Carol Morgan, Deputy Director for Programs, ArtsConnection
Conference Introduction
The field of arts in education, which has never been static, is currently undergoing profound and, I expect, lasting changes. The programs that artists and organizations such as ArtsConnection produce in the schools today are quantitatively and qualitatively different from five years ago. We are no longer simply delivering services to students, which is challenging enough in itself; we are now being asked, among other things, to help change the ways in which educators in the New York City Public Schools view their students and educate them by integrating the arts into the classroom.

Since coming to ArtsConnection a year ago, it has seemed to me that we are placing enormous responsibilities on the shoulders of teaching artists. A constant undercurrent in conversations among my colleagues has been a question of capacity: Do we as an organization have the capacity to design and deliver the programs that can achieve the broader goals of education reform? Can teaching artists do what we are asking of them? Do they really understand what we are asking of them? What kinds of support and training do teaching artists need to build the capacity to do this work?

I want to briefly share with you my own context for the design for this conference which was concocted by a group of us at ArtsConnection.

First, in the 1980's I was the Director of an Artist Colony that served emerging professional artists. It seemed to me that as hungry as they were for time to focus on producing art, the time artists spent around the dinner table talking about the craft and politics of their art and what it meant to be an artist, was equally important as the precious opportunity to spend time in the studio. In other words, finding a community of artists with whom you could share your process was empowering and, in some cases, simply helped to save your sanity.

Second, as an educator, my own rule of thumb is that whoever is doing the most talking, dancing, acting, music-making, or writing in a room is doing the most learning. I know that there are exceptions and that we have much to learn from "experts," but unless we actively participate in our learning experiences, we miss an important opportunity to construct meaning from that experience and to develop our own skills and strategies. I also believe that we learn best from and with our peers and colleagues.

Finally, at the NYSCA conference last summer for Empire State Partnerships, I had the opportunity to participate in what is called Open Space Technology, which was facilitated by David O'Fallon. Open Space Technology is a process through which small or large groups can invest themselves in discussing common concerns, seeking solutions, and creating new opportunities. Two of the principles of Open Space Technology are, "Whoever comes are the right people," and "Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened." This format gave permission to all of the participants in ESP to identify the most pressing issues facing us in arts in education; it also gave us a space and structure to gather with colleagues in the field to discuss them and define next steps.

And so, I would pose these questions for consideration by all of us who are participating in this conference: What are we asking of teaching artists today? Are our expectations reasonable? What kinds of support and training do teaching artists need in order to be able to fill these very big shoes?

Although the panel is here tonight to address the first question, I think that the only people who are truly able to respond to the last two questions are artists themselves. And that is what this conference is all about: an opportunity for teaching artists to enter into dialog with each other, teachers, principals, arts administrators, and funders so that the artists' voice in arts education can be heard. I see this conference as just the beginning of that dialogue. At the end of the session on Saturday, when we have all gone through the process of the next several days together, we will gather your recommendations. Those recommendations will be disseminated both on our Web site and in hard copy. We will also invite response from those teaching artists who are not able to be with us. According to the principle of Open Space Technology, "Whoever comes are the right people" and so I trust that we are the right people to initiate this dialogue.

I hope it does not sound cliché to say that we are a learning community, because for me this statement is absolutely true: I am here to learn from you and with you. We have not written a script for this conference and I realize that it takes a leap of faith to venture into the uncharted territory of an unscripted gathering such as this one to define and discuss common concerns, seek solutions, and create new opportunities. I also know that when I have sat at a table with one or more artists, I have always come away with a better understanding of myself and the world around me.
Janet Braun-Reinitz, Muralist, Teaching Artist
Art Is the Subject
I am a community muralist and I have been a teaching artist in New York City since 1985. In that time I have been part of several truly successful collaborations, a word I prefer to partnerships. I have learned an enormous amount from my fellow teaching artists, done a few projects that were near disasters, and received sustaining support from those who administer my residencies.

Tonight we are here, as the brochure says, to explore what teaching artists need to know in order to do their best work in classrooms. The issues are defined as pedagogy, partnership and standards. I would like to put those issues aside for these few minutes and talk, not about how we change to accommodate new definitions, but the opposite: who we are and how we hold on to the practice of what we already do so well.

