Role of the Arts in Whole Child Education

The Whole Child Blog has been focusing on the critical role of the arts throughout a whole child education. The arts play an essential role in providing each student with a well-rounded education that meets the needs of the whole child.

Read the full post here:

http://blog.wholechildeducation.org/2010/10/29/arts-round-up/

Teaching Design for Change

One of our teacher members (thanks Slater!) shared a link to this TED video of Emily Pilloton discussing design-led community transformation through education.

Emily Pilloton TED Video

Art:21 Offers Year-long Program for Educators

Art21 is launching the second year of Art21 Educators, an intensive, year-long professional development initiative designed to cultivate and support K-12 art educators interested in bringing contemporary art, artists, and themes into their classrooms.

This round of Art21 Educators will be accepting applications from K-12 art and media teachers from across the United States. Emphasis will be placed on creating a diverse group of participants who reflect urban, rural, and suburban communities as well as distinct student populations.

If you don’t have time for a full-year commitment, you can always watch full episodes of Art21 online and check out lesson plans from teachers across the US!

Arts Education Makes Kids Smart- duh!

CarolinaParent.Com has an interesting article (written by Karen Lewis Taylor) discussing the connection of arts education and student achievement.

Read it here: http://www.carolinaparent.com/articles/features/featurearticle.aspx?cid=922

Daniel Pink

Daniel Pink keeps coming up at our monthly TAG meetings. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future charts the rise of right-brain thinking in modern economies and describes the six abilities individuals and organizations must master in an outsourced, automated age. A Whole New Mind is a long-running New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller that has been translated into 20 languages.

Educators can download a free PDF discussion guide here: http://www.danpink.com/whole-new-mind

Teaching at-risk students art, a submission for the Teacher Salary Project

Recently I had the honor of being asked to write something about my experience of teaching at-risk students art for a project called “The Teacher Salary Project”.   The project is meant to bring awareness to the hardships teachers face in public education today. Dave Eggers, who wrote the screenplay for “Where the Wild Things Are”, is involved and there will  eventually be a full length documentary on teachers.  The following is what I wrote: the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I hope it provides some perspective on what I consider a crisis in education today.  With roughly 50% of new teachers quiting within the first 5 years, and the state and nation facing a roughly 30% dropout rate before the age of 18.  Here is a link to the project:

http://theteachersalaryproject.org/

and here is what I wrote: 

                As a teacher in his fifth year, I find myself at the threshold of “should I dive all the way in, or should I get out?”  I am choosing to dive all the way in.  I teach at-risk students, many in gangs, trying to get out of gangs, pregnant teens, living in foster homes, abused, etc.; a real challenging populace to teach.  The age range for the students I teach is 14-20.  Many come to the classroom with only a third- grade reading level.  I remember passing out information my first year and having the students read aloud.  The first student I called to read would not do so, and responded with a bad attitude.  I learned that it was because he simply couldn’t read it.  He was eighteen years old.  Fortunately, I teach art and I was able to focus on visual learning allowing the student to demonstrate his high level of intelligence with creative skills, visual space relations, and technical skills.  This is why I chose to stay in teaching.  We do make a difference, however it is a continuous battle.  I had a one hundred dollar budget for this year.  It is spent and used already.  I literally pick hub caps off the side of the road to teach the “color wheel”.

                Other battles I face teaching at-risk students are their lack of motivation, poor attendance (I’ve had students miss 60 days out of 90), and low self confidence.  Students sent to alternative schools have often been told by previous teachers or administrators that they can’t make it.  Other schools can’t handle them.  These students often lower their base schools’ test scores.  This is why I’m glad I teach art: it gives the students a class in which they can have fun and show different means of intelligence, without the pressure of the state tests.   This may soon change, however, as they may be standardizing art.  This would be very tough on me as a teacher who likes to teach students to “think outside the box”. 

                Taking art can change students’ lives.  I first had Jeannine as a student during my first year of teaching.  She had never taken art before and was taking the class simply because it was an elective.  I gave the students a collage project.  I remember looking at Jeannine’s piece and being astonished.  It gave me chills.  It was like a Romare Bearden masterpiece.  Jeannine continued to grow and flourish with art.  Before long we had a great portfolio and she was accepted to the Art Institute in Charlotte.  I just saw her this month and she is in the last year of a four- year fashion marketing program and will graduate in June.  She aspires to work with Betsey Johnson.  I consider her like a daughter.  There are not too many jobs like teaching in which one can make the real connections with today’s youth.  By simply listening to a student, you can help guide a talented young mind in a direction that forever alters their life.  Jeannine has made a lot of the struggles I face worth it.  To me, helping the down trodden find their talent and giving them an outlet for success is an honor.

                Besides Jeannine, I have had many students who have altered the way I look at life.  I was having a heart to heart talk with a student who was obviously in a gang. He started selling drugs because he didn’t want his mom to prostitute anymore to pay rent.  He was 16, and his goal in life was “to live to see 17.”  There are students whose fathers have raped them and they are carrying the child.  I had a tough, hardened, male cry when he saw he made an “A” in art.  He just looked at me and said “I have never made above a D.”   For the 90 minutes a day I have these students, I try to create an atmosphere where all students can succeed and escape from their troubles.  I also ask my students to reflect on who they are and how they can be more positive in their future endeavors.

                However, I realize that I have a wonderful wife who makes a great salary which gets us through a lot of financial burdens.  I could not do this alone, especially with a child.  That is a powerful statement about our society that we are not paying a living salary to many teachers who are guiding our future’s minds.   When people hear that you are a public school teacher, they really don’t understand all that entails.  We are shaping the work force to come, we are keeping students out of gangs, and we are keeping students from giving up hope.   We are sometimes more a part of a students’ life than their parents.  Teachers do make a difference: a positive one in many cases.   As a society, we can’t afford to have the teaching profession under- funded and not held in high regard.  We need quality teachers in the field now more than ever; however we have never been so undervalued.

Cheers,

$(@TT

Museum News Article on Tweens

Finally someone is paying attention to tweens!

There is a very interesting article in this month’s AAM Museum News magazine that explores some uncharted territory of tweens’ opinions on museums.

http://www.aam-us.org/pubs/mn/tween.cfm

Basically the writers’ discovered that tweens want to have interactive, “fun” experiences at museums. CAM’s programming initiatives plan to target middle and high school students. So what kind of activities can CAM offer that are “cool” and “fun” for tweens??? Hummmmm… we are working on it. Do you have any suggestions?

We have only just begun…

Check back soon for posts from the Contemporary Art Museum’s Teacher Advisory Group…