Recently, I went to an event that unveiled a glossary of #artsed terms.
When asked if folks could contribute to the definitions, the coordinator said that the definitions were set.
I don’t believe in that, set terms. Language is extremely fluid – that is why Wikipedia is so awesome, it allows us to adjust definitions in real time.
So, in that vein I have opened up those terms to you all. Help us define the terms of #artsed. Help us build our language.
Contribute to #artsed-pedia.
I went to talk talk a while back with David Dower (Arena Stage) and Polly Carl (American Voices New Play Institute @ Arena Stage).
One of the themes that resonated with me was – ME to WE.
Polly talked at length how as a field (they were talking theatre but I think it also applies to #artsed) we need to stop thinking about how to further only our institution. We need to think more systemically, rather than individually.
That is the same case with #artsed. We need to explore issues as an intelligent, integrated whole – not one little guy fighting Goliath.
So – I want to use this opportunity to ask: what do you think?
YEA wants to make this website a space for the WE. Join us. Share.
Let us know what you think. Have an idea for a post. Email us. Leave a comment. Tweet us. Facebook us. WE will respond.
A good friend and colleague of mine, Sarah Aziz, recently attend the Arts in Special Education Consortium‘s conference.
I went two years ago and thought it was the best conference I had been to in years. Panels that include every constituent involved, workshops that modeled good teaching and were fun AND gave you a ready made curriculum at the end (with suggestions on how to adapt). I talked for months about how great it was.
Sarah was there two years ago, a year ago and… this year, Sarah went. She was again impressed but had an overwhelming feeling: preaching to the choir.
Often at our conferences, we not only share best practices but continually try to advocate… to ourselves. What if… we used that energy in more productive ways.
So Sarah and I got to brainstorming in the land of what if…
What if… ASEC planned the Face-to-Face Conference and F2F did ASEC. You know, a swap.
Then, what if… the TCG conference was planned by #artsed folks and #artsed conference was done by the arts administrators.
What if… these conferences were not just about internal conversations, but debates. Debates between education and administration and special education and students and teachers and families and city leaders.
What if… we all forced the conversations outside our boxes. I know, a lot of work. And scary. It is not controlled.
I use twitter and Facebook to share best practices. Those practices are out there, waiting to be found on that wide web. How can we make the time we are together in a room even more productive? With all this technology, we should be able to shift.
Hmm What if…
What is yours? From your point of view, follow our lead and let us know your WHAT IF… for #arted conferences.
I can tell you this: Since participating in the American Alliance for Theatre & Education’s New York Theatre in Our Schools (TIOS) Mini-Conference hosted by the Roundabout Theatre over a year ago, I have felt more engaged in the work and more connected to the #artsed community than I had in a long time previous. In 2011, I went to TIOS as a frustrated classroom teacher, and last summer – motivated in large part by my TIOS experience – I left the DOE to pursue my passion of #artsed. This past April, I attended the TIOS conference with fresh eyes as a newly inspired freelance arts educator. Once again, I was exposed to innovative ideas by leaders in the field who are working to get theatre into our schools.
The power of participation:
S. Leigh Thompson/Alexander Santiago-Jirau, The Forum Project, From the Personal to the Political to the Play
Here, we engaged in exercises related to Boal’s assertion that “the tools of the theatre are available to all.” One especially eye-opening exercise, called “Columbian Hypnosis,” explores the image of power dynamics in our world through movement and interaction. You must participate in this and other Storytelling, De-mechanization and Systems of Power exercises in order to fully understand their implications. I was so moved that I took the Forum Project’s Theatre of the Oppressed and Forum Theatre workshops two weeks later!
Inspiration through debate:
Alex Sarian, MCC Theater: Engaging with Teens: Embracing a Controversial Partnership
In this dynamic conversation, we debated how to take theatre work in schools to the next level. We asked: What can we build and how can we be effective? How can the work be both controversial and responsible? How can we keep the work engaging and relevant? How can we meet standards while realizing that some of the fight about content is built into the mission of the program? I was inspired by the dedication of the group to continue pushing the boundaries around how #artsed and theatre can be a transformative experience in schools.
So many tricks:
Russell Granet’s Keynote Workshop: Students of All Abilities in All Classrooms
Granet offered illuminating advice and activities, including the following:
Tips for working with kids with Autism (and in General): 1) Organize the Space, 2) Articulate Goals, 3) Promote Social Interactions, 4) Avoid Sarcasm.