At our best, artists -- in galleries, in concert halls, and on stage -- have always been teachers, interpreting rather than reflecting our worlds. Within each art form we continually redefine the dialogue, expand the outer limits of discourse, and invent entirely new languages.

What then happens to us when the classroom becomes our venue? What happens to art as a discipline with its own methods and principles? What--who--is the teaching artist? At the inception of this conference and this dialogue we should, I think, remember that the noun in "teaching artist" is ARTIST.

ART IS THE SUBJECT. ART IS THE CURRICULUM. Art is our language, our product, and our passion. Art and artists are not the icing on the cake, sweet but hardly essential, although we are sometimes treated as such. Art is NOT the handmaiden to the rest of the curricula, not a servant but a leader. Art is--and should be--hard work.

If we already teach our art forms from this perspective, perhaps it is no wonder that funders and program designers believe that we can do anything–more than that–everything. That is only partially our fault. We, the teaching artists, do try to accommodate -- to wear many hats, to know it all and teach it all brilliantly, with a smile -- while, of course, upholding the highest standards of our discipline and creating a razzle-dazzle product... BUT....

When I began as a teaching artist I was, probably like most of you, a specialist. I no longer get to practice my specialty in the schools very often. And this disturbs me and raises many questions about what we actually teach in the schools and why so many projects do not take advantage of our expertise. I have a hard time understanding that, although I suspect that is less about money than it is about time -- time taken away from preparing for those standardized tests. Should we think of 40 hours for a mural project as time "stolen" from the important subjects or "engaged" in the art curriculum?

My question now, with all the new and broad challenges before us, is where is our voice? What is our place within the major initiatives driving arts education? And where are they driving? And who is at the wheel? Who decided that it is now part of a teaching artist's job to help train classroom teachers, to assess student learning? I worry that the balance will tilt so far away from the arts as the SUBJECT that we will no longer be teaching artists but something else altogether. Dare we say "no" to some parts of these new initiatives that we are neither suited to nor trained for?

We do share some responsibility to define for ourselves and to communicate to others our concerns and the limits of our individual flexibility. At the same time we need to be given a voice at the table as active participants when these programs and practices are being formulated.

Within each of the arts, we already present our methods and principles, build skills, teach sequential learning, present opportunities for collaboration, reinforce the need for practice and more...at least in theory. But there is often a gap between the theory and the reality. I do not believe, for example, that it is educationally viable to present a 12-day residency in 7 days or any visual arts program in 43 minute segments. I do believe many projects can be linked to other parts of the curriculum so long as we uphold the primacy of the arts as our curriculum. Teaching literacy, American history or the ecology of the rainforest THROUGH the arts IS NOT our job and should not be.

One last question -- can our residencies change the culture of a school? In a year? In five? In the present climate? I think not. Our schools need art teachers and art rooms and musical instruments and dance studios and more. This would not render us obsolete. On the contrary, we would be able to forge genuine partnerships based on a shared perspective, respect and expertise.

This seems to be the golden age of arts-in-education funding. Whether it will be, in fact, a golden age of arts education is in part up to us -- the teaching artists. This conference affords us an opportunity to be at the center of the dialogue. I hope you will speak up. All the voices need to be heard.
Thomas Cahill, Executive Director, Studio in a School
Twenty years ago in the early stages of the artist-in-the-schools movement, most professional artists-in-residence went to schools to present and share their technical expertise. At that time a skilled watercolorist might lead a demonstration on watercolor, a printmaker would lead an etching workshop, and a sculptor could explain how to model in clay.

Today we find ourselves invited by our schools to do and be much more. Today we are expected not only to model the technique, but to infuse children and teachers with artistic thinking. In order for this to happen, artists must now be trained to work directly with classroom teachers, getting the teachers involved in the value of the arts process and thinking. We have found that this is best accomplished by having professional development workshops in the arts. Such workshops enable teachers to:
  • have direct and personal experiences in the arts;
  • have reflective discussions on their personal experiences that are matched with training on the language of the arts; and
  • receive support on the development of classroom-based programs where the teacher makes connections to his or her curriculum.

We have become aware that classroom teachers need to have time allotted to meet and talk with artists so that the artists can share their thinking and inspirations as much as technique. As creative people, we come to the schools with traditions that are as much a part of being an artist as the tools we use to create our art. Today, artists need to be able to infuse our class programs and programs for faculty with an understanding of how we define and develop our work.

