Problem: The Arts Are Dwindling in Our Schools. Especially opera.

Solution: The Metropolitan Opera to the Rescue???

 “Here I go again

I hear those trumpets blow again
All aglow again

Taking a chance on love” —Ethel Waters singing in the great movie, Cabin in the Sky

I am a passionate opera/music theater fan. I go to hear and see all varieties of the art form. I have worked with and for the New York City Opera, the Met Opera Guild for years, spent much of the 80’s at the National Endowment for the Arts as a field evaluator, panelist and finally researcher. I traveled for them for several months throughout the country, identifying the new wave (then) of theater as well as opera companies developing new and innovative music works using treasured theater “out of town tryouts” to finally arrive at a product worthy of investment and performance. Those are a few of my opera/mt creds.

Today I received a letter from Paul Corn, Assistant Principal, Arts, at the Susan E. Wagner High School in New York City. It came in a Met Opera envelope. Here is an AP pleading with me to send money to the Metropolitan Opera (not the Guild and its educational program) so that more students can see The Met: HD Live in Schools. He assures me kids are benefitting, transformed, some even led on new career paths, such as theatre design in college. He is shilling for the Met!

Accompanying this letter is one from Deborah Voigt, one of our better Wagner interpreters, who makes her pitch for me to send money to Live in HD because the in-school program has expanded to include 25, yes, twenty-five school districts across the United States, “making opera more accessible to students, particularly in underserved populations.  TWENTY FIVE SCHOOL DISTRICTS!….Do you know how many school districts there are in the US? About 14,000 or so.  And Corn and Voigt are urging me to send them money for New York!

Mind you, I think the HD quality is exceptionally good, but opera is at least a three-dimensional experience, and as good as the films are, they are still two-dimensional reels with voices and orchestra separated from viewers by a screen and ecology.

I want every child in every one of our school districts to have music theater experience in the school day, in the community, where it is much more accessible and thrilling…where it goes beyond “exposure” and a one-off. Will we ever learn and accept that the arts are worthy of long and deep study in our schools for all sorts of cognitive, social, emotional and aesthetic reasons?

What I am most incensed about is that people who should know better are just skipping over the necessity of professional music teachers reaching all our kids, every day, with the help of classroom teachers and artists who can give the art form depth and presence.  And that these people are asking the “rich” donors to the Met to put their money in a nice, safe, but still not authentic experience of trumpets blowing and love songs ringing out and choking you up with tears at the beauty of the human voice trained to sing right through those blasts….

Meanwhile, the number of arts educators dwindle in our public schools.

Jane Remer

November 7, 2011

JANE REMER’S CLIFFNOTES We are at another rocky precipice in our history that threatens the survival of the arts in our social fabric and our school systems. The timing and magnitude of the challenges have prompted me to speak out about some of the most persistent issues in the arts education field during the last 40 plus years. My credo is simple: The arts are a moral imperative. They are fundamental to the cognitive, affective, physical, and intellectual development of all our children and youth. They belong on a par with the 3 R’s, science, and social studies in all of our elementary and secondary schools. These schools will grow to treasure good quality instruction that develops curious, informed, resilient young citizens to participate fully in a democratic society that is in constant flux. I have chosen the title Cliff Notes for this forum. It serves as metaphor and double entendre: first, as short takes on long-standing and complicated issues, and second, as a verbal image of the perpetually perilous state of the arts as an essential part of general public education. I plan to focus on possible solutions and hope to stimulate thoughtful dialogue on-line or locally.

Jane Remer has worked nationally for over forty years as an author, educator, researcher, foundation director and consultant. She was an Associate Director of the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund’s Arts in Education Program and has taught at Teachers College, Columbia University and New York University. Ms. Remer works directly in and with the public schools and cultural organizations, spending significant time on curriculum, instruction and collaborative action research with administrators, teachers , students and artists. She directs Capezio/Ballet Makers Dance Foundation, and her publications include Changing Schools Through the Arts and Beyond Enrichment: Building Arts Partnerships with Schools and Your Community. She is currently writing Beyond Survival: Reflections On The Challenge to the Arts As General Education. A graduate of Oberlin College, she attended Yale Law School and earned a masters in education from Yale Graduate School.

I challenge anyone to think of a nation that works as hard as we do to find silver linings in its educational failures. On Tuesday morning NAEP reported that, in the course of two years, our nation’s 4th and 8th graders improved a single point (on a 500-point scale) in three of four reading and math assessments, and flatlined on the fourth.  If you look at figures plotting NAEP scores over the last 30 years, any upward slope in the data is nearly undetectable to the naked eye.  Analysts have spent the last few days slicing and dicing this data and making unconvincing arguments that some positive trends can be detected.

But the reality is that these results are appalling — particularly if you consider the massive federal funding increases, intense reform debates, and the incessant promises of new technologies that have dominated the education discussion for nearly two decades. We have spent a great deal and worked very hard but gotten unimpressive results.  And this is in reading and math where, to the detriment of so many other core subjects, we’ve aimed nearly all of our firepower.

Einstein* defined “insanity” as “doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.” Well, my bet is that Einstein would have deemed NAEP data absolute proof of America’s educational insanity.

Click here to read the rest of Lynne’s post.

Click here to download the NAEP report in brief.

