the history of teaching artistry

8/8/2019 The History of Teaching Artistry

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The History of Teaching Artistry, by Eric Booth

Those who can, do; those who cant, teachaccording to George Bernard

Shaw, who also wrote that he never learned anything from a teacher, he

taught himself everything; so maybe GBS had a little ax to grind. He got it

quite wrongthe truth is that those who can do two things well, at the

same time, in almost any setting, are teaching artists.

The History of Teaching Artistry:

Where we come from, are, and are heading

By Eric Booth

December 2010

PREFACETo know who you are, you must know where you come from. So too

for the emergent profession of teaching artistry, which might be described as

a fast-growing teenagerpast puberty but still not moving with a

twentysomethings confident stride. This essay aspires to trace briefly thehistory of teaching artistry. It does not provide the academic rigor of a proper

history, and I hope an ambitious historian will take up the challenge and

provide an authoritative version for us all. Nor does the scope of this essay

allow me to identify the dozens of specific organizations and individuals whohave provided important flagstones on the path, or those who are currently

doing exemplary work around the countrythey deserve to be recognizedand thanked. This essay offers a distilled sense of the journey, its general

contours, in order to ground our sense of the complex present and clarify itsproliferation of opportunity. Even though the characterizations of decades

and phases are oversimplified, given the jumble of activity that unfolded

during each decade, I feel the following descriptions are accurate enough to

propose as the truthful story. I also offer two organizational constructs at theend of this essay; I hope they provide useful distinctions to elucidate our

ongoing evolution. I welcome others who wish to take this essay and expand

it in additional foundation-building ways.

In setting our historical context, lets openly acknowledge some of itsnegatives. The field of teaching artistry does not speak in a unified voice

never has and possibly never will. (This does not negate it as a field at all;

does politics speak with a unified voice?) Our growing body of writing about

teaching artistry enables the field to begin to know itself. There are increasingnumbers of surveys that illuminate aspects of teaching artistry (the insights of

which have not been gathered for handy dissemination), and a first national

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LINEAGE

Teaching artistry grows from the soil of two different artistic

traditions: 1) the training of artists and 2) the democratic impulse to includeeveryone in the cultural commons. These two traditions map roughly as the

specialist and the generalist or democratic tracks. Lets pause for a quickworldview before returning to these two tracks.

At UNESCOs first-ever worldwide arts education conference (Lisbon2006), I discovered what an undistinguished place the U.S. holds in the world

landscape. Indeed, UNESCO originally forgot to invite America to the

conference (partly because we have been unreliable supporters of UNESCO,

no doubt). At that conference, it became clear to me that the U.S. is far belowmost other UNESCO nations in arts education commitmentU.S. public

school students average less than one third the number of in-school arts

education hours than the average in other UNESCO countries. Given the

embarrassment of our far below average norms, I discerned four areas inwhich U.S. arts education practice is the most advanced in the world: 1) the

breadth and quality of conservatory training; 2) the quality and depth of arts

learning experiments; 3) the quality and depth of arts learning partnerships

between schools and other organizations (which nurture most of thoseexperiments); and 4) teaching artists. The U.S. has the best teaching artists in

the world, the most advanced understanding of teaching artist practices, and

the broadest application of those capacities in an increasing number of

settings.Back to our two teaching artist historical tracks. The artist training

track might also be called the conservatory track. The U.S. can now boast thelargest high-quality conservatory training system in the world, having earned

unprecedented near parity among the many conservatory and universityprograms, which align with high arts training throughout Western culture,

but exceed other countries in size and depth. Because our public schooling

has such undistinguished arts education programs to feed this track (with

some glorious exceptions), teaching artists have been used to supplementperennially-underfunded school arts programs. Through most of the 20th

century, schooling offered a gifted and talented track in music and the

visual arts, while theater lived in and around English classes and dance held

a place in physical education. Organizations outside of schoolsmusic andvisual arts schools, dance academies, theater programs and projects,

programs at arts institutions, after school and during summershave

provided the essential education to feel the disciplinary training system.

Teaching artists have appeared intermittently beside arts specialists inschools, and independently, as enrichment for over a century to expose

kids to the feel and possibilities of the different art forms. The practices used

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in the conservatory track are not much different than those found throughout

Western countries, and valuable as they are, this arts education track has not

been the one to distinguish American teaching artistry.The second teaching artist track, the democratic impulse to provide all

people, especially all young people, with arts experiences and opportunities

has given birth to the power of teaching artistry. It makes sense that thisphenomenon was born in the U.S. because it aligns with Americas history ofestablishing universal public education, a widespread public library system,

the Settlement House movement, the progressive education movement, the

WPA Artists Project, and so forth. Perhaps the need that drove the emergence

of teaching artistry is less acute in other Western nations where culturalnorms are more arts inclusive, holding expectations that every child will

consistently participate in arts experiences. (I recall a conversation years ago

with French arts educators about teaching artists. When I described how U.S.

teaching artists turn young people on to the arts, making them aware of the

importance and relevance of the arts, the French colleagues looked confusedthey didnt understand that special individuals were needed for this task

because everyone in a young French persons life took that necessity

seriously.) Beginning as early as the 1830s, in the Boston area, the arts werebrought into schools. As public schooling grew, so did the sense that the arts

belonged as a part of citizenship preparation. Soon after the end of the

nineteenth century, the arts were a norm in U.S. public schools. There were

two main reasons for bringing the arts into schools: the inherent reasons that

argued that artistic capacity was an essential part of becoming an educated

person, and the instrumental reasons that argued that the manual arts

(particularly music and the visual arts, still our dominant instructiondisciplines) developed fine motor skills that prepared better workers for an

industrial economy. It is interesting to note that the inherent and instrumental

arguments are still used in arts education advocacy, with the inherent

arguments struggling for traction, and the instrumental view now arguing forthe 21st century learning skills required in the workplace of the future.

