Thoughts: Face to Face 2010 Conference

Last week I attended my fourth Face to Face conference, presented by the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable at the Park Avenue Armory. The Armory is a tremendously wonderful venue and was a great host. Some might recall the enormous Lincoln Center production of Zimmerman's Die Soldaten there, in 2008.

I must begin by saying that, for the most part, I love arts education conferences. I believe that while good learning can be done at a desk or in the field, the most stimulating, encouraging professional growth can come from these gatherings. To me, this year's conference focus seemed different. The attendance was a bit younger, the sessions were a bit more engaging and the overall energy was, in a sense, louder - in a good way. In addition to the keynote and plenary discussions, I attended three sessions: Out of the Office and into the Field, Young Educators in the Arts and Building Quality Partnerships.

Out of the Office discussed, what they called, intervisitation: "A visit to a previously unfamiliar arts organization's programs, generally in collaboration with conversations with a program officer from that organization. These visits are often reciprocal, and may involve multiple site visits." This session was great and had us pair up with other individuals to discuss how this might work for us. It was an example of pulling us out of our comfort zones to see the potential of exploring unknown territory. I hope to participate with this concept as the session leaders build the initiative and look forward to sharing more information.

Young Educators in the Arts was the most appealing to me. The room was filled (and I mean filled) with new, emerging leaders in our field. The average age must have been no older than 28. Again, we were broken down into groups, then further broken down to discuss issues, challenges, relevance, opportunities and more. This was less of a show-and-tell than it was a brainstorming, working group of sorts. The session leaders created a network of young arts educators called Young Educators in the Arts (YEA) - how fitting. They host meet-ups, e-forums and other opportunities for this network to continue the conversation of ideas. I am going to join them at their next event on April 29. If you're a "young" arts education stakeholder, I would encourage you to check them out.

The last session, Building Quality Partnerships, was also largely attended and informative. Unfortunately for me, it was more focused on the relationship between teaching artists and schools. I just did not have much to add to that conversation but it was great to see so many TAs advocating for their case.

While I find these active, participatory sessions really useful, there is something to be said for insightful panel discussions. This year's plenary was given by Bennett Reimer, Jessica Hoffman Davis and Andrew Ackerman. Each spoke for about 20 minutes about the plenary question "Why Children Need the Arts," and I was simply enthralled by their comments. A few (non-verbatim) summaries:

• Mr. Reimer was the first panelist to tackle the plenary question. His response: "Because they are human." He also spoke to the idea that standardized testing promotes uniformity and conformity; in a sense, "training" students. Conversely, the arts build, nurture and encourage children. He suggests the phrase "Each Child Fulfilled," as an opposition to No Child Left Behind.
• Approaching the plenary question differently, Ms. Davis suggested a reply to "why children need the arts" - "Why do you ask?" Her intention was not to encourage stakeholders to be argumentative, but to really enquire whether or not the arts should be considered a vehicle to improve other content areas. Rarely is the question asked "why do children need [math, reading, science]."
• I also really appreciated the familiar theme stressed by Mr. Ackerman; that the arts can not solely exist in school, but that they need to be a more integral part of life at home and in the community.

As someone whose job is, at times, to create and facilitate conference programming, events like Face to Face keep my aspirations high. To bring this point home, I would love to see more people at these gatherings, sharing ideas, networking and exchanging business cards. It's all very much worth the effort. To quote Al Gore (from a modified African proverb) - "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

Differentiated what?

In a lot of fields, colleagues and stakeholders are referred to as “family.” To that end, I thought it would be fitting to keep this post “in the family;” my brother. He’s an elementary school teacher in NYC and apart from being brilliant, he’s one of the most honest and dedicated practitioners I know.

We had a conversation one day about Howard Gardner and multiple intelligences. My brother is an advocate for differentiated instruction and I asked him to write his thoughts in a brief paragraph. His words:

Ask Joe Namath to win a spelling bee. Ask Yo-Yo Ma to jump hurdles. It’s a known fact we are limited genetically or environmentally and there’s more of which we are not capable than what we perceive as our strengths. Buzzword of the day: Differentiation. “How is data collected to differentiate your lessons?” As if teachers don’t have enough on our plates already, now we are asked to teach the same lesson in a variety of ways. So why the added task and responsibility? It’s simple; equity: the right of every child to the curriculum. Sure, this might be a situation where the negatives outweigh the positives – whether it’s time management or the known fact that life just doesn’t differentiate – but the one positive (even with the added headache) is that it limits the frustration of the child. For those of you who have no idea what I’m rambling about, here’s an example: If you can’t carry 40 pounds, why would I ask you to carry 60? It is that simple logic that exists in all classrooms and in life, for that matter, that even though we are held accountable, we forget how fragile students are underneath their tough inner-city persona.

If you’re not familiar with Gardner or his theories, I encourage you to research him on the Web. His Project Zero, out of Harvard University, lists as its mission “…to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels.”

