Dewey21C

People say to me, what's the problem? Is anyone really against the arts in schools?

My typical response is that it's not often one single event, it's more about the waves that wash it off the beach. Those waves have been the back-to-basics movement, NCLB, budget cuts, accountability, principal empowerment, site-based management, and so much more.

It's why some of us in NYC have dug in our heels about fighting to restore dedicated funding (Project Arts) for the arts. This dedicated funding is often the only thing that holds the arts in place, the only anchor so to speak when that wave hits hard.

Also, combined with things like minimum instructional standards, is the only thing that establishes an equitable starting point for all kids in a system. In essence, it's a tool of both equity and quality with a subject area that needs to be treated in ways different from other subjects, in light of how severely the deck is stacked against it. And by the deck, I mean the educational-industrial-testing-complex.

There are big waves, and then the small ones, which end up in the category I would like to call "death by a thousand little cuts." Do you know that phrase?

Here is another of the little cuts. Maybe not so little if you have a kid in one of these district schools:  A story in Gotham Schools about how the NYCDOE's plan to expand charter schools into district school space will result in the loss of arts spaces, science labs, etc.

If you don't know how it works, or can't believe it, sorry, well it basically works like this. Part of your school building is given over to a charter school. Yes. In essence, that's just what happens. Kiss your art room goodbye. Applied for a grant from the school district to create a sprung floor for a dance room, and got the money to make an appropriate space for dance education. Tough luck. Kiss your dance room goodbye. 

The precise term is "turned," a diminutive of "turnaround," I presume. Turnaround being the latest and greatest craze in school reform.

I believe the term is used in the espionage business as well. As in she "turned rogue."

So, in short order:

A middle school in the well-to-do Georgetown section of DC fails to attract students from its zoned area. Those parents choose to send their kids to private schools.

Responding to a directive from the then Board of Education, the school develops a strong arts program and institutes a screened process for admission.

The school becomes a "gem" in the system, with a winning arts program and comparative high performance on standardized tests.

The school gets a new building.

The economy tanks, leading more parents from the predominantly white neighborhood to look at the school as an option for their students.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the school's student population is more than 70% African American.

So, here comes the Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, ready to "turn" this school in ways not yet announced officially, but clearly targeting how the a repositioning of the school as a feeder for the local families.

It's a great story of the how difficult it must be to be a school system leader, an educator, and a parent. What is coherent and successful one day, is incoherent the next, particularly in terms of policy. And, this is also a great example of the relationship between policy and practice.

Certainly worth the read.

Not Eager to March to Rhee's Drum--Parents and Staff Fret over Schools Chief's Plan for Hardy Middle, The Washington Post

Nearly three-quarters of its students are proficient in reading, according to last spring's standardized test. Its acclaimed fine arts and instrumental music program, built by longtime Principal Patrick Pope, draws students from across the city and has helped develop artists such as bassist Ben Williams, winner of the 2009 Thelonious Monk jazz competition.

What needs to turn, she said, is the attitude of the school's leadership, which she said has not always been welcoming to neighborhood families. The school has an application process, which includes a letter of recommendation and "evidence of experience" in art, music or theater in the form of a portfolio or program from a school performance. Students also must take a 90-minute "workshop" with the school's arts and general education teachers.

That has left the misimpression, Rhee said, that Hardy is specialty school not open to the surrounding community. "We need to do a lot of clarifying," she said. "Hardy has an arts component, but you don't have to think you have the next Whitney Houston on your hands to send your kids to this school."

I will try hard to be positive and productive with this blog. I promise.

Okay, the long awaited Race to the Top final guidelines have been released. At the bottom of this entry I will provide a set of the links to the Executive Summary, full guidelines, press release, etc.

First, let's address the question: what about arts education?

The short answer is that the news is not good.  Arts education is an outlier in RttT.

It is possible to fit it in between the lines here and there, but an opening for something larger is pretty hard to discern on any practical level. Will some of the state applications include aspects related to arts education? Yes. How significant will they be? Most likely what we will see in arts education and RttT will be relatively minor.

The way it stands, well, a state department of education (the applicant) would have to go out on a limb for arts education as a literal reading of the guidelines do not support any major efforts in this regard.

Interestingly, in her Artsjournal.com blog today, Judith Dobrzynski/Real Clear Arts asks "what happened to the Education Campaign Pledge?"