Well, what do you think? Will the disappointing news be met by even more of the same? Will it be even higher stakes testing, an even further narrowing of the curriculum, even more merit pay and school closures, more skirting minimum standards for arts instruction…?

Or will it be a genuine time to rethink the accountability run amuck?

Okay, I know there are those who say there has been no real narrowing of the curriculum. The CES study and others are flawed…right. It reminds me of an old joke, best told by Richard Pryor, but originating well before him, from the Marx Brothers, and as some would argue: Karl Marx: “a woman walks into her bedroom and finds her husband in bed with another woman. The man says to his wife: who are you going to believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”

In K-12 it was so often an issue of shoehorning arts education into the school day, extended or traditional. So much of the work evoked questions of how to get a seat at the table, strategies to incentivize the embrace of arts education, skillful ways to integrate the arts into other subject areas and throughout the operation of the school community, and much more, including work on changing policies that tend to keep the arts out.

Running a music conservatory, even one that is part of a larger, progressive university with lots to offer across all sorts of subject areas and activities, is in so many ways the flip-side. How do you shoehorn all sorts of other subjects into the school day? How much practice time is actually needed? What skills and knowledge do students need to master in order to be fully prepared for the world they enter today, as opposed to five, ten, fifteen, and twenty years ago? Should we add more credits, (which is related to the K-12 should we extend the school day)? What is core, what do we value? How do we make change? How do we integrate non-musical subject matter into the traditional core?

An interesting point of convergence between K-12 and higher education resides within the ways we define and defend quality. There are and always will be those who will take issue with arts integration because they believe it shortchanges a quality, sequential arts curriculum. And, of course, as you would expect, in a conservatory there are those who fear that anything we do that takes away time from the historic core of arts instruction, including practice time, major lessons, theory, ear training, etc., will fear the shortchanging of what comprises quality musical training. In K-12 and higher ed, they may very well ask you the very same thing: without rigorous arts instruction, what good is it?

It’s not all that far off from the Jerry Seinfeld’s Bizzaro World, which was originally born out of Superman, Lois Lane, etc.

You see, Laurie, after 11 years of directing programs and policy at VH1 Save The Music Foundation, is stepping down to care for her daughter full-time.

Of course, Laurie has had great colleagues at VH1 Save The Music who have partnered with her on all of her great work. But if you haven’t had the chance to work with her directly, you will have missed the opportunity to witness a leader with a great passion, who has been one of the great national advocates for certified arts specialists, who never backed off from the real fight that is arts education, and who played a major role in providing more than $48 million in musical instruments to over 1800 public schools in 100 cities, engaging over 1.8 million students.  You must add to this the creation of things like guides for school principals, helping to create other organizations, influencing policy, and so much more.

I have learned things from Laurie, and been mighty impressed by her for a long time. In a field with plenty who want to advocate, Laurie did, and did it very well. Lots of guts and a resolve to speak truth to power. I remain grateful for all that she has done, and hope that you will all join me in wishing her the best of luck in this new chapter in her life and career.

I know that Laurie will never go too far from K-12 music and arts education, because in her heart she is devoted to ensuring that all kids get the benefit of what is rightfully theirs to begin with.

While this will be my final post as one of the three official conference bloggers, I have no doubt that so very much of what I encountered idea-wise will infiltrate not only my blogging on Dewey21C, but also my work for quite some time. That statement should tell you a lot about how I experienced the three days.

My posts have been quite linear So, in keeping with that practice, here’s a thought. It was interesting and affirming, that a fair number of presenters made a stump speech for the importance of arts education. It was a refrain for the session on aging, the demographics session with Pastor, and the absolutely, freaking-fantastic, wonderful closing session with Eugene Rodriquez, Linda, Ronstadt, David Hildago, and all of Los Cenzontles. They delivered the message of art education, its importance, the gross, immoral inequity, and its overall fragility. (More on that last session in a moment.)

I don’t know how to say this without it coming out like a lecture, but I think that a lot of funders are missing a key meaning of arts education, while at the very same time they embrace arts and social justice. It’s impossible not to notice the growing mass of funders connected to social justice, while the arts education cohort appears to be getting smaller. I am not going to argue against social justice, I mean really, but rather for seeing arts education as social justice. I mean, REALLY!!

I know that there are people who are frustrated about arts education. There are many, for good reason, who feel that it is a sinkhole and that it is impossible to make real, lasting change.

But, if you are one of the growing number of funders looking at arts and social justice, think about this:

1. The most important issue in arts education is equity. Children of color in underserved urban school districts are being denied access to engagement in the arts, engagement that is about learning, democracy, art making and experience, creativity, youth development, community building, and more. It is ENGAGEMENT, folks. It is equity. It is inherently SOCIAL JUSTICE.
2. Arts Education blends the interests of arts and education, combined with larger issues related to demographic changes and equity in ways that are fundamentally aligned, but somehow many miss this point.
3. There are organizations doing ground level work in community organizing, public policy, community engagement, capitalization, technology, and more, putting their institutional necks on the line in the name of equity. They put those necks on the line through coalition building, public rallies, legislative advocacy, media advocacy, and speaking of truth to power.
4. I sometimes wonder how many who are so enamored of arts and social justice, that don’t see the forest for the trees when it comes to arts education, have ever stood on the steps of City Hall, shoe-horned an elected official, issued a public statement that challenged the civic elite, or had the pleasure of being labeled as hostile by those in power? I would wonder how many have seen the communities gathered, built, connected, and respected by arts education?
5. While the key issues in arts education are equity oriented, the vast majority of funding in arts education goes to direct service, leaving those who want to advocate to survive on the razor’s edge, even in the good times.