We must make a case for exploration, for imagination and observation. We must work to insure that teachers understand how we select the medium we use for a particular idea, and how that choice defines what our expression will be. For an artist, this process is often automatic and instinctive. Our work is really to share our process and help teachers become aware of the work that creative artists do, and how they do it.

Amy Chin, Dancer, Teaching Artist
Coping with Growth
As artists, I think more than one of us have felt over the years that we didn't get as much attention, work, or recognition as we felt we deserved. But, after many years of keeping the faith, working hard, and developing and maintaining our creativity, we found ourselves, incredibly, in a situation where the demand for what we do exceeded what we could humanly handle. In the last few years, as arts in education has gained increased support and teaching artists have become more than just the ugly step-child, I think more and more of us find ourselves in that situation. I have, in the last year, found myself frequently juggling time and resources (at great risk to my own mental and physical health) in order to fulfill all the requests for workshops, performances and residencies in the schools. Being as they have not yet perfected the human cloning process, it has been a real struggle.

But still, I am reluctant to say no. Of course, this is partly out of the firm belief that what I do is important and I want to be able to bring that to as many people as possible. But, it is also the result of many lean years -- years in which arts education was not viewed as highly as today and it was hard to do art education programs for the schools even for free. The desire to say yes to everything comes because in the back of our minds, there is the little voice that says "Who knows when this gravy train will end?" There's work today, but that doesn't mean there will be tomorrow. As artists, we know that situation all too well. For me it's been a hard and slow road to get to the point where I can say, "No thanks, we can't really handle any more right now."

The lesson came about because I realized that I could not do my best work if I did not allow myself the time to accomplish it. As a teaching artist adjusting to the new market place dynamics, I am a little slow. Because I came of age in a time of scarcity, I felt grateful that the schools wanted me at all and so I couldn't ask too much for what I needed in terms of time, money and space. In the back of my mind, I thought:

-- We are the invited guests and we should behave accordingly.
-- We need the schools, but the schools don't necessarily need us.
-- We cut into the teachers' normal routines and lesson plans and are asking the teachers and administrators to do extra work to accommodate us.
-- They are going out of their way to bring us into the schools.

While this may all be true, it is also true that what we do is valuable and deserves the time, space and, yes, proper compensation to do the best job we know how. As I develop and as the field develops in the next few years, there are a few guidelines that I am trying to hold the line on:

1. Learn to say 'no' to projects you simply do not have the time to do well.
2. Ask for what you realistically need in terms of time, money, and space. Knowing that you may not get the complete wish list, be prepared either to work with what you have, or to learn to say no.
3. The work of arts education is not just the time that you spend in the classroom or auditorium. It is also the time that you spend to prepare materials and to meet with teachers and administrators. Be sure that you are compensated for that time. Most of the teachers and administrators working with you have full-time jobs doing this and they get compensated for that time too.
4. Value your craft and value your time. Time is not money: when you spend it, you can't earn more of it back. Learn to leave time for yourself and remember to do art for yourself.

Growth is good, but unmanaged growth is a problem.

Sharon Dunn, Special Assistant for the Arts, New York City Board of Education
What we expect of teaching artists certainly has changed over the last ten years. The focus now is not only on how artists work with children, but also on how teaching artists model for teachers what expertise in the arts looks like -- because, remember, most teachers and principals are not educated in the arts.

Teaching artists need expertise in their art forms, but they also need to be flexible and patient, sensitive to the needs they find in the school. In a school you will find many conflicting priorities. What you provide is certainly a priority, but schools face other equally pressing priorities which make it difficult to schedule and incorporate the work of teaching artists into the overall school day.

A teaching artist today must spend time with classroom teachers. They are your partners in this work. Make sure the work you do fits with their expectations. To be a true partner you must establish a dialogue and find where your work converges with that of the teacher.

Learn the New York State Learning Standards for the Arts. The standards are your friends: they give you a rationale for putting the arts back into the curriculum. Some teaching artists may choose to become licensed teachers themselves, which frees them to teach without another classroom teacher present.