Specifically she asks: "One speech does not a policy make, but some people are wondering about President Obama's commitment to arts education after hearing his speech on education last week."

The long answer is that the administration is in a sort of dilemma. What appeared in the education platform leading up to the primary, in terms of arts education, disappeared in the general election when the campaign released what was its last and final education agenda prior to the general election.

You can read about that here.

So, what we have is a case of an administration that is supportive of arts education but cannot find a way to fit it into major education policies. Another case in point with another administration: Remember NCLB, where arts became a core subject. And...and...and?

Without question, President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have spoken more about the importance of arts education than we have ever witnessed from any White House whatsoever including that of Clinton.

That being said, they may not know what to do about it beyond using the bully pulpit.

Judy is correct to ask the question. I would refine the context quite a bit by stating that the question should be based not upon the content of Obama's November 4th speech in Wisconsin, but instead upon the writing that appeared on the wall a long time ago.

I ran into a friend very shortly after Arne Duncan held a brief phone conference with the arts education field and issued a open letter to school superintendents and other education officials advising them on the importance of arts education and the ways in which Title One funds could be used to support it.

She said to me, with a big smile and a bounce in her step: "isn't this great; don't you think?"

My reply: "talk is cheap." Seriously, that's what I said. (It was early in the morning...)

Am I taking aim at the administration on this?  Well, yes and no. I believe that the focus on STEM subjects in RttT is a great example of how an opening for arts education could have been created in the guidelines. It was the prime moment to make good on the rhetoric.

Perhaps this is the fault of the arts education field?  As I was looking over the final guidelines this morning, I wrote on the back of the document: does RttT define an agenda?

What I mean by this is: what is missing from RttT and what are the implications for future actions?

At the same time, as I mentioned above, this helps to clarify the challenge to us: arts education is an outlier in education, plain and simple. So, while speeches from the administration about the importance of the arts are indeed important, they only go so far. We're not going to see more I believe, without us as a field helping to show the way. A tall order. I know. And, I don't think it's as simple as Quincy Jones convening a group of people to make demands.

So, I finish for the moment with this question: while Duncan's letter to school leaders is important, as I wrote about it at the time, well, what is someone to do: brandish the letter and show it to a principal or superintendent who decides to cut the arts?

USDOE Race to the Top

RttT Executive Summary

A Summary of Changes Made to the Final Guidelines

The Full Guidelines

It's not the smoothest time for teacher unions these days. They're a a pretty easy target when people wring their hands about the state of K-12 public education. But, hey, what would their critics do without them. Who would they have to criticize and blame? (The answer is: teacher colleges and school boards, in case you haven't heard.)

If you look around at most of the arts education programs nationally, you will find that the local teachers union is rarely part of the project. I believe that most people tend to view these unions solely through the lens of labor issues. And in an era when charter schools are the simple answer for many, many people, the teachers unions are in a difficult spot public-relations wise.

We have a slightly different perspective. This Saturday, The Center for Arts Education is presenting the first of three city-wide professional development conferences in partnership with the United Federation of Teachers Teacher Center (UFTTC). The UFTTC Teacher Center is the long-standing educational arm of the local New York City teachers union: The United Federation of Teachers. This first conference will focus on the integration of the arts, grades K-5.

Our colleagues at the UFTTC refer to this as a professional teacher conference.

The second conference in February will focus on arts education curricula and resources grade K-12. The final conference for this year, in May, will look at Career Readiness and Awareness Through the Arts, Grades 6-12.

Partnering with the teachers union is an easy call for me. First, they helped to found The Center for Arts Education, being incredibly supportive from the very first moment. Second, we've worked with them in an assortment of ways over the years, including partnering with them to create our Promising Practices publication in 1999. Lately, they've become an important partner in our advocacy work. Third, perhaps most important, is that we believe the best route to working with teachers in a school system that is becoming increasingly decentralized, is to find the pathway right to the teachers. What could be a better way than through the educational arm of the UFT, which has provided a wide range or professional development and support for teachers and para professionals for many, many years.

Moreover, these partnerships are expanding to include NYSUT, the state-wide teachers union in New York, as well as the American Federation of Teachers, which is the national union for the UFT and other local AFT chapters across the country.

I have been to just a few conference on arts education over the years. What I have found is that the number of school teachers and administrators that attend is always very, very small. So, the thought of working directly with teachers through their union holds great promise for connecting with the teachers without having to depend on the school district for access.