Okay, I am frustrated. And the older I get, the less likely I am to filter. There you have it. To anyone who thinks this was a hostile missive, read the words again and think again about what Manuel Pastor, Marc Freedman, Linda Ronstadt, Janet Brown, Eugene Rodriquez, and others had to say about arts education. Take a moment to rethink. Be part of the velocity of change in your very own backyard.

One more time: Arts Education is Social Justice.

I don’t think the conference planners could have chosen a more perfect performance to illuminate the meaning of the conference than that of Los Cenzontles. It was the real deal. It was the complete package. The music could not have been better. It was traditional and new. It reflected the moving target of what it means to be Mexican American, particularly in how it drew from traditions, while being influenced by other streams of music and culture. The performances were fully committed, from the heart, soul, and tied to great technical abilities. The story of Los Cenzontles was about the building of community, embracing of tradition and change. They used video and very old instruments. They were sweet, funny, touching, and superbly honest. And, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I loved it.

I tip my hat to all concerned in the planning and execution of this conference. I take away so much about the nature of change, that must be reflected upon, and integrated into my own work in my own community. The shapes are indeed shifting, and we must not only shift with it, but do it in ways that make sense for those ready to come along and those not. Just like Los Cenzontles, the shapes must be old into new and the reverse. We must recognize that the pace of change is not static, and not mistake a snapshot for something more long-term. Ultimately I believe in what Sandy Gibson said at the Irvine Foundation session, that we must be savvy and intentional in how we pilot, how we try and fail, as well as succeed. We must all recognize that a commitment to the scientific method, as well as embracing organizational cultures that are based in learning and artistic practice, is not only who we are but what will enable us to evolve in healthy, productive, and essential ways.

Sorry for the speech-ifying. Thanks for indulging me.

Bye from San Francisco.

4:30 am Pacific Time.

Considering the unfortunate length of my Day One entry yesterday, I thought it might be a good idea to post something today a bit more concise.

So, let’s focus on two sessions.

Enabling Engagement: Launching Irvine’s New Arts Strategy. Organized by Josephine Ramirez, program director, arts, The James Irvine Foundation.Contributions by Alan Brown, principal, WolfBrown; Sandra L. Gibson, independent consultant; Maria Rosario Jackson, senior research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Center and director of the Culture, Creativity, and Communities Program, Urban Institute; Steven J. Tipper, associate director, The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise & Public Policy.

Rather than give you a blow-by-blow account of Irvine’s planning process and resultant plan, here are a couple of links to Irvine’s website, where you can watch the same opening video we saw at the session, read more about the plan, and even review guidelines for the first grant opportunities that have emerged from the process.

New Strategy Overview Video

Exploring Engagement Fund

There’s a lot to report on here. The headline is that Irvine has taken demographic and other changes seriously and is committed to harnessing this change while strengthening arts organizations, their self-described partners in this work.

For my money, much of the discussion was around redefining what engagement means. I keep coming back to one particular thought, throughout this session and indeed the conference as a whole: who owns the arts, who owns creativity?

If there is a shift occurring, at least as expressed through this conference, it is one of reframing the long-term and traditional views on the architectures of artists and audiences. It’s a shift of shape, place, role, and rationale.

I do believe that there is something very positive occurring in the blurring of the lines between professionals and amateurs, artists and audiences, place and space. It strikes me as very much the Maxine Greene sort of moment, one of meaning making. It’s not that these things are necessarily new. Look, people have been engaged in arts through community orchestras, amateur chamber music, private poetry writing, and so very much more for a very long time. It’s just that technology and a desire to view the arts through community development and democratic engagement while recognizing a host of major demographic and other changes has created new frames for us to view the meaning of arts.

What are the downsides?

The Irvine presentation had the feel of an organization coming out of a significant planning process energized and optimistic about how they will lead the field. Now, they didn’t quite say it like that, but that’s my report. Is there a downside? Well, I have a few thoughts. First, a lot of the changes their vision is intended to propel will require a lot of innovation, and along with innovation comes a lot of risk and a willingness to experiment, which in turn requires a lot of failure. Experiment, after all, the scientific method, fundamentally embraces failure. Such change will require incentive. Is the pressure all around us, fueled by the changing and changed landscape enough to make such change possible, with some cash and support from funders like Irvine?

Does all this equal the proposition of change or die? Are we there yet?

The most interesting statement in the regard came from Steven Tepper, who said, essentially, “that such evolution does not usually come through adaptation by the existing, but through new organizations.” (Buyer beware, I have paraphrased.)  If there’s a pull quote for the conference, one that will really get people thinking, and more than a bit tweaked, this would be it.

Along with rethinking and stimulating field-wide change comes issues of assessment, leadership development, new criteria for grantmaking, and a search to better understand and present a more fluid map of artist and audience, when one can become the other, or both, or remain traditional, with the help of new technologies and new viewpoints, even within the same work of art. It’s all about fluidity.

Another interesting quote, and again, sorry, a paraphrase, from Alan Brown: “creativity in programming will be more important than quality.”

