ARTSblog

Donna Collins

I’m a wife, a mom, and a grandmother (affectionately known as Grammy by my grandgirl Cierra).  A typical day starts at 7:00 AM and concludes around 8:00 PM, working Saturdays, and participating in lots of evening events  – a similar schedule to many of my arts advocacy colleagues. Work and family are what I eat, breath, and sleep. Most of the time one is as important as the other and each have their distinct needs and rewards.

On April 26, 2010, my world came crashing down around me when our 31-year-old son TJ died. It isn’t supposed to happen this way. Parents should not bury their children. Through TJ’s death, our grieving, and our memories I now see the world through different lenses. Simple things are more valuable, time is critical, making contacts a necessity since we’re not sure how much time we have, and telling our stories is essential to our future.

I rarely reflect, and until recently didn’t remember, why or how I got into the arts and arts education advocacy business. Thinking back on TJ’s life reminded me that he was the reason.

TJ was our theater and music kid. His brothers Josh (the athlete) and Ryan (the dreamer and reader) offered up other ways to get involved as parents. But theatre and music programs require a special kind of parent volunteer. You have to fight for the music and drama programs in schools. You have to raise money and pay for band camp. You have to work on levy campaigns to protect arts education programs. You have to take long bus rides to get to Disney or a special by-invitation-only parade. You have to pay a special facility fee to keep the theater open late for Friday night’s show and Saturday’s matinee.  You have to drive five kids to the next concert so the show choir can perform at the retirement home. You have to compete for time and resources with the athletic boosters and PTAs.
TJ knew about advocacy! Read the rest of this entry »

Joan Weber

I’m having a very interesting 140-character-at-a-time conversation with a colleague I’ve never met about the goals of arts education. @readtoday is a professional artist whose goal is to start a “reading revolution.” The question on the table in our conversation is, “If we understand the goal–Genius? Creativity? We can design the #artsed curriculum.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the question since it was posed this week. It’s not that I haven’t thought of it before; it’s that I’ve never been asked for an answer. What do I think the goal (singular) of arts education should be? I’ve decided that my answer is the same as for language arts and math–literacy.

I’m coming at this answer from the perspective of teaching artist, but also an adjunct community college professor, teaching “Humanities Through the Arts” twice a semester to middle-class, suburban students ranging from 18-80. Each semester I’m confronted with students who have little to no literacy in any art form. Each semester, my goals are the same: 1. Provide students with the language to think about and discuss all art forms. 2. Persuade students to give every work of art a chance. It’s not about taste.

My favorite word in my arts appreciation class is “composition.” It’s a word that the students think that they know because they’ve heard it so many times, but they don’t. Not really. “Composition” is a word that is shared by all of the art forms. Art is composed through the arrangement of the elements of its form.  Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Sikes

My interest in the way that things are connected began when I browsed through a college textbook one day, and my eyes fell on the following passage:

Scientists noticed that on the opposite sides of a farmer’s fence, though separated by only a few inches, two very distinct communities of animals and plants lived. This realization gave rise to the new field of ecology.

I was fascinated by this word and the implications that I guessed. Ecology: the science of the relationships among living things and their environment.

Paul Hawken in his recent book references the concept of “solving for pattern,” the premise that community challenges are interconnected and to solve them we must design approaches that are equally interconnected and systemic. As John Muir noted, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

This is a vital concept for evaluators and managers of evaluation. If we are to assist in the amelioration of these systemic processes, we need to use evaluation systemically, to “evaluate for pattern.” What does this look like in practice? Certainly, it is marked by constant attempts to understand connections: How is a specific program, need, component, etc., connected to others? Which ones? How can the connections be portrayed, measured, observed? Read the rest of this entry »

Zack Hayhurst

A year ago, when I told people I was going into arts management, the inevitable response was always, “What is that?”, or my favorite, “What will you DO with that?”

At first these questions irked me. Does one studying business or communications or finance get these same questions? Then I realized, maybe this is a common question for the art management field simply because not many people know who arts managers are, or for that matter, what they DO.

Prior to starting grad school, I had opinions and perceptions about what this degree would entail, and the opportunities it would create, so I would often retort with quips like, “Well, I will manage an arts organization, naturally.” Now, with one year of the program successfully under my belt, and a handful of “real-world” arts administration experiences, my perceptions and expectations need a little re-shuffling. Read the rest of this entry »

John Abodeely

This probably isn’t going to be a popular statement. But let’s throw it out there and see what folks think.

I believe that if arts education professionals provided amazing arts education to students, we wouldn’t have to fight for time in the school day, money in the school budget, or support among our neighbors. From firsthand experience, I know creating art and can be transformational. I believe that if the arts teaching workforce—whether teaching artists, certified arts teachers, or arts integrationists—could regularly and reliably facilitate the best arts education experiences for their students, there would be no question as to the absolute need to provide arts education.