What has it been like to work with them you may be wondering?  I cannot say thank them enough. The two point people we've been dealing with at the UFTTC, Aminda Gentile, who runs the UFT Teacher Center, and Roberto Benetiz, our liason (he's a former teacher and administrator) are huge champions of the arts and have rolled up their sleeves to get our conferences, which I view as a beginning, off the ground.

I should also mention that the UFT has a new President: Michael Mulgrew. His pathway from professional carpenter, to Career and Technical Education Teacher, to union leader, gives him a very strong understanding and appreciation of the arts.

I am looking forward very much to this first conference on Saturday morning at the UFT Headquarters in Lower Manhattan...

Maybe I will have some pictures for you.

Presumably, this blog will be subject to some criticism by the Association of Hypnotherapists.

In today's New York Daily News, there is an article about the New York City Department of Education dropping almost $375,000 on the services of a "new age hypnotherapist." 

Apparently, this consultant was brought on board to "boost productivity and morale among middle managers" in the district.

Really, I am not putting you on here. I promise.

In a system  where spending on arts supplies was reduced by $7 million before the economy tanked, you have to wonder just a wee bit about how it can be spending money on a consultancy like this. You also have to wonder why it needs productivity and morale boosted, through the services of a hypnotherapist no less ?

Is there a logic model for this? What are the outputs? Is there an growing issue with past life recall among middle managers? So many questions, so little time...

Now, let me see, how many copies of the NYCDOE's Arts Blueprints could be made available for free with $375,000?

(Yes, the hard copy must be paid for, by schools and outside organizations.)

Here are a few tidbits I have come across recently and not so recently; most in person and a few in writing:

You arts people think that all principals have to do all day is think about arts education.
School District Official

Do you really, in your heart of hearts, believe that any other subject other than the arts should be taught?
School District Official

I would rather kids have nothing than have arts education of low quality.
School District Administrator

Children are transformed by simply walking into ____________ (performance venue--you can fill in the blank).
Famous Artist and Board Member of Unsaid Institution

We are proud to have served the millionth child.
Performing Arts Organization Promotional Materials

The integration of the arts cannot be done at the high school level.
School District Administrator

I am only really interested in a broad arts education that is integrated across the curriculum.
Principal

The integration of the arts has no quality and no sequence and cannot be accounted for.
Professor of Education

When is the arts program going to include us?
A non-arts subject area teacher in middle school.

We like arts because there are no wrong answers.
School Principal

We do not like the arts because there are no wrong answers.
CEO

Parents are the key to arts education.
Foundation Staff Member

Parents are a waste of time.
The very same Foundation Staff Member

Parents in low income areas don't care about the arts.
Arts Education Consultant

Parents in low income schools understand that the arts are part of a well-rounded education.
Grass Roots Organizer.

Low performing students shouldn't be required to have the arts.
School District Official

Music Saves Lives.
Arts Advocate

There would be no arts education without cultural organizations.
Arts Administrator

There is no arts education in our schools.
Elected Official

This year is going to be another great year for arts education.
City Official (in the same school district as the elected official)

I had no arts in elementary school.
Middle School Student

95 percent of Elementary Schools have an arts teacher.
School District Official

We must do something about ensuring that artists entering schools have basic training.
Director of Arts Education/Cultural Organization

After all the training artists have already received, why should we have to receive additional training? We're not teachers; we're artists.
Teaching Artist

Oh, I saw you complaining, er, I mean advocating for something or other in the press the other day.
Former School District Official (and friend)

Okay, that's my blog for today...consider this part one of a recurring motif...and yes, I promise, they are all for real, none have been invented.

To read the previous installments of Ted's arts education travelogue click here for the first entry; here for the second; here for the third; here for the fourth; and here for the fifth.

I want to thank my friend Ted for these thoughtful, rich, and fascinating posts. I am grateful that he chose Dewey21C as a vehicle for sharing what it was like for the New York Philharmonic's education program to tour overseas. And besides these posts being just plain interesting to read, I think they also give a great sense of the caliber of people we have as colleagues in this field.

Thank you Ted. Really swell job!!

 RK

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Nov. 1 2009

A solid month of travels and projects in three different countries leave so much for the Teaching Artists and me to process. And we will. We have many new relationships to continue and the promise of continuing work in all these places. But for now, a few parting thoughts.