I guess it’s reasonable to have mixed feelings about all of this. I applaud the framing of change and those willing to lead. I believe that the opportunities for arts in all of this change are greater than most understand, and that by expanding engagement in art making and participation, without oversight by the art police, is long overdue. At the same time, you worry about what it will take for this to happen, and the not so subtle Darwin-esque subtext to all of this. Change or die, or shall I say evolve quickly, or die?

Lunch Keynote:

Here we had composer Mason Bates and The Del Sol Quartet.

Two terrific artists, beautifully chosen as a reflection of the conference themes. Word on the street: people loved the music but wish the focus of the presentation would have underscored the conference theme a bit better.

Let’s skip the play-by-play, and get to a few important points.

One: check out these artists. I urge you to go to their websites and look around, watch/listen/reflect. There’s a lot to consider, particularly in how they represent and challenge some old notions of what is traditional, what is classical, what is “canonical,” and more.

Two: What I said in One. Forgive me, as I started writing this blog at 4:30 am in my hotel room. Seriously, actually, two is a reinforcement of one.

Mason Bates represents change in a vitally important way. He is, in so many respects, representative of the modern American composer. He’s hip, smart, also a DJ, draws upon a palatte that is not limited, by a long shot, by what most consider to be “classical” music, and here’s the best part, he’s one of two composers in residence with the orchestra that I consider to be among the most tradition bound. It’s the orchestra considered by many to be the standard bearer of quality and tradition. Not known for relationships with the American experimentalists nor great shape shifters of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, in my mind, the appointment of Mason Bates should be enough for people to rethink their long held opinions of what canonical organizations are and aren’t. Oh, and yes, by the way, he can compose.

N.B., Arbiters of quality and definition will need to think at least twice.

Hell if I know. Let’s call it a blog in process.

I have to give everyone credit for how things kicked off. Right from the start, Janet Brown set a tone that was both welcoming and fun. And Janet went straight to GIA’s past president Vicky Benson who delivering a Coen Brothers inspired welcome message via video that kindly reminded everyone that this particular conference was off-limits to fundraising. Not just for those who were from the potential and obvious world of grantees, but consultants, and even funders pitching each other for project support. No deal, as the saying goes. And, fair enough.

Vicky hit the high note when she suggested that the food could be greatly improved by the addition of a nice green jello dish with bright red carrots and whipped cream. Straight out of Fargo. Nice, very nice touch. And lo and behold, a couple of hours later, that dish was presented to Vicky in the flesh, prepared by the hotel chef.

The opening plenary featured Marc Bamuthi Joseph, sporting one heck of a stingy brim fedora.

“I am a grantmaker, I give and receive, I sustain culture, I am an artist, I give and receive, I sustain culture.”

Getting quickly to a sweeping review of the history of the NEA, Marc got to his point, a good way to set the tone for the entire conference and underscore the theme: Embracing the Velocity of Change.

The point: art as product, commodity, and the ways in which the funding community has coalesced around this model needed to be refocused into art as process and art as community builder. Rather than a world of winners and losers, a culture of scarcity, Marc’s work and what he argues for is that it is “not enough to place art in community without community context…No amount of Facebook or flyering can substitute for genuine public proximity and investment.”

Marc explored “Critical adjancies.” Think about the strip mall, where a locus occurs around commerce. Think of art placed into a community, where the art brings together a broad array of people through the process of art making, expression, community, and democracy. It is a model for brining together arts, audience, organizations, artists, and more, all through artistic process, with potential to grow investment, audience, creative process, and seeks to lift all boats. It is an interdisciplinary, multi-organization, multi-sector model. A big umbrella vision of arts integrated and combined with health, environment, shared values, and all with a highly intentional design.

It was a fine example of the ways in which artists are seeking to explode existing models, recognizing the changing/changed world and the need to get ahead of the change. It also recognizes the ways in which the field hurts and hinders itself. Is it even a field…?

“…art happens anywhere and can happen for anyone…”
“…import performance aesthetics into non traditional public spaces…”

Takeaway: maybe partnership and community can have life breathed into it in a way that can reshape the world for the better.

Don’t be late to class. It’s funny, but there is something about moving from one session to the next—as you walk the halls from room-to-room—that reminds me of high school. By the time you leave a session that went a bit over time, you’ve got to get to the next session and as you walk the halls you see friends, but there isn’t enough time to talk, as you’ve got to get to that next session. Just like high school. Gotta beat that bell!

Next up: The Big Shift, The Velocity of Change in America’s Aging Society, hosted by the super great Rohit Burman, featuring  Tim Carpenter, founder and director, EngAGE; Marc Freedman, founder and CEO, Civic Ventures.

Big demo changes set the stage. Kids being born today will live to 100. The population above 65 is growing. The notions of age grouping, infancy, childhood, youth, middle age, retirement, etc., are really artificial and have been evolving over time. It is a spectrum and the opportunities for engagement in and with the arts are a vital issue in how the big middle (my term, ignore at will), meaning those who are not children in school nor seniors, make the creativity part of their lives. Here the arts are part of what can make for a vital life post core working years. Forget the idea of a golf swinging retirement. People will live longer, be more active, and seek to return to or discover creativity. Moreover, there are enormous opportunities to place artists into communities of those in this big middle (my term), to help provide tools for powerful creativity throughout life. There are opportunities to retrain artists to bring their arts to new audiences, in new ways, not just for young or mid-career artists, but for aging artists as well. What is even more, the real need to make retirement communities as well as assisted living better places resides in part, in bringing thoughtful, genuine arts to these worlds.