Throughout most of the 20th century, America believed that arts learning

belonged in public school educationelementary school teachers across

America were required to teach the arts (basic piano skills were a certificationrequirement). Middle schools were an uncertain few years for youth arts

instruction, but high schools all offered various arts elective tracks and some

general instruction for many.

This inherent valuing of the arts as a life priority being less true in theU.S. than in the Western European countries we looked to as models, cultural

leaders have assumed a pro-active commitment to go out and include all

young people in arts experiences. The importance of such inclusion has

become an article of faith for those in the arts; it is a social mission (an

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expensive one) we take on in an arts-ambivalent culture. School based

programs have never been able to engage the entire youth population

adequately, so teaching artists became a significant instrument of thisendeavor. Special efforts have been made to engage young people on the low-

end of the socio-economic scale, where arts access has always been even

scarcer. (Similar efforts toward the underserved were not prioritized inmost other Western nations until recently.) For some decades of the late 19th

and early 20th centuries, this inclusive impulse went so far as to propose that

the arts were a primary way to socialize new immigrants and the poor, in the

Settlement House movement. This sense of mission has been strongly

influenced by the philosophy of John Dewey, which affirmed theessentialness of the arts in public education.

These two tracksconservatory/specialist and democratic

inclusion/generalist both still exist, usually in a healthy mix of impulses that

makes them indistinguishable in practice. The following history provides a

view of the growth of the role of teaching artistry from those lineages, itssteady expansion into new capacities and professional aspirations, and its

recent moves into whole new fields of endeavor.

HISTORY

Artists have always visited schools, before and after the arts began to

appear in the common public school curriculum after the turn into the 20 th

century. Throughout the 20th century, artists have been valued for providing

schools with enrichment experiences, and were also seen as introducingcareer options, as firemen and doctors making elementary school

appearances did. In my own elementary schooling in the 1950s, I recall thevivid impact of assembly programs in which performing artists spoke with

and performed for us. Will Geer, a Broadway actor at the time, and socialactivist, later Grandpa on The Waltons, was one presenter who made a

lifelong impression on me. The first national marker of this teaching artist

commitment was the 1970 launch of a modest Artists-in-Schools Program at

the recently established National Endowment for the Arts.In the 60s, and 70s, outside-of-school arts education programs became

more intentional in bringing performances and artists into schools. The

predominant one-shot performances and lecture-demonstrations sometimes

grew into longer durations, projects, and residencies. Schools had artsprogramsperhaps modest, but present in almost all elementary schools,

and turning into clear tracks for interested students in secondary schools. The

presence of the arts was consistent, plays, recitals, performances, and art

displays were structural elements of the school year. The arts were valued forproviding a rounding out of academic education, for social development,

for building school community, and for serving the needs of the gifted and

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talented. Visiting artists added a distinctive extra shot of energy and

excitement. Throughout this time, field trips to attend performances and

museums were a regular feature of the school experience, and the instructionaround and within such visits tended to be the delivery of information about

the art.

Many artists were, and still are, naturally good teachers, and thosewho had it were the ones hired to bring their magic into the lives ofstudents. The ability to engage students was seen as a personality feature, a

kind of charismaa la Leonard Bernstein, who was the international icon of

this capacity. His Young Peoples Concerts were a beloved and high-impact

public beacon of teaching artistry, making a dramatic impression on an entiregeneration of Americans. Bernsteins brilliance was so definitive, the arts

world came to equate it with good teaching artistry, which was a mixed

blessing. I still encounter vestiges of the charisma trap in less advanced arts

learning programs, the uninformed belief that teaching artistry is for the

subset with public charm, not that it is full of many roles, many capacitiesthat can be developed, and truly the domain of all but an obdurate few.

In the 60s and 70s, many if not most arts learning programs (both

independent organizations and those connected to cultural institutions)became more complex, seeking to enhance the impact of the field trip and the

artists presence in school. Hiring to teach in these programs sought the

naturally gifted few; indeed, right into the 80s, most teaching artist hiring

was based on the magical thinking that some had the gift and others didnt,and you simply hired the ones who had it, and, bingo, capacity problem

solved. Slowly, beginning perhaps in the mid 60s, recognition arose that

there were extended roles and some training necessary for artists to developskills beyond performing and speaking engagingly. This training was not thetraditional training in how to develop good artists, but rather, the beginnings

of training in how to work with learners who were not already invested in an

artform. The training was often informal, and even perfunctory, but there was

an emerging sense that artists were not automatically good teachers, and thatthere was something extra required to be effective with those who werent

already inclined toward an artistic path.

Experimental programs in the 70s stepped up the use of artists and

began to more widely recognize that more than personality magic was

involvedthey proposed that there were skills to be learned, and that artistscould learn them. In line with this increase in experimentation was an

increase in research on learning in the arts. The 70s also saw teaching artists

beginning to move into the role of professional development of non-artsteachers; the idea was that training one teacher to make appropriate, effective

use of arts learning could multiply the impact to 25 students in the classroom.

This decade also saw pilot programs that included teaching artists in

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collaborative planning with educators, administrators, parents, and students

trying to create richer school learning cultures. This impulse has popped up

irregularly, irrepressibly, ever since, all around the country, with the artsoffered as a school reform model in various ways, always with teaching

artists in the mix of design and delivery.