I wouldn’t suggest this is easy. But I think it’s still true. And yes, the implication is that our work—collectively, across the country—isn’t good enough.

To be fair, I can see a couple obstacles to it.
1.    Our governance agents diminish the value of spiritual or personal value when there’s a tax dollar involved.
2.    Scaling up transformational, personally-demanding education would be hard. Read the rest of this entry »

Donna Collins

How can school districts sustain and develop high quality arts education programs for students? These are tough times but tough times call for smart choices. Arts education is a solution to closing the achievement gap!

Education in the arts prepares students for careers. Americans for the Arts reported in 2009 that nationally there are 612,095 businesses in the U.S. involved in the creation or distribution of the arts that employ 2.98 million people – 4.3 percent of all businesses and 2.2 percent of all employees.*  The arts mean careers and business!

The arts are recognized as a core subject which places arts education at the same level of importance as language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and foreign languages. The arts are part of the core!

Arts education programs are an instructional opportunity to improve student achievement. The arts help close the achievement gap! Read the rest of this entry »

Merryl Goldberg

The following is a keynote I delivered to administrators, teachers, and parents in Encinitas, California as part of an end of the year arts celebration. The celebration highlighted the professional development of elementary teachers who had engaged in learning about integrating the arts and technology throughout their curriculum, and how they applied to it their classrooms.

I was in a challenging position in that the district had just announced plans to cut several programs including arts, GATE, and some professional development. My talk is an attempt to both celebrate the teachers’ accomplishments and at the same time make a case for the administration to reconsider their budgetary priorities.

Note: My talk was preceded by a dance performance by 3d through 5th graders, after which I commented:
“What you’ve just seen is not just cute….you’re seeing kids who are learning to practice, and learning the skill of practicing – kids engaged in developing a sense of discipline and collaboration, and for many of these kids – it is their first and perhaps only introduction to being on a stage…..note the smiles – the kids are engaged – and engaged kids want to attend school – research studies show that there is a direct correlation between school attendance and arts activities.” Read the rest of this entry »

Rachel Evans

It’s been 10 years, 140 days (and counting) since the Y2K phenomenon and the millennium mile-marker. Our transition from 20th to 21st century has seen its share of growing pains and celebrations as we’ve grappled with redefining humankind as a century older. Acknowledgement that the first decade of the 2000s has already come and gone was minimal, which seems appropriate.  Most 10-year-olds are just discovering the value of reflection. (Just go with me; imagine we were all “reborn” on January 1, 2000.) But by the age of 25, however, we’d better be masters of self-reflection or the years thereafter will undoubtedly be rocky ones.

It’s time for us to start laying the groundwork for a healthy young adulthood, fellow 21st century ARTSbloggers.  Here are 10 discussion starters:

Rachel’s Top 10 Questions to Consider for Arts Education in 2025

1.    What will our students in 2025 know how to do (without us having to teach them) that our 2010 students don’t?

2.    What skills to do we lack that would make us better citizens in the larger context of American education? How can we conquer the fears and prejudice that may be preventing us from engaging more fully in civic responsibilities on behalf of our students and our disciplines? Read the rest of this entry »

Although I am still shocked by the way that Glee has been accepted by mainstream America, it is comforting to know that creator Ryan Murphy’s depiction of the struggles of outsiders trying to fit into traditional high school stereotypes has become a television and iTunes hit.

There has already been some media coverage of the sudden rise in interest in high school show choirs as a result of Mr. Schu’s antics and now last night’s episode hit home a bit harder than the Madonna episode, Kurt’s coming out story, or the breakup of Rachel and Finn.

In a combination that can only be described as genius, cult TV/film writer/producer Joss Whedon directed last night’s episode dealing with what so many music, art, dance, and theater programs across the nation are fighting—budget cuts. Read the rest of this entry »

Alright – if we had mandatory arts education we would have far less bullying. I honestly think this is true. There’s been a lot of press abut bullying recently – and I’m glad there is. Bullying is a topic that has emerged in nearly every middle and high school setting in the schools with which we have residency programs using the arts. I’ve dealt with bullying as a parent of an elementary school age child who has been bullied this year; and sadly, as a young child myself, I was relentlessly bullied when our family moved when I was in the 4th grade. I’ll never forget it – and it very much shaped who I am today and how I perceive the world and my role in it.