Diagnostic Activities for ‘Reading a Room’: Ask students to… 1) Line up in height or birthday order 2) Create letters of the alphabet together 3) Tell the stories of their names.
Reminder for All Classrooms: Always Use Reflection. …And being a good model, at the end of his workshop he asked us, “What surprised you? What confirmed something you knew? What was of value?”
The answer to all of those questions is the TIOS conference itself.
What I learned, things I observed – in tweet form:
By Ginger B. Meagher
The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities’ new arts education initiative seeks to use the arts (and some famous names) to help turn around low-performing schools.
Arne Duncan (US Sec. of Ed) released the National Center for Education Statistics report Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools 99-00, 09-10.
It is pretty exciting… for one of those dry, statistic-based, report-style pieces of information.
Interested in Duncan’s remarks?
Despite the brutal budget climate in the states and in Washington, arts education must not just survive but thrive. A well-rounded education is simply too vital to our students’ success to let the teaching of the arts and humanities erode.
Interested in the full report? Or the 2-page bullet point version?
Ninety four percent of elementary schools reported instruction designated specifically for music and 83 percent specifically for visual arts in the 2009-10 school year.
Only 3 percent and 4 percent of elementary schools reported instruction designated specifically for dance and drama/theatre, respectively, in the 2009-10 school year. This represents a decrease from 20 percent of elementary schools offering instruction designated specifically for both arts subjects in the 1999-2000 school year.
In the 2008-09 school year, most secondary schools offered instruction designated specifically for music (91 percent) and visual arts (89 percent). About 12 percent offered instruction designated specifically for dance and 45 percent offered instruction designated specifically for drama/theatre. None of these percentages represent a significant change from the 1999-2000 school year.
Onward we roll.
I feel like I spend so much of my life talking about education (specifically #artsed).
About six months ago it was become tedious. It was/is ridiculous.
I was becoming one of those broken record tedious individuals in #artsed that I never wanted to become. Which = constantly frustrated.
So I decided to change things up:
I decided to change my art habits. Instead of seeing lots of art – I focused on art that I wanted to see, rather than art that I had/have to see for my job.
I have been making art, theatre-making in fact. It is extremely difficult, producing a new-work, but I do it because I really enjoy doing it.
I keep doings things that I have always wanted to do (screen printing and surfing) and things that I love to do, things I actually enjoy. I am learning SO much. It is awesome.
Enjoyment.
______________
So that all leads to a conversation I was having with my good friend Katy Rubin today. She is leading the charge of Theatre of the Oppressed NYC. She is amazing/brilliant.
She said something that beyond-inspired me.
She was talking about a professional development she did and said something like – Well, I decided with this series had to start from a place where everyone involved was enjoying themselves.
Happiness.
Enjoyment.
I ask myself – when do I feel the most engaged? When I am enjoying myself (when I am playing around online, at a computer, in the street, at the grocery store, in a classroom, on a stage) or when other people are enjoying themselves (it is contagious).
Isn’t that our power, #artsed? We know how to have fun. Not only our power, that is the power of sports, also. Students are having a good time (and learning a little along the way…). Come to think of it – isn’t that the secret of the private school system. They foster a culture. A culture that is all about enjoyment – the teachers are enjoying themselves, the students are as well, the parents are involved and everyone is happy(… well happier).
And enjoyment is not all nonsense. Challenges can include enjoyment – actually they often are enjoyable.
We spend so much time talking about arts integration, standards, quality, arts education’s relationship to the common core, better engagement, blah, blah, blah.
Education spends so much time talking assessment, testing, teacher quality, students quality, blah, blah, blah… Maybe rather than creating a culture of fear, the goal of education reform should be culture of enjoyment.
I am sure that any education reformer would read this and say… Enjoyment? Ridiculous notion.
But I send it forth into the world.
Enjoyment.
The secret ingredient to education’s recipe for reform?
_______________
I also just googled “enjoyment” for an image to include… pretty hilarious.
(Patrick)
Food for thought.
Nothing more, nothing less.
From http://www.examiner.com/k-12-in-topeka/in-what-other-profession (written by David Reber):
I’m going to step out of my usual third-person writing voice for a moment. As a parent I received a letter last week from the Kansas State Board of Education, informing me that my children’s school district had been placed on “improvement” status for failing to meet “adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind law.