During this time, there was a lingering cloud of kiddie art that hungover some of this developmentcondescending art, often of mediocrequality, that tainted the emergent sense of artistic legitimacy, and high-art

standards, in the school endeavor. There was a commercial aspect to the field

of artists in schools, and the quality varied. A recurrent concern in the field

that lingered (and some would claim still abides) is that many consumersof such offerings, the educators who book such events, are often themselves

not artistically informed, and so can make choices based on other criteria

(such as liveliness, curriculum-relatedness, price, or convenience) than

quality. There were some teaching artists who were slicker in marketing

themselves than in delivering high-quality arts learning. In this late 70s mix,the term teaching artist arose, along with a handful of other popular labels

like visiting artist and artist-in-residence, and artist-educator. These

labels were an acknowledgement of the necessity and value of artists whochoose to develop educational skills as an intentional and connected part of

their artistic careers. These terms distinguished an emerging role from the

longtime jumble of arts in schooling offerings and practices.

This evolution of the role of teaching artists accelerated in the 80s. Thereductions in school arts program funding that began in the late 70s

quickened in the Reagan Era, reversing a many-decades trend of steadily

increasing arts education experiences for American youth. The cutbacksslashed open a void in young Americans experience of the arts; tapping theirentrenched sense of social responsibility, cultural institutions rushed in to

provide more experiences for students. Funders supported the impulse to fill

the gap with increased ways for artists to work inside schools. A balance was

shifting, and teaching artists were becoming significant players in this shift.There was some tension in implementing these expanding and new

programs, as non-school administrators and artists were often poor partners

with in-school arts teachersoften disinterested in the life of the arts in the

schools they visited, and sometimes even arrogantly disrespectful of the

heroic and essential lifeline the arts specialists provided. (These tensionshave diminished over decades, with occasional re-eruptions whenever

delicate balances are dislodged by circumstance or insensitive individuals.

Some consistent underlying fears/angers that crack open under stress are:(for teachers) that teaching artists are a cheap way to replace real arts

learning programs and full time teachers, and that teaching artists come in,

stir things up that are not supportive of the ongoing work in the school and

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then disappear; and (for teaching artists) that school programs are old-

fashioned and dull, not good enough to turn on the young, and that arts

specialists are unable or unwilling to engage students ambitiously andcreatively.) There were also nascent tensions between teaching artists and the

arts institution administrations that employed them, to the degree that one

faculty formed an official union, organized under the United Federation ofTeachers.

Whatever the tensions, the 80s was a rich time for exploration and

experimentation in the field of teaching artistry, even as it was a stressful time

for school arts programs. Indeed, there is some consistency to this pattern

diminishment of school arts program funding does lead to moreexperimentation with teaching artists. Some opponents of the use of teaching

artists in schools find a cause and effect relationship in this pattern, feeling

the availability of less-expensive part-time teaching artists allows for the

cutback of school programs. In my own observation and study of this claim, I

have found occasional situations that seem to bear out this fear. However, Ifind many more situations in which teaching artists provide a stop gap place-

holder for arts experiences that seek to, and not-infrequently are able to,

reengage the school community in such a way that it chooses to reinvest in afull-time teacher and program. I find that stop-gap teaching artist programs

provide an important function of keeping the presence of the arts alive when

they are easily forgotten among stressed school priorities. I also find nearly

all teaching artists to be active advocates for the hiring of full time artsteachers, even when talking themselves out of a job.

Intensive training programs appeared in this decade of the 80s. As the

professional development of teachers to partner with artists emerged, and thefoundation understandings of the tools and skills of teaching artist increased,so arose the first sense that teaching artistry was more than just a kind of gig

added on to an artists life, a particular kind of temp work.

In the 90s, the demands on teaching artists grew as programs exploreddeeper relationships with schools. It is fair to say that the 80s surfaced the

power of teaching artistry, and the 90s sought to tap it, explore it, and

deepen it in a variety of ways. There was an increase in the funding for

experimental programs, models were developed and delved into various

aspects of arts in education. Several organizations launched nationalprograms to introduce particular models of arts learning to schools across the

country, all using teaching artists, and some explicitly presenting themselves

as school reform efforts. Teaching artists were asked to become partnership-builders.

Voluntary national standards were established for dance, drama,

music and the visual arts with little evident participation of teaching artists;

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and state standards emerged with slightly more participation by teaching

artists. However, as explicit connections to state standards became a

requirement for all in-school instruction, teaching artists were given theadded responsibility of identifying the ways in which their work with

students aligned with published standards. After some initial resistance,

teaching artists complied and soon found the task was not intrusive. Overtime, the task of connecting to the standards subsided from the originalaspirations of many to more deeply embed artistic traditions of quality into

school arts practices to a largely connect-the-dots administrative task that

teaching artists had to fulfill to be allowed to work in schools.

Teaching artists were increasingly asked to contribute to theassessment and evaluation of the work in their programs. This also met with

some initial resistance, with teaching artists fearing that assessment meant

grading creative work and that it would diminish the very core of their

power with young people and the joy they found in the work. Over time,

most teaching artists have adapted healthily to the assessment challenge,finding that documentation and assessment of a few selected aspects of the

learning does not damage the quality of the learning, but indeed illuminates

accomplishments for the learners, the educators involved, and for those whosupport the programs. Many teaching artists became adept and creative

assessors, contributing new tools and practices to the field. Some became part

of formal research programs that sought to clarify and verify aspects of arts

learning practice and impact.Teaching artists became more involved in designing and leading

teacher professional development; and in many locations were invited to try

new methods based on improved evaluation of existing programs that hadrevealed their weaknesses. They were drawn into advocacy for arts educationprograms. They took on more responsibility in curriculum design and even

program design. They were asked to take on roles as facilitators of planning

and partnership building. Entrepreneurially-inclined teaching artists

launched independent programs, some of which grew to significant size andimpact and still thrive.