A final note: what we continue to learn, is that the making of art and growth in arts engagement is not solely for those whom we might have viewed as being in their prime years, or for youth in schools, but a core part of what is human and possible no matter the age. Think further: It is not as simple as life-long learning, which tends to be “edutainment.”

“Arts is something people do dust off when they are older. There is a natural unveiling of one self when you get older. It is just tapping population with skills and time and passion, and what if you applied that to society’s problems.”

“What are we doing about the middle years, between youth and old age? It is a giant opportunity to distribute opportunities for creativity through the life force/course.”

“There is something that older generations can teach that doesn’t get taught in curriculum…art of medicine…art…things that are not necessarily technical.”

Takeaway: Art is not owned by the artists nor the arts institutions, and a key to the vitality of arts in America is looking at how arts and creativity are stimulated, supported, and facilitated in the growing number of adults over the age of 50.

Great session!

On the the lunch plenary. After a “random act of art,” featuring double agent conference participants who were actually opera singers, we had the enormous pleasure of a presenation by Dr. Manuel Pastor on key shifts in racial and ethnic demographics.

What can I say? You don’t often associate a demographic presentation with entertainment. But Pastor was the perfect and surprising mix of funny, self-effacing, expert, serious, insightful, and inspirational. Yup, he was all that, an admirable combination the likes of which I have rarely experienced.

Big takeway: not only are we rapidly heading to be a minority-majority nation, but even the ways in which people view their own identity is very much in flux. Case in point: across the last few census (is that really the plural of census?), many Latinos identified themselves as “others.” No matter how the census was redesigned, this number continued to rise. Reason: rather than view themselves as Latino, the might view themselves as Chicano. Identity in flux.

In addition, we are seeing a leveling off of immigration, and in some cases a decline, no matter what the media and politicians tell us. Rather, we are seeing the growth in second and third generations of immigrants.

Interesting case in point, underscoring the nature of change and the need for information: take cities around LA such as Compton, which for many years was majority African American, and known as a hotbed for rap and hip hop. Today, the high school in Compton is majority Latino.

Some leaders like chess; others like jigsaw puzzles.

In chess, to win, only two colors, some pieces more powerful/important

Jigsaw, all pieces equal, no winners and losers, multi colored…

Next Up: Equity in Private Foundation Support for Arts and Culture, a salon session moderated by Bill Cleveland, featuring Holly Sidford.

This salon focused on the release of Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy, by Holly Sidford.

The Huff Po covered the release of the report: Arts Funding is Supporting a Wealthy, White Audience. How’s that for a conversation starter?

When philanthropy began in 19^th century, it was about focused on elites and Western European preservation. Those early patterns persist, but today more and more artists and organizations today advancing principles of social justice, yet 55% of foundation support goes to less than 2% of cultural orgs (with budgets of $5 million and up.

Okay, despite the wonderful facilitation by Bill Cleveland, this session was a mess. It was a close to a philanthropic Tower of Babel as I’ve have heard in a long time. And, while presenters took great pains to be objective, forthright, and avoid throwing bombs, there is simply now way you can avoid a difficult conversation about “canonical organizations” versus the new world of arts, artists, and arts organizations. As much as there was a call to avoid the binary way of viewing things, this session was a pretty tough slog.

Only 10 percent of grants go to marginalized populations, less than 2 percent advance social justice goals. The larger the arts portfolio, the less a commitment to social justice. 84 percent of all the arts organizations have budgets under 500K.

Artists are also marginalized…well educated, but make less money, hold two and three jobs, and are out of work more regularly than the average American worker, although this is changing due to the economy.

In a nutshell, the theme here was philanthropy out of balance. Naturally, it’s a touch subject, leading to criticism and defense of symphony orchestras (one of those pesky canonicals), for example.

It was a good start to a complicated conversation, which might be best summed up by at least one two very thoughtful framing-type comments:

There are large conceptual questions: how private should private foundation money be? What is the democratic responsibility of a private foundation? This will not be settled quickly…we need to spend more time reinvigorating a discourse that is a lot more vigorous than we have now. Trustees and staff hiding behind..we must reinvigorate a critical discourse that creates new meanings that matches new realities…

Conversation around mission has been around tools, but mission should be more broad…say to pursue happiness…and to see what comes…what would that then become…to find new new tools…and a different way of looking at systems.

Okay, last but not least, and my apologies for the long entry, but hey, it was seven hours of conference sessions.

My final session for the day was Building Advocacy Networks, organized by Sofia Klatzker, senior manager, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, with Joe Landon, executive director, California Alliance for Arts Education.

I won’t give you too much of a run down of this session. Let me simply say that the work of these two organizations, in advocacy for arts education, including policy, organizing, media relations, and more, is the most thoughtful, pioneering, and impressive work in this arena that you will find anywhere.

If you want to understand how and what this work is all about. Learn more about both of these wonderful organizations.

The Times The Are A-Changin’. Hey dude, they’re not just changing… they’ve changed. We better embrace it.