People talk about the world getting smaller, but for me it gets bigger. Yes, we've found much that is the same about kids and about learning, but at this point I'm thinking more about the seemingly bottomless levels of difference among Japanese, Korean, and American cultures - and don't even get me started on Arabian. The history of conflict and commerce among China, Japan, and Korea influences differences that seem subtle only to us. And that's only one way to think about it. Then I imagine multiplying the layers and complexities by regions of each country - rural versus urban, dominant culture versus tribal cultures - and then by 140 countries. It's really not a small world, after all.

OK, so what about Arabia? Case in point. Abu Dhabi presented so many puzzles I can hardly begin to reflect on it. And how much of the Arab world does this capital city of the tiny United Arab Emirates even begin to reveal? Part of what makes Abu Dhabi so puzzling is that what one sees is such a mix of cultures - expatriate actually more than Emirati - that have jostled together for only a few decades, in the midst of extreme wealth, rapid development, and punishing climate. Our Teaching Artists Ensemble played to receptive audiences in six private schools, mostly British and American, all co-educational, with familiar educational values. Many families from these schools followed through by attending the Philharmonic's Young People's Concert. But what kind of educational philosophy would we find in the state schools? What happens when you separate boys and girls from the start? And who goes to those schools? From what we saw, Emirati families are more likely to be more affluent and wield more gadgets than expats. Does the army of service workers, who get bussed in every morning to the big hotels, have children in the country, and are they in the state schools? So much more to explore on return visits.

One incident in Abu Dhabi stands out in memory. In a private school that's all-Emirati, and co-educational, classes were seated on the floor for our interactive concert, as usual, with younger classes in front and older in back. In only the back two rows, girls were wearing head scarves, having reached the age of about 12. And following what seems to be a global law, hands shot up and kids participated everywhere except in the back rows of older kids. But one girl back there picked up on the gestural activity of tracing a melody in the air, and for the rest of the concert vigorously responded with her arms to music by Messiaen, Francaix, and Mozart. Was she so very different from the others? Teachers whom we asked afterward didn't seem to think so. Was she expressing what others felt, but could not express? Or had our multiple-intelligences-informed approach succeeded in tapping the particular competencies of this girl? What did her peers think of her active participation, and would those opinions be pretty much like those in the United States, or would they be colored by culture and religion? Might the connection she found with music then carry over into her enjoyment of other music, or might it conflict with a prohibition on dancing? I fear the questions reveal more naivete than insight, but we have to start somewhere.

Perhaps the bafflement I felt at this girl's extremely positive response to Western music, and to our presentation, is emblematic of where we are right now in this ongoing intercultural experiment. Bringing aesthetic education, student-centered learning, interactive performance and all the rest into very different cultures can be deceptively easy, and can hit roadblocks that take a long time to unravel. All indications are that we will be able to continue working in these countries and perhaps others as well, and we'll seek to understand more. At the same time, I think our greatest value and expertise is not in anthropology or sociology but in performance and the style of teaching we've developed. Ultimately, I leave it to the experts in each country to decide what to make of what the New York Philharmonic has to offer, and to adapt whatever seems useful to local culture and need.

Theodore Wiprud
Director of Education, New York Philharmonic
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Theodore Wiprud has directed the Education Department of the New York Philharmonic since October 2004. The Philharmonic's education programs include the historic Young People's Concerts, the new Very Young People's Concerts, one of the largest in-school program of any US orchestra, adult education programs, and many special projects.

Mr. Wiprud has also created innovative programs as director of education and community engagement at the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra; served as associate director of The Commission Project, and assisted the Orchestra of St. Luke's on its education programs. He has worked as a teaching artist and resident composer in a number of New York City schools. From 1990 to 1997, Mr. Wiprud directed national grantmaking programs at Meet The Composer. During the 1980's, he taught and directed the music department at Walnut Hill School, a pre-professional arts boarding school near Boston.

Mr. Wiprud is also known as a composer and an innovative concert producer, until recently programming a variety of chamber series for the Brooklyn Philharmonic. His own music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and voice is published by Allemar Music.

Mr. Wiprud earned his A.B. in Biochemistry at Harvard, and his M.Mus. in Theory and Composition at Boston University, and studied at Cambridge University as a Visiting Scholar.

September 2008

Where do the key candidates for Mayor of New York City stand on arts education???

The organization I work for is fortunate, very fortunate indeed to have a grant from the USDOE as part of its Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination (AEMDD) program.