Conservatories and university training programs introduced courses

and even sequences of courses that could be called training programs to offer

teaching artist training as a part of conservatory training. An increasing

number of high profile arts organizations chose to deepen their investment inteaching artists, to go beyond exposure programs and brief residencies, to

train artists for programs that aspired to significant impact with young

people.Teaching artists became further involved in arts-integrated programs

that wove arts learning with other subject areas. The pedagogical connections

between arts and other subject learning have long been exploited by good

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teachersI recall working on my beautiful fifth grade rain cycle diorama, and

doing role play in seventh grade history class, with nary a teaching artist in

sight. Teaching artists sometimes participated in interdisciplinary teaching asearly as the 70s. By the 90s arts integration had grown into an important part

of the whole arts education landscape. I refer to it as the great gamble: that by

bringing arts learning into the instruction of other subjects (which still areassessed for that other subjects accomplishments and not the arts), bothkinds of learning can be advanced in ways they couldnt be when separate.

The losing side of the gamble appears if the arts are allowed to serve as a

handmaiden to other subjectsthey lose their identity and are valued only to

the degree that they can produce results in the other content area. However, ifarts-integration is effective, we wineveryone involved viscerally

understands afresh the power of the arts, and students develop some new

artistic capacities and ways of thinking. Teaching artists have been prominent

inventers, practitioners, and advocates in this great gamble, among the

fiercest protectors of the quality and equality of the arts component in thecurricular mix.

During this time, a sense of teaching artistry as a profession began to

emerge. While the gig mindset continued for many who chose to developthese skills (or at least cash in as they could using their natural instincts yet

avoiding explicit training), others began to see teaching artistry as a part of a

larger concept of an artists career. There was a nascent sense that ones work

as a teaching artist informed and enriched ones work as an artist, as onesinterests and processes as an artist continually energized and developed ones

work as a teaching artist. There was a felt-sense that the two aspects together

formed a new and enriched whole life as an artist. (In the final section of thisessay, I introduce the three tracks I currently see within the profession ofteaching artistry.)

Toward the end of the 90s, tipping into the new century, the term

teaching artist seemed to gain general acceptance, and was adopted (without

fanfare) by programs that had used other terms. The first full-time contractsfor teaching artists appeared; a national website with resources and an

informative listserve appeared; a peer reviewed professional journal

appeared; regional professional development opportunities popped up to

answer local interest and need. A little later, degree/certification programs

for teaching artists were established at universities, high profile Fellowshipswere launched, a national award program arose (and sadly disappeared), and

a first textbook by a major publisher appeared.

A decade into the 21st century, the evolution has continued at a fastpace. The Teaching Artist Research Project (TARP) from NORC at the

University of Chicago (the first national study of teaching artists) asserts the

following: Currently the mean age of teaching artists is 45 years old; over half

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have 10+ years of experience; stay with employers six years or more on

average; earn a mean of $17,000/year from teaching artist work, just under

half of their personal earnings; and are motivated predominantly by love oftheir artform and of teaching and the wish to contribute to their community.

Fully 90% say their teaching artistry has had a positive impact on their

artistry, and 84% would take more teaching artist work if it were available.As the field has grown, expectations have increased, and inherent

professional frustrations also increase. The predominant frustrations are

(according to TARP): a persistent lack of visibility and respect for the role and

skills of good teaching artists; low pay and lack of other kinds of respectful

support like health insurance and job security; an employment ceilinginmost programs, there are few if any ways that greater skill can grow into

greater responsibility and more challenging work. Frustrations increase

because national economic recessions impact teaching artist employment

levels significantly; schools in general (with beloved exceptions) have become

more difficult and less rewarding as teaching artist partners they havestruggled in the No Child Left Behind Era. TARP found that dissatisfaction

increases slowly with experience in teaching artists careers.

MOVING FORWARD

There is an unmistakable trend, perhaps even an evolutionary impulse,

to expand the power of teaching artistry. This force and its decades of recenthistory since the growth spurt in the 80s have carved their deepest

expression in schools. That is the laboratory within which most of the energyand practice of teaching artistry has been dedicated and grown. However, in

the last decade, the No Child Left Behind era of schooling, many of thosededicated to arts learning and to teaching artistry have found school

partnering to be a less effective way to deliver the power of the arts. In recent

years, I have heard deep frustrations with these limitations, especially as

financial crises forced damaging cutbacks in many programs that werealready struggling for support. The evolutionary impulse to make use of the

power of teaching artistry has hit a blockage in schools, at the same time that

savvy people in other professions are recognizing the power of teaching

artistry. The result has been an increasing proliferation of new ways thatteaching artistry is explored and developed. The majority of teaching artist

work still takes place in schools, much of it good, and holding its own, but

other areas have captured more of the innovative, exploratory energy.

Excellent after-school arts learning programs have gained visibility andsupport, especially in inner city settings. The Presidents Committee on the

Arts and Humanities gives out annual awards for exemplary programs.

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Summer programs have been growing, especially in inner cities, even as arts

camps for more affluent young people grow stronger. Programs that bring

teaching artists into correctional facilities, hospitals, and other social servicesettings are increasing. The emergent field of creative aging, founded by a

teaching artist, now has a center in Washington DC and hires teaching artists

across the countrydemand for teaching artists who work well with seniorsoutstrips supply. Teaching artists work increasingly with and withincorporations.

