This posting is a response to fellow UC Humanities Forum blogger Satoko Kakihara’s posting “Everybody Clapped,” which was a lovely and passionate argument for the arts, arts experiences for children, and more. Given that this conversation is near to my heart, and given the length of response that developed as I wrote, I thought it might be better off as a posting all its own, rather than an over long comment.
I’ll start by saying (in direct response to the original post’s comments) that I’m excited about this conversation, and it continues to be desperately relevant. Arts education in California has taken quite a turbulent ride in recent years, and the horizon promises more of the same. Oddly, though California has more arts-related businesses and more people working in the creative industries (this includes, for example, Hollywood, the television industry, Silicon Valley CGI firms, etc) than any other state (California Arts Council), we are consistently at the very bottom of the list in terms of state per capita spending on arts education in K-12 schools. Governor Schwarzenneger was actually a pretty effective advocate for the arts (despite his part in the continuing erosion of higher education funding), and he put in place some committed funding for several consecutive years, but ongoing budget problems for the state have rolled back many of the gains (such as they were) from those years.
It’s really kind of shocking to see some of the radical changes in K-12 arts programs over the last 20 years… music programs widely gutted, dance all but non-existent, and a majority of arts instruction becoming the responsibility of classroom teachers who often have little or no training in the arts. There is some really exciting work being done, though, especially through various arts integration practices– for example using drama, music, and visual arts to teach K-12 core curriculum (math, social studies, language arts, etc).
There’s also a mounting body of research that suggests that students learn core curriculum more effectively when engaging the material through arts based learning methods—see, for example, The DREAM Project (Developing Reading Education through Arts Methods) currently being administered as a partnership between Center ARTES at CSU San Marcos (about an hour’s drive south of Riverside) and the San Diego County Office of Education. What’s more, when this process is governed by California state Visual and Performing Arts standards, research also indicates that the arts integration practices help students develop core competencies in the arts that they would likely otherwise not have the chance to learn (there is a lot of compelling research on all of these subjects and more here).
It is, I think, important that post-secondary education constituencies remain aware of the struggles for quality arts education at the K-12 levels, especially considering that we all share many of the same obstacles to moving our work progressively forward: the decreasing state funding commitments and a crisis of legitimation for disciplines that do not produce financial revenue (there are more kinds of revenue than monetary, to be certain), just to name two.
For interested parties, here are a few great places to go for info and internet activism:
National level:
State level:
California Alliance for Arts Education
UPDATE– 2/15/12
These news stories came out in San Diego county newspapers last week, discussing some really remarkable findings from DREAM Project (mentioned above) research. Also note, at the end of the NCT story, how the student describes not only her ability to learn through the arts, but the impact of that learning on her confidence as a learner. Very moving.
SAN MARCOS: Arts education program boosts reading scores
North County Times
“Art has the power to inspire, inform, and obviously the results of DREAM show that art has the power to educate,” Cal State San Marcos President Karen Haynes said. DREAM —- Developing Reading Education through Arts Methods —- is a four-year …
SCHOOL ARTS = HIGHER SCORES
U-T San Diego
“By using everything from performance to puppetry, CSUSM faculty helped local elementary school teachers create lessons to boost reading,” said CSUSM …
Thanks, Richard, for keeping up this discussion! It’s cool that posts spawn new posts…we should do this more often. How is Riverside, by the way?
The information and links you provide are helpful, and I’m excited to learn about different programs being put in place, like the one right close by in San Marcos! It’s unsurprising that exposure to the arts helps students better acquire core competencies…I’m going to have to read up on that, because I wonder if exposure to knowledge _in general_ helps students better acquire all sorts of other knowledge, regardless of discipline. (But really, all them arts projects and learning how to measure, cut, mix paint, etc.? Those are life skills right there.)
Your other point that stuck out to me is the assumption that _anyone_ can teach the arts—so teachers, particularly for K–6, seem to be given the task of teaching arts-related topics that they aren’t “trained” to teach (beyond a certain level). I don’t think there’s an issue with “untrained” teachers teaching the arts, but it speaks to this idea of “Oh, well, anyone can teach the arts (and the humanities).” Which leads to the conclusion, “Oh, well, we don’t really need curriculum space to teach arts and humanities, since it requires no training, do we?”
Anyway, thank you again for these thoughts and links. I’m excited about getting more involved in these efforts throughout California.
Yes, I agree– it’s great when our postings become conversations about things that are important to us in both scholarly work and our everyday lives. And Riverside is pretty cool, actually, thanks for asking. The summers are admittedly a bit rough, but I couldn’t be happier with the grad program, and the climate and locale are quite pleasant most of the year. And virtually anything is within about an hour’s drive, so that’s handy. I moved up here from Encinitas/Oceanside, though, so I do sometimes miss that San Diego coastal life that I guess you’re living every day
Good question about knowledge begetting knowledge. No doubt there’s research on it somewhere
Check out the updates I posted above– these news stories just came out in two San Diego papers, covering some pretty remarkable learning results from the DREAM Program I mention above.
And it does seem that “capability” is both a strength and weakness for the arts and humanities. Sure, most anyone can dance in some way or write a poem, but doing these things in ways that other people are interested in watching or reading, that’s another matter. As far as training in teaching the arts, in many situations it’s perhaps of less significance (and I think you’re exactly right about problematic conclusions that might lead from this), but in other case, I do think it matters. It’s difficult to teach someone to draw, or to attempt to compose a dramatic scene, if one doesn’t know how to do it oneself. But I do think we assume, and rightfully so, a certain base level of arts competency with the majority of classroom teachers, so in that sense, I don’t want to sound dismissive of classroom teachers important efforts.