It is near impossible to be awarded one of these highly competitive grants unless you have a quasi-experimental research design as part of the overall project design. Essentially what makes it a quasi-experimental design is that it lacks a randomized control. It does have a control group (otherwise it would be a non-experimental design), and the common lens of research across all of these USDOE AEMDD grants is standardized test scores in ELA and math.

The USDOE is particularly interested in the question of how the project or let's use the term "treatment" will affect the ELA and math test scores for those students who participate versus students of similar demographics that do not.

Today more than ever, using the state ELA and math tests raises a very complicated question that you might not have dealt with or considered a few years ago. It is provoked by the test scores having risen dramatically across New York State over the past couple of years, in nearly every school district regardless of the approach of the individual district.

So, you've got scores catapulting across the State of New York, no matter what the treatment, reform, intervention, and here we are trying to measure our program using these very same test scores.

Yes, of course, the research will still report out on the differences between students in the program and those who are not. So, what's the big deal you might ask?

But wait, consider this: the gold standard of ELA and math assessment, the NAEP scores, are at odds with these increases. And there's even more, including  a fair number of people in education who are either reporting or suspecting an increase in cheating, or scores being changed by educators as an outgrowth of the increasing stakes associated with these tests.

Do you see a problem?

No? Yes? Maybe?

All this has led many to question the validity of these tests. The Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, Merryl Tisch, recently addressed this issue by saying that the tests would be revised to make them less predictable.

So, you might have thought this post would be the usual jeremiad against standardized testing leading to a narrowing of the curriculum. Nope, this is an altogether different twist, essentially centered in fundamental questions about the validity of research components that are based on these test scores.

Now, to be fair, we are looking at a host of other issues, both qualitative and quantitative. But, when considerable questions are being raised about the standardized tests themselves, it positions whatever research you might be doing on the effects of your program on ELA and math tests to prospectively be an even bigger house of cards than ever before.

In New York City, principals have been empowered to be the CEO's of the school building. A big difference between these principals and CEO's however, is that in the corporate model there is a a board of directors. More than ever, these principals operate as free agents.

So, for the time being, if a principal doesn't want to support arts education, there's not much that's going to happen to change that. They really have no supervisors in a traditional sense. Most people view this as double-edged sword.

Some people think the narrowing of the curriculum is a myth. I think the most credible take on it is that the narrowing had already occurred before NCLB and that NCLB's effect on narrowing is most evident at low performing schools. That is indeed what the GAO found in a recent study.

One way or the other, the education-industrial-complex is built on standardized testing in math and ELA.

Okay, here's one example of curriculum narrowing. It's a story about a New York City fourth grader with solid test scores who has been barred from taking an after school dance class in order to focus on test prep.

With no one to go to except the schools chancellor, these parents chose to take this public. They didn't have a lot of options.

As they often say when your team loses: read it and weep.

Queens Child Devastated: She Wants to Dance But Put in Test Prep Instead, NY Daily News

Kelly did well on her report card from PS 207 last year, scoring Level 4 on the state math exam.

She passed the reading test with a Level 3, which her teacher's comment characterized as "Meeting grade standards."

Department of Education spokesman William Havemann characterized the younger Kelly as scoring "a low level 3" on reading and said the school was "ensuring that all students have the extra help they need."

At Dewey21C, It would be impossible ignore the passing of Ted Sizer, one giant of an educator. You see, Sizer was considered by many to be the heir to John Dewey.

There will be obituaries everywhere, as well as tributes. He footprint was all that.

I never had the privilege of meeting Mr. Sizer, but have read and been inspired by his work and vision, a vision that always seemed to reflect the complexity of what was at hand. And today, in so many ways, remains a counter-balance to the technical solution variant of school reform so evident all around us.

At the Center for Arts Education, Sizer's thinking was evidently behind so much of the first decade of work in school partnerships. This was work, in my humble opinion, that reshaped and reframed the entire notion of school partnerships with arts organizations (and post secondary institutions).

The work was based upon the needs and interests of local schools, and was not determined by one curriculum, framework, or blueprint--no matter how well liked or politically connected the document was. Guiding principles were established to provide some coherence, but in the end, the school community and its partners determined much of what they would do and where they would go.