The beginnings of even deeper models of work with young people

have appeared in Artist Corps and MusicianCorps, which aspire to Peace

Corps understandings for teaching artists working full time in inner cities,including in schools, to build community through music. The explosion of the

El Sistema movement in the U.S., inspired by the Venezuelan music learning

system, challenges teaching artists to revise the way they were taught music

to develop a new curriculum of holistic child development through intensive

afterschool ensemble music instruction. Teaching artists in this stream ofwork join the social service moment. They revert to the time before art for

arts sake when humans believed in art for many sakes. In this view, the

purpose of art is not to provide a particular exquisite kind of aestheticexperience of deep value, but rather, the purposes of art is manifold.

Engagement in art accomplishes many worthwhile ends, including aesthetic,

emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. It heals, and teaches, and changes

peoples actions, and changes the directions of peoples lives. Teaching artistsjoin forces with community development and youth development colleagues,

bringing a powerful new tool to the social service movement. This thread

hearkens back to the enthusiasm of the Settlement House movement, wheresome claim teaching artistry was born. We have begun to see this workfunded in new and promising waysjuvenile justice money, gang violence

reduction funds, poverty reduction programs invested in arts learning and

teaching artists. An old-new territory inviting teaching artists to homestead.

As the buzzword of creativity in education becomes more prevalent,with the arts conspicuously absent from mainstream and policy discussions

(although recently beginning to find a seat at the table, after the first courses

have been served), there is an opportunity for the arts to make an authentic

and dramatic contribution to an emerging educational trend that has wide

interest. People in the arts have been weak in providing clear and compellingcontributions to the discussion; indeed, arts people have been less able to

articulate well what they bring to the movement than other fields like science

and engineering have been. This situation presents a great opportunity forteaching artists to step forward and provide the language that can bring the

arts into active play. Teaching artists are well positioned to do this since they

lead the field in clarity and communications about artistic processes and their

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place in learning.

As we complete this first decade of the new century, I see two models

of the way teaching artistry is developing. I would like to introduce themboth. The first is an analysis of the six strands in the arts learning ecosystem,

and where teaching artists fit into each. The second describes the three tracks

within teaching artistry itself that seem to be presenting themselves topractitioners. These models intend to illuminate natural distinctions ininterrelated practice rather than encourage the development of new silos of

separation.

THE SIX STRANDS OF THE ARTS LEARNING ECOSYSTEM

I use the term arts learning ecosystem rather than the more commonarts education because the field is larger than the school connotations of the

word education. While most of teaching artist work does happen in schools,teaching artists increasingly work in a variety of settingsfrom arts

institutions to nursing homes to hospitals to corporate board rooms. Artseducation professionals, as well as those with only a vague sense of the field,

tend to blur the distinctions among these six, viewing them as one giant

undertaking, rather than interdependent and overlapping elements. These six

do not function in discrete, exclusive ways, in reality or in good practice.However, there is a value in clarifying the distinctions, pointing out the

differences in their goals, beliefs, locations and delivery systems, and the

different roles that teaching artists take within each strand. The sequence in

which the six are presented does not suggest any kind of prioritization, andso, are not numbered.

Arts appreciation

Skill building within an artformAesthetic development

Arts integration

Community arts

Extensions

Arts Appreciation

Main purpose: Teach about art.

This kind of traditional arts education relies heavily, almost entirely, ongiving information as the path to greater appreciation. We associate this

thread with academia (college survey courses, general music in primary and

secondary schools), but it appears in lecture series, pre-concert events, in

parents telling children about the arts. Its strength can lie in the profundity of

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the arts and in the knowledge of most presenters; its weaknesses are its

reliance on telling (and showing) and the belief that information is a powerful

way to open up the power of the arts.Today, fewer and fewer Americans can take that kind of information

presentation and turn it into powerful personal experiencing in listening to

the music, in grasping the visceral language of the dance. This is the thread ofconnoisseurship and has the taint of elitism and higher education. It tends toignore or assume the learners motivation. Its effectiveness is most often

assessed by testing the retention and mastery of the information given. This

thread produces effective results for those already in the art clubthe

small percentage of Americans (maybe six to eight percent of the population)who already feel they belong inside an artform, know how to speak and make

meaning in its language based on experience and instruction in their

background. This thread can also be effective with those who are excited by

the lecture format, and those with academic aspirations in their listening.

Many people in the arts have had life-transformative experiences of brilliantteachers who were masters of this thread, who may or may not be termed

teaching artists.

Teaching artistry doesnt have much of a place in this thread. Someindividuals with teaching artist skills do participate in this strand, but there is

limited play for their teaching artistry within its historical goals. Teaching

artistry does not happily limit itself to the goal of teaching about art; a good

TA giving a lecture instinctively expands the goal of the occasion to include

elements of the other strands below. There are extraordinary examples of

teaching artists leading college level courses that introduce the arts in

innovative, highly engaging, distinctive ways that do not rely on informationtransmission as the key tool in developing arts appreciation.

Skill Building within an Artform

Main purpose: Teach you how.

This is the artist training strand, containing the many ways in which

motivated people gain the skills, knowledge, lore, and savvy of an artform.All teachers dedicated to bringing young talent into the artform and

developing that talent as far as it can go belong to this same strandfrom a

pre-school music teacher through the top masters at the top training

programs and conservatories.Some say this purpose is exactly what distinguishes teaching artists

from other artists who teachTAs do not train young artists for the

professional track. It is said that the stern advanced ballet instructor at the

School of American Ballet is not a TA. In truth, its not so simpleif she is

exclusively focused on technique, perhaps she is not exactly a teaching artist;

but if, as is likely, she teaches about musical elements, opens up connections

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between ballet and lifewho are we to say she isnt a teaching artist? And

what does it matter anyway? Lets err on the side of inclusion.