So, it’s 5:00 in the morning, and since I am on eastern time, I thought, what the heck, I might as well post something, perhaps some preliminary thoughts on the 2011 Grantmakers in the Arts Conference. This year’s conference theme is “Embracing The Velocity of Change.” To be honest, I’ve never paid a ton of attention to any conference theme.  Every conference has one these days, but how much one thinks about the theme is a good question.  But since the conference hasn’t really started yet, don’t worry, it will in about two or so hours, it’s worth thinking a bit about this particular theme and what it says about how this community is viewing the world in which it lives.

Can any of us remember a time where so many things were changing all at the same time? I am not so sure it’s the velocity of change that I find most remarkable, but rather the sheer mass of what’s been tossed up into the air, all while we wait for it to fall to the ground so we can begin to understand what it all really means. That’s right, it feels to me like we’re trying to understand things while they are still up in the air. Think about it, the economy, the politics, the technology, the Arab Spring, nations on the verge of default, at least one decade long war, and more. It’s a time where business models are challenged, relevancy is called into greater question than ever before, the charitable contribution is scrutinized, and issues of equity rise no matter who you define the term or to which particular context you place it. You have a Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. You have those calling for an expansion of K-12 curriculum while creating and implementing policies that accelerate the narrowing.

It’s quite the crazy kaleidoscope. And, it never really stops turning or churning.

So, there’s your backdrop to this brand of yearly national convening of Grantmakers in the Arts. What are folks feeling? What’s coming up in the plenaries, presentations, salon sessions, and while people sidle up to the bar?

Those are the things I hope to be able to share with you as a conference blogger. Of course, as just about every blogger in this situation will tell you, you can’t be at every session, and even if you could, you’ve got to see the forest for the trees. Wish me luck.

Back at you later in the day, this Day One at GIA, and all the days until it’s over.

Click here for a bit of physics: Does Mass Change with Velocity? 

Ever looked at a set of standards and thought to yourself: Why on Earth did they include that? Or, I can’t believe they left out XYZ! Well, enough of the Monday morning quarterbacking. A national coalition is looking for a few good men and women to help write a set of “next generation” standards for arts education.

Actually, to be more precise, it’s trying to recruit 40 content experts, 10 each in dance, music, theater, and the visual arts. The deadline is Oct. 27 to apply for one of the spots.

Individuals interested in serving on a writing committee can apply at http://tinyurl.com/67lxbtd.

Click here for background on the effort to develop the new, voluntary standards.

The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards recently hired a project director, Phillip E. Shepherd, an independent arts education consultant, and longtime arts educator, based in Lexington, Ky.

“We have a real opportunity to do something extraordinary,” Shepherd said in a press release .”If we expect our teachers to teach and our students to truly learn, we need standards reflecting classroom practice and new modes of learning that will make our students highly competitive in the world economy.”

In addition, the coalition has named chairs for the four areas:

Dance: Rima Faber, president of the Capitol Region Educators of Dance Organization and former program director at the National Dance Education Organization.

Music: Scott Shuler, arts consultant for the Connecticut State Department of Education and president of the National Association for Music Education; and Richard Wells, director of music and performing arts in the Simsbury (Conn.) Public Schools and music chair for the Connecticut Common Arts Assessment Project.

Theatre: Rachel Evans, assistant professor of theatre education at Kean University in Union, NJ.

Visual Arts: Dennis Inhulsen, president-elect of the National Art Education Association and principal of Patterson Elementary School in Holly, Mich.

by Bruce Taylor

 The increasingly contentious debate about school reform juxtaposes two contrasting realities about the arts:  one, that their place in our schools has been steadily and seriously eroded; the other, that the skills inherent in artistic practice are rapidly becoming essential to a healthy 21^st century economy/society.

Most articles concerning this disconnect focus their analysis outside the field emphasizing the combination of challenges that have resulted in the marginalization of the arts in schools, conditions so effectively articulated by Nick Rabkin and others. However, there is a necessary corollary that must be addressed and often isn’t. Collectively, we have to step outside the echo chamber we have boxed ourselves into and examine what we’ve been doing these several decades and why.

To begin with, we all know what happened to arts education over the past 30 years. We should also realize that we collectively devised hundreds of arts programs that reached 65% of all kids in the early 1980s, in thousands of schools costing hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. So how did that work out?  Not only were the arts severely diminished in public education, but those very kids we supposedly reached back in the 80s, became the parents of kids in schools where the arts were cut!  Keeping in mind it wasn’t educators that cut the arts in schools, but school boards that represented, for the most part, the priorities of their parent communities.

Over the years, I think some of our passions were misplaced.  I’d like to outline what they are and to suggest some possible alternatives.  These misplaced passions include: the emphasis on practitioner development, the social fix it concept, the conversion in the cathedral syndrome, and a missionary mentality.

As a result, the dilemma is far deeper than just declining numbers.  For decades the foundation for arts education has rested on the twin pillars of practitioner development and what some artists refer to as social justice through the arts. Couple this with the exposure model of introducing the arts to students – the conversion in the cathedral syndrome – along with a widely held belief that artists have a special dispensation when it comes to commentary on the human condition.

There are several problems with this existing context.  First, in reality, kids engage with the arts all the time.  Their preferred art form is popular music, followed by television, video games and film.  Yet when we employ the term “arts,” we really mean only theatre, opera, dance, music in a concert hall, and the visual art found in museums.  Why?  Perhaps because influential people believe these are the “serious” art forms: deeper, more complex or enlightening. But preference does not equate to value.

