Rhode is fnd, providence, 11 8-12

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Teaching artists and the future of education:Finding hope in unexpected places Rhode Island Foundation November 8, 2012 Nick Rabkin

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A better mop? Or better than a mop?

Teaching Artists and the Future of Education

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• Better grades • Proficiency in math• Higher standardized test scores• Less likely to be bored or drop out

• More friends of other races• Less TV • More likely to go to college, graduate, and get a job

Also, more likely to know something about the arts!

Arts education improves student outcomes

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Correlation strongest for low-income students.

It’s the arts, stupid!

Very big deal

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Up 184% from 1930 to 1980, down 25% from 1980 to 2008 with no sign that the decline is slowing.

Childhood arts education, 1930-2008

After nearly a century of growth, arts ed has declined for three decades.

Teaching Artists and the Future of Education

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They’ve mitigated, but not reversed the decline.

Photo: Khanisha Foster with students, Project AIM/CCAP.

Significant numbers of Teaching Artists have entered schools since 1975.

Teaching artists

Jane Addams founded Hull-House in 1889

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Benny Goodman at a Hull-House special event;

Louis Armstrong with his cornet teacher from the

Home for Colored Waifs on TV in 1963.

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New pedagogy emerged at the settlements,

breaking with conservatory veneration of the

classical world and elite patronage, and included

rigorous and critical exploration of the real world.

.

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Viola Spolin

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Art for arts’ sake—art for people’s sake: different pedagogies.

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A Swiffer for education?

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Arts education is understood as affective and expressive, not academic and cognitive, a distraction from ‘real learning.’

Descarte’s error

A Nation at Risk, the template for school reform for three decades.

Teaching Artists and the Future of Education

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Structural economic changes provoked a sustained series of crises that choked most large school systems from the mid-1970s on. The crisis has taken different forms and continues today.

New York fiscal crisis, 1975.

Fiscal crisis

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From Proposition 13 (1978) to the Tea Parky

Tax rebellion

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• HS graduation rate flat over last 20 years

Has school reform worked?

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• HS graduation rate flat over last 20 years

• Dropout rate remains high

Has school reform worked?

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• HS graduation rate flat over last 20 years

• Dropout rate remains high• Achievement gap narrowed in 70s, but

has widened since

Has school reform worked?

1919

• HS graduation rate flat over last 20 years

• Dropout rate remains high• Achievement gap narrowed in 70s, but

has widened since

• US students have fallen farther behind students from more countries in more subjects

Has school reform worked?

2020

• HS graduation rate flat over last 20 years

• Dropout rate remains high• Achievement gap narrowed in 70s, but

has widened since

• US students have fallen farther behind students from more countries in more subjects

• Charters’ record is no better than conventional public schools

Has school reform worked?

Are TAs good teachers?

Aside from socio-economic background, good teaching is the most important predictor of student success in school.

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What is good teaching?

• Student centered: Balances students’ interests, questions, and prior knowledge, with new challenges, choices and responsibilities

Zemelman, Daniels & Hyde (2005) Best Practice: Today’s Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s SchoolsPerkins (2010) Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform EducationSmith, Lee, and Newman (2001) Instruction and Achievement in Chicago Elementary Schools

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What is good teaching?

• Student centered: Balances students’ interests, questions, and prior knowledge, with new challenges, choices and responsibilities

• Deeply cognitive: Learning is the consequence of thinking and making work about meaningful, rich, compelling problems, concepts, and ideas

Zemelman, Daniels & Hyde (2005) Best Practice: Today’s Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s SchoolsPerkins (2010) Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform EducationSmith, Lee, and Newman (2001) Instruction and Achievement in Chicago Elementary Schools

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What is good teaching?

• Student centered: Balances students’ interests, questions, and prior knowledge, with new challenges, choices and responsibilities

• Deeply cognitive: Learning is the consequence of thinking and making work about meaningful, rich, compelling problems, concepts, and ideas

• Social: Collaborative activities are more powerful than individualist strategies

Zemelman, Daniels & Hyde (2005) Best Practice: Today’s Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s SchoolsPerkins (2010) Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform EducationSmith, Lee, and Newman (2001) Instruction and Achievement in Chicago Elementary Schools

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Engagement is job one

For many, ‘A slow process of disengagement begins in 3rd grade…’ Photo by Joel Wanek

Photo by Joel Wanek

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Voice

An aesthetic signature and a perspective on the world and life, a set of concerns, issues, and ideas that matter to students. Student work from Project AIM/CCAP, Joel Wanek, Teaching Artist

Courtesy Project AIM, photo by Joel Wanek

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Building a community in the classroom

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Arts integration: The ‘elegant fit’: Moving the mind, connecting ideas, and building understanding.

Wheatstacks lesson credit: Luke Albrecht, 8th grade math, Crown Academy, Chicago

See: AIMPrint: New Relationships in the Arts and Leaning, Weiss and Lichtenstein.Renaissance in the Classroom, Burnaford, Aprill and Weiss.

Build demand for arts ed

Research must be complemented with real stories. TAs are a great source.

Make the field sustainable

Under-employment, low pay, and health insurance are serious problems for artists. Funders and employers need to take them seriously.

Arts education is vital to the future of the arts, too.

Teaching artists are experts on how to create more engaging and meaningful artistic experiences

Develop arts integration

Integrated and disciplinary instruction are more alike than different when grounded in good practice. Let’s get beyond the conflict and invest in serious development!

Arts ed in both schools and communities

Advocate for specialists and TAs

Good schools have both already. Make them models for collaboration, not competition.

Assessment – the next frontier

Bring the authentic assessment of the arts into classrooms.

Professional development

• Use the best arts pedagogy to train teaching artists AND teachers in all settings. Hands-on, project-based, problem oriented, learning by doing.

Thank You!

Nick Rabkin

Senior Research Scientist

nickrabkin@gmail.com

Photos by Joel Wanek