This thread is doing very well in music and visual arts, although someargue it is less vibrant in other artforms. It is fair to say that the technical

training of musicians in conservatories and university programs is at the

highest level ever; and many report a healthy vibrancy in the visual artstrainingthe number of students taking the College Boards AdvancedPlacement exam in Studio Art increases every year. A weakness of this thread

is that the students, the world, and the professional field are changing faster

than the training programs. This creates a tension between the skills being

prioritized and those needed to live a full, rewarding life in the arts. I believethis strand is in the slow process of redefining the essential skills of the 21 st

century artist. This strand will eventually include teaching artist capacity as

an essential capacity in the artists kitbag, thus redefining the very nature of

this strand. Since this is the most ancient of the arts learning strands, going

back to epochs before the arts were distinguished from the essentials ofcommunity life, the emerging change in its lineage identity is historically

unprecedented.

Many teaching artists also teach in private lesson settings and inschools of different art forms. They tend to be excellent arts teachers, highly

effective at fulfilling the goals of this strand, as they use their expanded

education skills to personalize, deepen and intensify their students learning

journeys.

Aesthetic Development

Its purpose: Invite you in.Although the word aesthetic sounds esoteric, this thread is the antidote

to elitism. This is the learning that opens up the power of the arts to thewidest number of people. The need for this thread has grown steadily as the

culture changes. I believe that the gap between the sense of having a rightful,

meaningful place in the arts and the average citizens sense of self has never

been greater for any culture in human history.Teaching artists are the masters of this strand of arts learning. If magic

is defined as the experience of a result without an awareness of the process,

then teaching artists are the shamans of the magic of the arts. They know and

are able to open up the processes, and enable a wide variety of people todiscover the power of meaningful, personally relevant arts experiences.

This strand of arts learning develops audience skillsthe cognitive,

emotional and spiritual tools to set aside caution and prejudices in order to

enter artworks and make meaningful connections. This strand taps innateaesthetic competences, so that people can enter the arts without having to

build up skills or formal knowledge in a discipline. This strand can involve

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the development of critical capacity too, and these analytic skills are quite

different from audience skills. The skills of the critic include the use of prior

knowledge to make judgments of quality, to place artworks in contexts andilluminate aspects of them; audience skills, by contrast, are about willing

suspension of disbelief, wholehearted entry into the world of an artwork and

discovery inside it. Of course the two work well together, naturallyinterweave, but we tend to train neither and live with sloppy examples of

both. Our cultural disregard for both skill sets leads to disrespect for both

rolescurrent audience behavior often makes it hard to attend fully, and we

now conflate the artistic role of the critic with the commercial role of the

reviewer who helps people make good decisions about where to invest theirdiscretionary time and money.

As the importance of this thread expands with the necessity and

difficulty of attracting new audiences to traditional arts offerings, the demand

for teaching artists rises. I believe it will rise so high that teaching artistry will

come to be seen as an essential tool of the 21st century artist, and as anessential capacity of arts organizations.

Our culture is coming to a new understanding of aesthetic capacity

that takes it off the elitist periphery and brings it closer to everyday concerns.Cognitive psychologists and educators are discovering that the aesthetic

component is fundamental to all learning and is a crucial element of great

schooling, not just a special skill for those few on an arts path. I will often

start a speech to non-arts audiences with a pop quiz: How many have madean important business or personal decision recently based on your high

school algebra or trigonometry? [Few hands are raised.] How many have

made an important business or personal decision recently based onaesthetics?and let me add that includes not only the appearance of things,

but also a choice based on a gut feeling, applying a lesson from a previous

experience, using intuition? [All hands go up.] Well, now that we have

redefined aesthetics and established its importance to our lives, lets talk

about art. Neuro-scientists even admit that the formative process thattransforms endocepts (pre-thought) into identifiable entities we can call

thoughts is informed by aesthetic considerations as much as any otherour

innate aesthetic capacity even determines the very thoughts we can have.

And about that word aesthetic. Its etymological meaning has nothing

to do with esoteric or intellectual processes; it means to perceive. Thephilosopher John Dewey once remarked that he was unable to define the

word aesthetic, but that he did know its opposite was anesthetic. That is theaesthetic development teaching artists most valuewaking people up from

the somnolence propagated by our aggressively anesthetizing commercial

culture, to see the beauty, meaning, humanity, courage and joy around us.

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Arts Integration

Its purpose: Catalyze learning.

This is the biggest experiment in arts education in America, probably

the world, today. It is a crucial experiment because so many programs areplacing their chips on its essential gamble: by bringing arts learning together

with learning other subject matter, both can go further as a result. In the earlygoing of this experiment, results are mixed.

Teaching artists stand out front in this experiment. They are asked tocollaborate with other educators in designing and often in leading such

projects. The stakes are highthe arts are easily used as window dressing to

pep up a boring curriculum. But the potential to expand the presence and

power of the arts in young lives is real, and in my view, generally, whereteaching artists are centrally involved (and given adequate resources) in an

arts integration program, the arts component is well represented and the

gamble pays off well. Many school districts that follow this model remark on

how invigorating it is for classroom teachers to partner with artists in an artsintegrated curriculumthe revitalizing impact spills over into the rest of

their subject area instruction.

The key to the arts integrated curriculum is artistic engagement of the

learning on the front end of the project, and then guiding that creative energythat is released, that personal investment and curiosity, into serious play in

the subject area. Arts learning practitioners are discovering their way into this

strand. Teaching artists are usually determined and often articulate

champions for this arts engagement component, while other practitionerswho are less steeped in the subtlety and ineffability of arts engagement can

let its primacy get lost in the competing, louder, more readily assessedaspects of the arts integrated project.

Community Arts

Its purpose: Enrich community life.