Bullying is essentially about power – power over others. It takes many forms such as physical or verbal abuse, or targeted and relentless teasing. It lingers especially when nothing is done to stop it, and the consequences for the targeted individuals can be (and often are) devastating.  Read the rest of this entry »

I recently moderated a panel at the 25th Annual Winter Music Conference in Miami. It’s not the first place you would think that a panel on arts education would exist and indeed our discussion rounded out a week of panels that included conversation on why DJs should dye their hair to better market themselves. I worried that we would not have an audience – especially since the event was held on the last day of the conference. Adding to my concern, it was also a beautiful Saturday afternoon, it was on Ocean Drive and the beach was literally steps from our discussion room. If individuals made it past the beach, the second hurdle was the lobby where the conference had a collection of vinyl records for sale. While waiting for the room to be set up, I perused the record collection. Who knew that Appolonia released a solo record? Then I wondered, “Who knew about our panel?”

We were seven individuals and, according to the panel description, we were ready to discuss “Why are the arts important to child development and how are interdisciplinary approaches beneficial?” Also, “How does funding affect the quality of education in the Arts?” What a cast of characters we were. We could have given Gilligan’s gang a run for their money. After all, we too had a professor (actually, more than one) and arts leaders, radio talent, and composers to boot. The panelists and I joked that if no one came, we were happy to have met each other and we agreed to take an hour to converse over lunch and the inevitable South Beach cocktail. Read the rest of this entry »

American Express and cause-related website TakePart.com have chosen to feature Americans for the Arts as one of only 10 Arts & Culture organizations in their new social media Members Project campaign. The participation of Americans for the Arts means added visibility and exposure for our organization and its work in arts advocacy and other critical programs, but also a chance to win a $200,000 award from American Express. TakePart.com is a go-to site for volunteering and donating in a variety of topics and causes and is the social action network of Participant Media, the social change-oriented media company behind An Inconvenient Truth and Food Inc.

The Americans for the Arts page of the Member Project can be found here, with links to registering for TakePart.com and for voting in the campaign which runs through May 24, 2010. If you have a Facebook account, you can easily register from this page through Facebook Connect. Read the rest of this entry »

get rid of homos niggers towel heads beaners and tuition will go down tea party USA 4 Eva

This graffiti showed up in several women’s bathroom stalls on my college campus, California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) (just north of San Diego) last week. It fell on the heels of several racial incidents at another local campus, University of California San Diego, and the announcement on our campus, that we had been officially granted “Hispanic Serving Institution” status.

The President of the university immediately issued a statement that “hate crimes on campus will not be tolerated,” and university police “are taking all necessary steps to bring the person responsible to justice.” The president also posted a picture of the graffiti for all to witness (above). Students organized a huge “Stop the hate at CSUSM” rally within days, and during the rally many students expressed their fears, hopes, thoughts, and experiences through rap and poetry. In 1967, when I was in 3d grade, my elementary report card began with these words: Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I was interviewed for a piece on the Keep Arts in Schools website and thought it might be useful to adapt that conversation for this blog conversation. The focus was on the establishment (ore re-establishment) of my office and the specific case-making needed to support the value of arts education from a public policy perspective. I am going to focus here just on my comments about case-making, but encourage people to check out the full interview.

The cultural sector benefits from strong support among elected officials. Mayor Michael Nutter – my boss – was elected in 2007 on a campaign platform that included a strong commitment to arts and culture. This support is also shared by City Council, which ultimately must vote on the cultural budget as part of the overall City budget. The Philadelphia business community is strongly supportive of the arts, but like many other cities has lost most of our corporate headquarters as a result of mergers and consolidation. We have strong support from most of the companies that are headquartered here, as well as from regional headquarters of companies based elsewhere.

Business understands that a thriving cultural sector and creative economy helps them attract and retain workers. It makes this a city where their employees want to live and work, and also fosters the creativity that is increasingly important in business. This does not mean there isn’t always more work to be done educating political and business leaders – it is a continual task. Read the rest of this entry »

This month is proving to be one heck of a roller coaster ride for arts education advocates. On the up side, a U.S. Department of Education “stakeholders” meeting on the reauthorization of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was ground breaking in that it was the first time that the national arts education community had been invited to specifically address the reauthorization policy efforts. On the other hand, on the heels of that meeting, the White House unveiled an education budget that eliminated the 40 million that was allocated specifically to arts education.

While it will be argued that arts education is not eliminated from the budget, just reassigned under other programs, we cannot let this pass by without pause. Reassigning arts education to broader categories and taking the words “arts education” off the budget pages, effectively is a signal of importance–or rather lack of importance in the minds of the officials who have oversight of the budget. This is a terrible move, and one which cannot no go unaddressed. Arts education is core to NCLB, and thus must remain core to the budget and how the budget is outlined in print. But beyond rhetoric, arts education is truly core to how we are as a people in society and how our children will learn to be engaged citizens.  Read the rest of this entry »