Happy holidays and happy new year!

Taylor Mali on what teachers make

I saw this video and while I don't have anything insightful to add to it, I encourage you to take three minutes out of your day to watch. I assure you, it will be worth your while.

all i know is that i don't know nothing

If you’re not familiar, those are lyrics from the song “Knowledge” by the band Operation Ivy. If you’re interested, you can find it on their 1989 self-titled record, Operation Ivy. Green Day covered this song on one of their records.

It has been twenty years since the release of that record (I was 7 at the time) and I really think they were on to something. Something that we might learn from as individuals who work in education; admitting that we don’t know. It makes me think very strongly about the movement of 21st-century education: preparing students to be “effective citizens, workers and leaders in the 21st-century.” (Partnership for 21^st-Century Skills) I think about this because, much like any movement, we need to not only consider the future, but prepare for its arrival. In that preparation, I believe it is essential for us to consider the fact that we really might not know what the world of tomorrow will look like for today’s students. As Nancy Walser puts it in her article Teaching 21st Century Skills: What does it look like in practice?, “You can’t just sprinkle 21st century skills on the 20th century doughnut.”

Now, this is not news. In fact, there has been a lot of attention to this in the media - see this press release about the 21st-Century Skills Incentive Fund, introduced by Senators Rockefeller, Snowe and Kerry. Basically, a bill that would appropriate $100m a year to states that integrate 21st-century skills into education. I am excited by this, because it shows initiative, especially in a time of such potential education reform. [Aside: In 1917, the Smith-Hughes Act, also known as the Vocational Education Act, was passed to help educate Americans for careers in farm work. At that time, over 21% of the American workforce was employed in agriculture, as compared to less than 2% today¹. The Act promoted the concept of education for manual or practical activities and would prepare students for a specific occupation or trade.] As I see it, the Smith-Hughes Act was an attempt by the government to respond to a need. Actions like the 21st-Century Skills Incentive Fund can do just that for education today and is a progressive idea.

I have always considered the goal of education to be learning (makes sense, right?), but we are still operating on a very industrial model - imagine a pyramid, similar to the food groups, where at the peak are math and reading, and as you descend you find history, science, the arts, physical education, etc. This model was proficient in its time (which should have long passed), as it was concerned with high-output for low-cost; basically focusing on cohesion rather than craftsmanship. We're simply too far along to function that way anymore.

The Partnership for 21st-Century Skills considers some of the following to be skills for the 21st-century: creativity and innovation; critical thinking and problem solving; communication and collaboration; information literacy; media literacy; ITC (information communication technology) literacy. What are some of the skills you think the students of tomorrow should have?

1 http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB3/EIB3.htm#changes

happy friday: some resources

It's the Friday before a three day weekend and I simply can't justify posting something laden with thought right now. To that end, I wanted to share some links for perusal. Some of these sites contain lesson plans and other pertinent information. Enjoy:

Arts and Learning Resources for State Leaders - A site is designed to help arts education leaders and practitioners locate resources relevant to their work.

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development - ASCD is a membership organization that develops programs, products and services essential to the way educators learn, teach and lead.

The Gateway - A Department of Education Web site with many resources, which connects visitors to over 140 other education sites.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) - P21 serves as a catalyst to position 21st century skills at the center of U.S. K-12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders.

Teacher Vision - This online resource features quizzes, links and online lesson plans for music-related subjects (Music history, Music in Our Schools Month, National Standards, Jazz, Classroom Management, etc.) and interdisciplinary lessons

Have a great Labor Day weekend.

welcome

Hi there, welcome to teachers with chalk. For those that are visiting for the first time, my name is Evan. Nice to meet you. I wanted this post - being a welcome message and all - to share a little bit about why I decided to create this thing.

I've worked in arts education for about five years. In this half-decade, I've met some incredible individuals, seen some really creative programming and witnessed people's incredible capacity for pushing education (of all forms) to the limit. There are a million other resources out there to learn about these things and I encourage you to visit them as well - ArtsJournal, ASCD, Dewey21C, etc. However, this will be my slice of the pie.

It's worth mentioning that this blog will focus on - although not entirely - arts education. I'll post examples of innovative initiatives, discuss (as best I can) education reform, ask writers to post best practices and interesting stories and, above all, invite discussion about what's going on out there. I come from a family of educators so I suppose ending up in this field was inevitable. My posts will be my own thoughts based on information from the field as I interpret it and should be considered only as such.

About the name: I was in discussion one day with two of my coworkers (for the sake of anonymity, we'll call them Adam and Kevin). It wasn't my idea, but the possibility of an education blog called teachers with chalk was thrown around. I loved the concept because it was a bit counter-intuitive to education in the 21st-century: Instruction and learning are not solely the responsibility of teachers and no one really even uses chalk anymore.

If you want to reach me, you can e-mail Evan@teacherswithchalk.com. That's my story and I'm (hopefully) sticking to it. Stay tuned and thanks for visiting.