As an aside, there is a mistaken belief that the types of music presented to kids in schools acculturates them to an approved cultural milieu (i.e. Eurocentric).  This is a myth: If it were actually true that we could brainwash kids by presenting them with the music of dead European white males, there would be an awful lot more young adults in the concert halls and many more recordings of classical music being sold. In reality, the reverse is true. So, either their teachers did a really lousy job of introducing the likes of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, or the music that really acculturates kids today is the music they buy.

When it comes to music and art classes in schools, our focus has been on teaching kids the basics of being an artist.  In music for instance, kids are taught musical notation and learn about the great composers; their overriding concern becomes performing pieces for the winter or spring concerts.  In art classes, students are taught how to draw or to create pieces in three dimensions, learn about the great artists of the past, and have their own artwork displayed for all to see.  Even if the two other major art forms, dance and theatre, are offered, instruction focuses on memorizing lines, choreography, or stage directions.  The message is simple: “Just remember to do what you’re told.”  It’s no wonder that the public’s perception is that arts education should only be for kids who want to be artists – the “Glee” wannabes.

Over the years, discussions about the arts have also taken on a quasi-religious harmonic that, over the long run, I think, has backfired. The concept of the artist as “gifted” (read “divinely inspired”) possessed of some unique insight on the human condition. As religious faith is founded on belief in things that remain unproven, there is just such an aspect when it comes to the arts. While there is anecdotal evidence as to the transcendental benefits of the arts, this faith is communicated through four postures: that the arts can make you a better person, raise the moral standards of a society, rectify social ills, or modify someone else’s fundamental value system.

All too often, many teaching artists adopt the missionary mindset of teacher or preacher – knowing more or knowing better than non-artists.  Optimistically, I believe that a majority of artists, myself included, want to do good in the world.  But we have no more of a handle on society’s problems than do police officers, therapists, philosophers, social scientists, doctors or politicians – people who also interact intimately with humanity.  This arrogant posturing on our part ultimately has hurt us by diminishing us in the eyes of society’s broader spectrum.  While it is true that artists are informed with insight concerning human nature, it does not mean that we have some unique franchise on it.  This is not to say that artists do not have a valid perspective on the human condition. We do, but we do not have a lock on such perceptions – no more than anyone else in another profession who deals with human nature on a daily basis. Politicians, for example, are instrumental in shaping social policy and have had a much more pervasive effect on people’s lives. If you use the arts to proselytize, you are trying to get people to think and act the way you want.  This is a vain effort – in both senses of the word: Works of art don’t radically modify people’s beliefs, they reinforce what’s already there.

I also shy away from the idea that any art is “good for you.” This kind of thinking pervades the recent overtone that advocacy for the arts has acquired. As an honest witness for the arts, I don’t think there is enough evidence in the historical record to justify this. What is, after all, the “great” art of our own time? The discussion is a futile one, because we won’t be around to know. Great art is that which transcends historical and cultural boundaries and connects with a diversity of humankind.  Indeed, great art is timeless and so must reveal itself over time. Parenthetically, there was a lawyer for the performance artist Karen Finley (she of the controversial “NEA Four” back in 1990) who made the remarkable statement, “Great art is not what people like!”  On the face of it, think about the absurdity of that comment! So, such a determination is made by birds, fish, or household pets? Does the decision rest solely upon evaluation by other artists? Should we depend upon those who represent society’s elite, who have made money and achieved power and fame, to decree, “This is great art”?  Or does great art resonate with the greatest number of people over the longest span of time?

Okay, let me return to the arts in schools. What is the one appellation that is routinely penned to the arts?  “Enrichment.”  This term has become a euphemism for “non-essential,”  “extra.” There is a tendency in educational circles to think of the arts as an added supplement, but not as basic nutrition: Extra vitamins, if you will. To continue this dietary metaphor, some elements of the arts provide a momentary sugar high of satisfaction or enjoyment, but quickly fade.  There are other art activities that take longer to deliver their nutritional benefits, but have much more long-lasting results. In the former category are personal expression and self-esteem (this one is ironic, given the fact that most professional artists’ lives are filled with criticism and rejection!). The pleasurable rush of standing up in front of an audience for the spring concert or class play and hearing enthusiastic applause, seeing your painting hung in the school hallway for all to admire, or having your poem printed in the school’s anthology – all these are passing flushes of recognition.  So let me move on to address the more long lasting benefits of arts practice.

In other academic domains, the emphasis is entirely different from that presently applied to the arts.  Kids learn about history, not how to become historians or policy makers.  They don’t learn English language arts to become novelists or intellectuals, nor are they taught math to be mathematicians or for self-esteem, nor do they study science to become scientists or devise experiments for social justice.  In sum, students are supposed to develop competency in all these subjects to become capable adults, and – dare I even say it – able to make a living.

Consider what sort of world in which today’s children will be expected to be capable.  The present paradigm of public education is directed at the access and delivery of content.  While the nature of content has changed somewhat over the decades, the framework in which this process was implemented hasn’t changed much since the early 1900s; it’s a framework oriented towards factory and farm.  However, the percentage of employment absorbed by these two areas has plummeted from 60% to just 6% over the same span of time.