This was all fueled by The Annenberg Foundation, which also fueled the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. While much of the school reform world likes to trash the Annenberg Challenge as one colossal failure, they don't often bother to look at the work of the three Annenberg Challenge organizations devoted to arts education. It's as if it doesn't really count. In many respects, that is a metaphor for the very place of arts education in schools then and now, and a good guide as to where we need to drive to as a field and hopefully one day, a movement.

Sizer was heading up the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, and naturally, his work and principles had an effect on the thinking of my very fine friend and colleague at CAE during this time: Hollis Headrick,  Greg McCaslin, and Russell Granet, among others. Whether by explicit design or lurking in the background, the connection to Sizer is difficult to deny.

My takeaway about Sizer is that he was ultimately about the art and craft of education, and that was and will remain, refreshing, instructive, and central.

I have thought a great deal about quality of conversation. It is something I have been wanting to blog about. It is something I want to capture better, as a way of measuring, understanding, and communicating. What I mean specifically is how I am often deeply moved by the ways in which the quality of the conversation illuminates the development of understanding, shared language, individual and collective capacities, learning, programmatic objectives, skills, and so much more. It would be fair to say that it's the polar opposite of the standardized test.

And it makes me think, so very much, of the work of Ted Sizer.

I leave you with a a group of quotes:

It is an inescapable reality that students learn at different rates in different ways.That creates the need for a schedule of sensitivity that not only teachers close to the particular student can devise - not some theory-driven, central office, computer-managed schedule.

'We parade adolescents before snippets of time. Any one teacher will usually see more than 10 students and often more than a 100 a day. Such a system denies teachers the chance to know many students well, to learn how a particular student's mind works.

Only by examining the existing compromises in schools, however painful that may be, and moving beyond them, can one form more thoughtful schools.  And only in thoughtful schools can thoughtful students be hatched.  And this requires thoughtful leaders.

Schools are complicated places.  Attitudes - those of teachers, students and others - must change as well as the structures of the schools in which they work. This takes time, political protection and patience.

When the students forget the explicit contents of today's lesson - and we know that they will - what is left? Anything? What happens after they forget the difference between atomic number and atomic mass? What is left after they forget the difference between the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? After they forget the rhyme and scheme and meter of a Shakespearean Sonnet or between sin, cos and tan?

Respect for students starts with respect for teachers, for them as individuals, for their work, and for their workplace.

Ed in the Apple is a blog that I've been reading since it first started a few years ago. My understanding is that the blog is associated with someone at the United Federation of Teachers. It's a very good blog in terms of giving a feel for what's going on from a teacher's perspective, and yes, to some degree from a teacher's union perspective. But, it's not all dogma, really. It very often takes the long view, bringing a rare historical perspective to the writing. And, it's pretty hard hitting. While there are certainly any number of blogs that are from individual teachers, there is something quite engaging and instructive coming from people who write from multiple perspectives including that of teachers, union representatives, historians, etc. Another way of putting it might be to say that it often presents a non- institutional perspective coming from someone connected to a teachers union.

I thought the most recent entry was fascinating, and would urge you to read it. This entry looks at school reform through the lens of teacher satisfaction and school culture. It was clearly provoked by a recent report released by Public Agenda that surveyed teachers nationally. The big headline here is:

Two out of five of America's 4 million K-12 teachers appear disheartened and disappointed about their jobs, while others express a variety of reasons for contentment with teaching and their current school environments, new research by Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates shows.

Okay, back to the Ed in the Apple blog. First, I am not offering this to take sides for or against Joel Klein. Instead I am offering this up for what it says about how positive school culture manifests itself in how teachers organize within a school, as well as the statements about how positive school culture translates to a quality education.

These two consecutive paragraphs are particularly interesting:

School culture is the behind-the-scenes context that reflects the values, beliefs, norms, traditions, and rituals that build up over time as people in a school work together. It influences not only the actions of the school population, but also its motivations and spirit (Peterson, 1999).

One of the ironies is that union activism and collegial school cultures are an inverse function. A highly effective school with a totally collaborative culture has a school secretary as the chapter leader, whose sole role is to post union notices on the bulletin board. Another school that uses lead teachers instead of assistant principals, a school in which teachers design and run the professional development, elects a chapter leader with little actual function. Schools with vibrant active chapters are frequently schools with toxic school cultures.

That last paragraph was a great glimpse into something you won't come across in run of the mill education policy fare. Why is it important to someone in arts education? Well, it tells you so very much about what's behind the school culture that you are working with. And for those of us that hope to have a positive influence on that culture, the more we understand, the better off we will be.