This strand may manifest as a play dealing with a community issue, a

mural on a public wall, a chorusand there are hundreds of arts

organizations, usually small and extraordinarily dedicated, that live for thiswork. There is a whole field of community arts with community artists who

have refined this practice over decades. I recommend you read Arlene

Goldbards seminal book New Creative Community (New Village Press, 2006)

to learn more about this field if you are interested.

There is uncertainty in the arts learning field about the difference

between teaching artists and community artists. The debate is mostly a waste-

of-energy red herringthe same individuals participate in both kinds ofwork, and there is a huge overlap and intermixing of practices. The only

useful distinction to draw is regarding ultimate goals: teaching artists aspire

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to have their learners engage in meaningful art making, and community

artists seek to enhance the lives of communities through meaningful art

making. If I were to generalize about the negative prejudices each carries ofthe other, for the sake of illuminating the historical distinction: community

artists (CAs) assume teaching artists (TAs) want art for arts sake and

promote the agendas and beliefs of arts institutions; and conversely, TAsassume CA projects place artistic quality in secondary position and produceless than the best possible art. There is a grain of truth in those prejudices, but

reality and a growing arts field do much better if we build on the far larger

common groundTAs create healthier communities wherever they are

allowed to work at any length, and CAs produce excellent artworks withtheir participants even as they make life better for those participants.

Community artists are the lead figures in this strand, and they are often the

same people that practice teaching artistry. Although I have described the

evolution of teaching artistry in this essay, I think community artistry is

evolving as well, and the two are growing further into one another. In thethree part track of the emerging field of teaching artistry I describe below, the

most advanced track seems indistinguishable from community artistrythe

boldest and most committed practitioners of these two fields are becomingone.

In 2004, I helped design and lead a rare joint conference of Americans

for the Arts and the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, the two largest

arts advocacy groups in the country. This was an enormous gathering of the

suits and other advocates of the arts. The conference theme was making

communities more livable through the arts. Throughout the conference I had to

keep reminding the participants that the goal was not to get communities tosupport the arts, nor to find ways to bring communities into the arts, but for

the arts to serve the needs of communities. The arts people kept defaulting to

more self-serving views of deeper relationships with communities, probably

because survival thinking is so prevalent in arts organizations. By the end ofthe conference the shifted priority had settled in, and I was able to announce

to the field this conclusions from my observation, The era of art for arts sake

is now officially over. It was a fifty-year experiment, in a time of affluence,

and it failed: it did not expand the impact of the arts, enhance the quality ofart, or improve the lives of artists. We close that experiment like good

learners and return to a time of art for many purposes, which had existed for

the previous thirty thousand yearsand this doesnt mean that the art we

produce from these purposes is necessarily of lower quality.

Extensions

Its purpose: Use the power.

The transformative power of artistic engagement is increasingly being

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tapped to accomplish other goals. The creative arts therapies are used to ease

psychological distress and make peoples lives work better. The arts are

finding a place in healthcare, as medical scientists discover more and morebenefits: patients leave hospitals sooner, depression can be alleviated, pain is

less debilitating, children heal faster, wellness requires creative expression,

etc. Medical schools are using teaching artists to enhance the observational,empathetic and communication skills of doctors in training.

The arts are appearing in businesses to develop teamwork skills, boost

creativity, and to build leadership. This is serious moneySecond City, the

improvisational theater company in Chicago, now makes well over a million

dollars a year in its corporate work. In his bestsellerA Whole New Mind,

Daniel Pink proclaims that the MFA is the new MBA.

The school reform movement advocating for the development of 21st

Century Learning Skills is growing in size and impact, yet has largely left thearts behind. Teaching artists are taking a lead in illuminating ways in which

good learning in the arts develops creative capacity. Few people doubt that itdoes, but teaching artists are helping to discriminate the skills within creative

capacity and how arts learning develops them. The most common gig I amasked to do with businesses is teach creativity but no art. They want the

business-certified goodies of creativitycompetitive advantage, profitable

innovationstheir future depends on it, but they dont want to gunk it up

with all the gooey irrelevancy and emotionality of the arts. I can deliver it,staying under the art radar with the activities that tap art skills without

naming them. How glorious it will be when we need not apologize for the

word, when Americans think of art as powerful, relevant and fun.

Teaching artists stand at the entrepreneurial forefront of this strand. Itis just beginning. People in the arts are discovering they have skills that the

world wants to acquire, and effective teachers who know the arts (thats right,

TAs) are positioned to lead the advance.

The strength of this strand is its unlimited potential and effectivenessin achieving many kinds of results. The weakness is that few TAs have

experience making the transition from achieving arts learning results to

achieving the other results non-school clients want. There is not yet a body of

practice, accepted conceptual groundwork, broadly applicable evaluationtools, or a communications mechanism for the pioneers of this field. But it

will grow into a major new opportunity as we learn how to deliver thispower, with teaching artists doing the laboratory work that moves the strand

and its results-hungry culture forward.

THE THREE TRACKS OF PRACTICE WITHIN TEACHING ARTISTRY

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The emerging profession of teaching artistry is developing into three tracks

which I will call:

- A tool in the kitbag;- An in depth component to an artists life;

- A whole new world.

It may well be argued that these named distinctions are actually justdifferent locations upon a single continuum of teaching artist activity. For thesake of clarity in this essay, I will address them separately, without

belaboring the ways in which they are fully connected.