The work environment in which students will become new hires will be, and to a large extent already is, a conceptual economy of ideas where they will need to be able to think, create, and communicate effectively.  Not just with each other, but cross-culturally because to the dynamics of globalization that compel us to interact on a more intimate basis than ever before with people and cultures different from our own.  Recognition of these new dynamics has given birth to the development of “21^st Century Skills” necessary for success in this much more complex, evolving context.  It is my belief that we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift – one that will dramatically alter our perception of what it means to be educated.

Ironically, the very demands that will issue from this shift can be addressed by habits of mind that are developed through the arts in ways that are not necessarily arts dependent. Surely, we can see that there is a revelation of the obvious in that 21st century skills are arts skills!  And what drives this new emphasis?  The Internet – itself a visual and aural artistic medium.  It is because of the Internet and related technologies that we now have instant access to unlimited content (via “Google”), which decreases the need for the memorization of vast amounts of information/facts. The rapidly evolving power of artificial intelligence (AI) will enable students to have any content delivered to them as well (i.e. the answers) because of voice recognition technology.  Sooner than we anticipate they will be able to carry on a dialogue with tomorrow’s “Chatbots” housed in the equivalent of today’s smart phone, and ask, “Chatbot, please solve the following algebra equation for me,” or “Chatbot, what were the Articles of Confederation and in what year were they ratified?”

Whither then the role of the teacher after the access and delivery of content are enabled by machines?  To teach what computers cannot – those very 21^st century skills!  But in order for this to happen, we must change what is meant by arts education and have the means to expand those skills into domains other than the arts.  I’m not asking teachers of the arts to change their choice of activities, but to shift their focus onto what used to be the byproducts of participation in the arts, and to address them by design rather than tangentially.  At the same time, classroom teachers in other academic subjects will have to become more creative themselves; following pre-scripted lesson plans will no longer be adequate.

What do I mean by that?  Human beings are born with the ability to create.  It’s inherent in the 1% of our DNA that distinguishes us from our nearest primate relative – the chimp.  It will become the task of teachers to unlock this innate capacity in their students. Already, the Massachusetts legislature has passed the “Creativity Challenge Index” which will result in a mandate for just such a requirement. Our creativity genes enable us to create a variety of expressions from a small amount of cognitive resources, to combine different domains of information to achieve a desired result, to think in the abstract and to develop diverse forms of communication.

Further, the primary way in which human beings connect with each other is through narrative – the telling of our stories.  Every form of art tells stories.  Narrative is deeply embedded in our collective psyche. Woven through the fabric of all narratives is emotion. We possess almost fifty times more of the specialized spindle cells in our brains that handle emotions than do our primate relatives. In order to communicate more effectively we employ the devices of metaphor and imagery, both of which elicit emotional responses.  These are also fundamental tools in all forms of art.  So think of what teaching artists can then bring to the table given such an educational perspective!

An analogy to the thrust of my basic argument can be found in the film Moneyball.  In it, the protagonist, Oakland A’s general manager, realizes that he can no longer compete with the richer baseball clubs such as the New York Yankees.  So, he completely rethinks baseball’s way of doing business and reflects on the fact that he wants to change its essential unfairness. Thus it is with the arts in public education.  In our present stressed economy, there are many other interests competing for political support and diminishing financial resources.

If the arts are to play a role the reformation of American education, then, their instruction must stem from a broad definition of what constitutes student achievement, not the narrow limits of today’s various forms of celebratory events such as performances and exhibitions.  Education in general will come to rely more on demonstration of understanding than recall of information.  In essence, this is what artistic products are: demonstrations of the artists’ understanding of what they know, believe, or feel.  How we demonstrate our understanding of things is at the core of the way we conduct our lives, develop our professional competencies, raise our children, form our relationships, communicate who we are, and view our place in the world.

That is why it is imperative to step outside of that echo chamber we retreat into. Let’s have a dialogue about rethinking our roles in today’s educational process. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in a continuing downward spiral.

Bruce Taylor

Bruce Taylor has been active as an arts educator since he entered the professional world of the performing arts after graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

While he was employed by numerous theatre, dance, and opera companies as a stage director, manager, or designer, his avocation was always working with kids and teachers.  Back in the early 80s he brought both realms together by developing “Creating Original Opera” which is currently implemented in over a thousand schools throughout the world and is cited in the document “Champions of Change.”

He has since has seen his guide to arts education, The Arts Equation, published by Watson-Guptil, been a cultural envoy for the U.S. Department of State, and is a regular presenter and workshop director for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, school systems, and various arts consortia.

Most recently he was Director of Education for Washington National Opera until his relocation to Chicago to open a new chapter in his continuing journey to make a difference.

Bruce Taylor has been active as an arts educator since he entered the professional world of the performing arts after graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

While he was employed by numerous theatre, dance, and opera companies as a stage director, manager, or designer, his avocation was always working with kids and teachers.  Back in the early 80s he brought both realms together by developing “Creating Original Opera” which is currently implemented in over a thousand schools throughout the world and is cited in the document “Champions of Change.”

He has since has seen his guide to arts education, The Arts Equation, published by Watson-Guptil, been a cultural envoy for the U.S. Department of State, and is a regular presenter and workshop director for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, school systems, and various arts consortia.

Most recently he was Director of Education for Washington National Opera until his relocation to Chicago to open a new chapter in his continuing journey to make a difference.