are those that do not have to discuss this issue with non-arts decision-makers such as school board members, legislators, and those advocating for other reform strategies–such as testing and STEM initiatives.
While I agree with Bauerlein that the arts get shorted by only advocating from one position, this instrumental vs intrinsic argument sets up a false us or them dilemma in the field. There are both intrinsic and instrumental benefits to be found in arts education – as in all disciplines. K-12 Art Education is part of a larger project – public schooling. And a public education involves a myriad of aims and goals, including such things as creating an educated, engaged, empathetic citizenry.
I have all kinds of things to say about this – but one personal arts education advocacy anecdote sums up John Abodeely’s last comment – in June 2009 I and a group of San Diego arts education advocates rallied hard to keep the school board from eliminating the Visual and Performing Arts Department as a cost saving measure. We held a rally on one day with student performances and had over an hour of people presenting public comment at the meeting the next. In the end the board voted 4-1 to keep the department. After all of the arguments we presented about providing children with a well-rounded education, the importance of arts learning on 21st century workforce skills, the value of arts learning in and of itself etc, it came down to this – one school board member saying “I don’t want to eliminate something that is helping keep kids in schools.”
Arguments in favor of arts education are many, and what might prove to be persuasive to one individual may have little weight with another. Individual factors include culture, previous exposure to the arts, personal values, and education, among others. While one person might view arts education as necessary for a well-rounded liberal education, another might view it as an elitist luxury. The arts may be seen as keeping marginal students in school, as in Victoria Plettner-Saunders’ entry, or developing creativity in students to prepare them for work in the new globalized economy. Whatever the reason, if we value arts education, we must join forces to support it rather than let our rationales divide our numbers.
My grandmother once told me the importance of the 4 R’s in education. A question mark popped up on top of my head and back then which was a long time ago the immediate response was “you mean the 3 R’s Nana”. She said no 4 R’s reading, writing, arithmetic and art. The arts also play an importance.