A tool in the artists kitbag: Most artists recognize they are going to teach at

some point in their careersresearch suggests that ninety-somethingpercentage will. Many recognize that teaching artist skills will help them be

more effective when they teach, that they will be able to benefit from that

income stream more effectively (and hopefully more pleasurably), and that

they can add education-related offerings to their creative work. Many, if notmost, small (and not so small) arts ensembles find that their education work

keeps them financially afloat; and those with innovative and highly effective

educational offerings can consistently boost their bookings. However much

teaching artists on this track enjoy and value their educational work, theyoften bring a gig mentality to their educational work, feeling it is apart

from their main artistic aspirations.

In-depth component artists life: Some artists invite teaching artistry into a

more central place in their hearts, minds, spirits, and expectations. They blur

the distinction between their art making and their teaching work because itblurs naturally in their personal experience. They find a healthy synergy

between the two, and they have a taste for the pleasures and provocations of

the mix. For example, an unexpected statement or creative idea from a

youngster resonates deeply enough to invite rethinking of their own rehearsalwork. Or the theme they are exploring in their art-making colors life so

interestingly that they have to bring it into their work with young people.

These artists/teaching artists are making a mark on the field, changing

the definition of success, expanding traditional terms and limits, brushingaside old silos of identity and practice. These are artists who can move into

non-arts settings and engage the artistry of any participant, drawing theminto creative expression to achieve many different kinds of goals. These are

the artists with the understandings and skills to reignite the relevance andvalue of the arts for the ninetysomething percentage of Americans who are

not in the art clubthe fortunate group with arts an background who

understand, value and actively participate in the languages and locations of

the high arts. The arts club knows how to enter the world of a complex

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artwork and make relevant meaning, and to how to turn information about

the arts into rewarding arts experiences. These teaching artists open the walls

of the arts club, enabling everyone to actively participate and find thepleasure of relevant, meaningful artistic experiences. The teaching artists of

this track increasingly recognize that the artistic experiences they evince can

happily, healthily, and authentically be applied outside artistic media, in anymedium into which an individual chooses to pour her artistic self.

A whole new world: In the last few years, the evolution of teaching artistry

has begun to distinguish a new identity. Certainly, there have been

individuals and small organizations dedicated in this way for a long time, but

there has been an increase in activity and awareness that invites us todistinguish a new species. Some teaching artists have a vision and/or a fire in

the gut so strong that they are creating a whole new level of investing the

artist in them. These pioneers have moved beyond the traditional

understandings of what an artist does to inhabit a new space. As the physicistDavid Bohm said, Any time you see seeming polarities, look for the greater

truth that contains them both. Given the traditional conceptual framework

of art and education as separate but related endeavors, these artists have not

only identified the greater truth that contains them both, but they yearn tolive there. These are artists, like Gustavo Dudamel, who experiences the same

artistic joy and satisfaction conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in

Beethovens Ninth Symphony as working on a reduced version of it with an

inner city childrens orchestra. These are artists like Liz Lerman whosedefinition of dancers includes everyone, and whose subjects and purposes for

dance extend to community development, scientific understanding, andmore. These are the artists who see the pre-performance contact, the lobby

activities and program, the post-show encounters as equal opportunities forartistic engagement in the artists aspiration. These are the artists, like those in

Community Music Works and Streb Ringside Sport Dance, who choose to

reside in the community with which they engage. These artists do not strive

to engage people in the relevance of their artworkthey dont have tobecause the authentic expression of their artist-selves emerges from its

relevance among the people they live, learn and experiment with. Perhaps the

pioneers of this track need a new label, since they have found the common

ground of art and learning; and they live, create, and bring others to thatlong-lost commons.

These three expressions of teaching artistry are all good. Certainly

there are greater numbers of individuals in the first group than the second,and in the second than the third. And yes, a majority of American artists may

still not even identify themselves as being part of any of the groupsthey

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believe their job is to make art. Period. And to do some necessary teaching on

the side. Their own teachers probably believed that, and their teachers

teachers probably believed that, when they were learning in a very differentera. I worry less about their resistance or their dismissal of the emerging

changes in the careers of artists and the viability of teaching artistry than I

used to. They have many valid perspectives and evolution will bring manyrigid perspectives to change or die moments sooner or later. I am heartened

by a growing belief in the arts that this evolutionary process is not only

unavoidable but also positivethink apes rather than dinosaurswe are not

losing our soul, but expanding authentically into new realities as the arts

have always done. I believe whole new world artists are our essentialinnovators, quietly changing our sense of the possible and developing a new

feel for the delightful and the worthwhile. I believe those who live with

teaching artistry as an in-depth component of their careers are the

examplars of success who will demonstrate what careers can become, so that

young artists and those who train artists can adjust their frameworks ofexpectation and join the evolutionary process. Those with teaching artist

skills, even if used only with a gig mentality, are the ballast that will give

weight and authority to the emerging redirection of the arts. They will helpus learn how to maintain high quality as we expand to include those who are

now uninvolved in arts offerings. They will reduce the fear of change to

welcome new definitions of art, new ways of thinking about how art serves

life, and will radiate the deeper pleasures of an expanded life in the arts. Theywill demonstrate vividly how the arts can thrive outside arts institutions and

buildings, engaging the vast majority of the population that is unengaged, for

a variety of different purposes, and revitalize the life of arts institutions andcommunities in the process.

Personally, I feel extremely lucky. What a gift of fortune to have my

work years coincide with a period of rapid evolution in the field I love. If we

assume teaching artistry began when a cave dweller taught someone youngerabout drawing on walls, and guided the rest of the cave dwellers in ways to

respond to the drawings, then how lucky are we to be living during the time

of explosive expansion of this role. I have been able to witness a change

process that accelerated while I happened to be watching and contributing.

You may not have felt it until now, but you are equally lucky to be invited towitness, contribute to, and even lead in an emergent field that can change the

world in ways it desperately needs and is slowly discovering it wants.

the history of teaching artistry

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