I thought it ironic that our schools were judged inadequate by people who haven’t set foot in them, so I wrote a letter to my local newspaper. Predictably, my letter elicited a deluge of comments in the paper’s online forum. Many remarks came from armchair educators and anti-teacher, anti-public school evangelists quick to discredit anything I had to say under the rationale of “he’s a teacher.” What could a teacher possibly know about education?
Countless arguments used to denigrate public school teachers begin with the phrase “in what other profession….” and conclude with practically anything the anti-teacher pundits find offensive about public education. Due process and collective bargaining are favorite targets, as are the erroneous but tightly held beliefs that teachers are under-worked, over-paid (earning million-dollar pensions), and not accountable for anything.
In what other profession, indeed.
In what other profession are the licensed professionals considered the LEAST knowledgeable about the job? You seldom if ever hear “that guy couldn’t possibly know a thing about law enforcement – he’s a police officer”, or “she can’t be trusted talking about fire safety – she’s a firefighter.”
In what other profession is experience viewed as a liability rather than an asset? You won’t find a contractor advertising “choose me – I’ve never done this before”, and your doctor won’t recommend a surgeon on the basis of her “having very little experience with the procedure”.
In what other profession is the desire for competitive salary viewed as proof of callous indifference towards the job? You won’t hear many say “that lawyer charges a lot of money, she obviously doesn’t care about her clients”, or “that coach earns millions – clearly he doesn’t care about the team.”
But look around. You’ll find droves of armchair educators who summarily dismiss any statement about education when it comes from a teacher. Likewise, it’s easy to find politicians, pundits, and profiteers who refer to our veteran teachers as ineffective, overpriced “dead wood”. Only the rookies could possibly be any good, or worth the food-stamp-eligiblestarting salaries we pay them.
And if teachers dare ask for a raise, this is taken by many as clear evidence that teachers don’t give a porcupine’s posterior about kids. In fact, some say if teachers really cared about their students they would insist on earning LESS money.
If that entire attitude weren’t bad enough, what other profession is legally held to PERFECTION by 2014? Are police required to eliminate all crime? Are firefighters required to eliminate all fires? Are doctors required to cure all patients? Are lawyers required to win all cases? Are coaches required to win all games? Of course they aren’t.
For no other profession do so many outsiders refuse to accept the realities of an imperfect world. Crime happens. Fire happens. Illness happens. As for lawyers and coaches, where there’s a winner there must also be a loser. People accept all these realities, until they apply to public education.
If a poverty-stricken, drug-addled meth-cooker burns down his house, suffers third degree burns, and then goes to jail; we don’t blame the police, fire department, doctors, and defense attorneys for his predicament. But if that kid doesn’t graduate high school, it’s clearly the teacher’s fault.
And if someone – anyone – tries to tell you otherwise; don’t listen. He must be a teacher.
I love smart arts folks giving teens a space to do things. Berkeley Rep and their teens council are on a roll (We think they are very cool). Check out their new initiative:
CLAIM: Your Education. Your Voice. Your Arts.
(For more info: www.berkeleyrep.org/claimyourarts or www.facebook.com/claimyourarts ).
It’s a kick-off to a larger teen arts advocacy initiative which will include sending a Berkeley Rep Teen Council delegation to Arts Advocacy Day in D.C. this Spring (pending their fundraising efforts, cross fingers.) This is the second year of the teen Arts Advocacy committee, born out of the teens’ desire to engage and mobilize their peers around issues of access to equitable arts education in their schools. They have the right impulses; they just need the tools, some encouragement, and a platform, which is where we’re stepping in. (Event details below)
How can you help?
- Show your support.
- Please follow us (@teen_council ) on Twitter this week and tweet your support by using the hashtag #claimyourARTS. Or you can post a message of support on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/claimyourarts.
- We’ll be compiling all of the pro-arts ed tweets with the #claimyourARTS hashtag and using them in a collective art project at the conference.
- As you can imagine, asking teenagers to give up a Sunday to learn about arts advocacy is a hard sell, so I’m trying to give them a lot of positive reinforcement. A groundswell of support from the arts/entertainment community will make a huge impression on them, so please feel free to share this request with other colleagues. Just remind them to use #claimyourARTS or paste on www.facebook.com/claimyourarts so we can track it.