So, I hope you will click through to the Ed in the Apple blog titled The Intractable Power of School Cultures: Why Teachers Resist Chancellors and School Culture Determines Quality Education.

To read Ted the previous installments of Ted's arts education travelogue click here for the first entry; here for the second; here for the third; and here for the fourth. For those of you who were looking for this next installment, my apologies for posting it late. I got behind a bit....

This is another wonderful entry from Ted, in what has become his arts education travelogue on tour overseas. Kids will be kids, wherever they may be. RK

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10.13.09

Are kids more alike or more different among widely different cultures? How much does the culture within which children grow up determine their learning style?

Based on several years experience with music education projects in Japan, China, Korea, and of course in the United States (both New York City and Vail, Colorado) I could easily argue either "more alike" or "more different."

Music composed by ten- to twelve-year olds through the New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program suggests remarkable similarity among kids in New York, Vail, China, and Japan. In a relatively short period of time, they accept the freedom thrust upon them and become engaged in developing sounds invented out of their imaginations. This is a potentially profound finding. At the same time, and nearly as striking, is the regional sound one can detect in the compositions. Thanks to the transparency of our process - Teaching Artists acting as mentor/scribes are scrupulous about not making or urging any compositional choices - one can readily hear the difference between, for instance, largely homophonic Chinese pieces and harmonically-based American pieces. Recently completed Japanese pieces are more subtle in their accent as they cover such a wide variety of styles and individual voices, yet it is there.

Also suggesting similarity is the reaction of groups of students to interactive concerts given by the Teaching Artists Ensemble of the New York Philharmonic in New York, Japan, and Korea. Younger kids all raise their hands having little to say; older kids may have lots to say, but never raise their hands. The same everywhere, and the same age-appropriate signs of engagement.

Arguing for greater difference among students in different cultures is the individual child's sense of ownership in a piece of music he or she has composed. Child composers in the United States can tend toward the ham state; in Japan, peer pressure against standing out makes some students intensely shy and can even lead them to deny having composed their pieces. Chinese student composers seemed to strike a gracious middle ground of pride in their works as contributions to a complete concert.

We have also been struck by the ability of Japanese students to remain silent in the face of a direct question or suggestion. For them it is better to be silent than to be wrong. American children rarely display such determined self-restraint!

On the other hand, the respect shown to teachers and all adults that we expect to see in Asian classes turns out to vary at least as much by the school as it does by the nation. In this area, the culture of the school seems to count for more than the broader culture.

I remain with considered "maybes" and "it depends" to the question of kids' difference or similarity. Cross-cultural work raises so many issues it can be difficult to determine even which ones are real. Again and again, I find it is the adults - the educators, musicians, and administrators - who predict issues that seem to evaporate on contact, who interpret results so differently from us (Is a smile not a smile? Is a melody not a melody?), who insist on the impossibility of methods that prove to work pretty much the same everywhere. Perhaps what we are seeing is that cultural differences work their magic over time: that elementary- and middle-school-age children are more open to different ways of thinking and learning than their older compatriots. And very likely we are also gathering evidence of how little we understand about that smile and that melody, both we of the Philharmonic and the adults with whom we work.

Theodore Wiprud
Director of Education, New York Philharmonic
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Theodore Wiprud has directed the Education Department of the New York Philharmonic since October 2004. The Philharmonic's education programs include the historic Young People's Concerts, the new Very Young People's Concerts, one of the largest in-school program of any US orchestra, adult education programs, and many special projects.

Mr. Wiprud has also created innovative programs as director of education and community engagement at the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra; served as associate director of The Commission Project, and assisted the Orchestra of St. Luke's on its education programs. He has worked as a teaching artist and resident composer in a number of New York City schools. From 1990 to 1997, Mr. Wiprud directed national grantmaking programs at Meet The Composer. During the 1980's, he taught and directed the music department at Walnut Hill School, a pre-professional arts boarding school near Boston.

Mr. Wiprud is also known as a composer and an innovative concert producer, until recently programming a variety of chamber series for the Brooklyn Philharmonic. His own music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and voice is published by Allemar Music.

Mr. Wiprud earned his A.B. in Biochemistry at Harvard, and his M.Mus. in Theory and Composition at Boston University, and studied at Cambridge University as a Visiting Scholar.

September 2008