I have seen artists change the climate of schools. Perhaps most importantly, by helping students discover their own abilities, they have changed teachers’ views of the children. At the same time, you have something to learn from teachers. Change comes about when both sides are receptive and respectful of each other’s power to have a positive impact on our students.
Hollis Headrick, Executive Director, Center for Arts Education/Annenberg Challenge
The Teaching Artist Interview
One of the key elements in today's arts education is the teaching artist. But what expectations must they meet in today's challenging context of education and school reform? If I were interviewing new artists, I would pose the following questions in an effort to stimulate a thoughtful response and to outline what I feel are the essential qualities necessary for good teaching and learning in the arts.

What is your commitment to children and to public education? You must be passionate about your work and possess a strong desire to share it with students and teachers. How are your communications skills; are you an engaging speaker with a flexible approach to teaching? Teaching you ask? Yes, teaching. Once you walk through the doors of a school, close the door to the classroom and begin the challenging process of sharing your art form, its processes and content, you become a teacher. Communicating in an engaging manner draws students in to your work.

Do you have high artistic standards and the ability to serve as a role model? Not just as an artist, a person with an artistic skill set, but as a teacher and learner who demonstrates the artistic process and can lead students and teachers on an inspiring journey of exploration. Can you make your art form transparent to others, so that what may be intuitive to you after years of experience, can be deconstructed and understood by students? They, in turn, will reconstruct the art form drawing on their own experience and abilities.

Can you teach in a school environment, understanding that in some ways it will be restrictive, and may not be conducive to accomplishing your goals? Are you a good collaborator and partner, who encourages teachers to become colleagues? Take the time to learn about the school community you are in, and develop a sense of shared responsibility for the achievement of the students in your charge. Today’s arts education programs stress longer commitments to individual classes, joint professional development and new ways to assess student progress. Be willing to learn and grow, and go for depth over breadth whenever you can.

Model good teaching practice -- be on time, have your materials prepared and make sure your lesson plans are age-appropriate. Unless you have had lots of teaching experience, you need to learn about child development and curriculum design. All of course, at the service of the education goals in the school you’re in. Creativity within a flexible framework is not confining, it’s liberating.

Do you take the necessary time to plan your lessons and consult with your partner teachers? All artists are lifelong learners, reflecting upon their work, learning new skills, and doing their best to improve. Bring this rigor to the classroom. Public education needs reflective practitioners who can help students learn these critical lessons.

How would you like working for an arts organization that has its own set of expectations and benchmarks for your work and conducts periodic evaluations of your teaching? Being part of an organization provides you with many advantages, such as professional development opportunities, an organized teaching schedule, payment for your services, and collegiality. A highly developed artistic vision, however, is sometimes incompatible with broader organizational goals. Balancing your personal artistic vision and practice with the needs of your employer is challenging, but a good match between artist and organization creates a synergy that benefits students and teachers.
Madeleine Holzer, Director, Arts Education Program, New York State Council on the Arts
Education Reform Through the Lens of the Arts
In answer to the question, "What do I expect of teaching artists today?," I reply that I expect teaching artists to be artists who are also educators -- in the sense that they engage students in "making meaning" or "constructing knowledge" through the use of the creative process. In this scenario, students must actively be creating something, be it a work of art or a piece of artistic criticism. I would argue that artists can do this precisely by being artists, by articulating what it is that they do, and by engaging students in the same process. I think this is the big change: it is no longer enough to just be an artist in a classroom. It is now also critical to be articulate about and engage students in our process. I also believe that what we do as artists profoundly influences who we are as teachers. And I believe articulating the process does not destroy the "magic" the arts bring into schools; it only enhances the possibility that more of that "magic" will exist.

One of the things we have learned from the evaluation of the Empire State Partnerships project is that it is important for us to look at education reform through the lens of the arts, rather than looking at the arts through education reform, as we have been. What this means is that we are being held accountable for what we do when we enter the classroom in ways we have never been before. I say "we" because, two years ago I was still a resident poet/teaching artist in a high school classroom and, I confess, I was not articulate about what my students learned, about the standards to which I held them, or about my own creative process. From the vantage point I now have, as Director of Arts in Education at NYSCA, I would like to share with you the beginning of such an articulation in the hope that it may spark you to do so in your own work.

I would start by sharing with you my first attempt to articulate the process I go through when I sit down to write a poem. Understand that I know others' processes may be different in some of the specifics, but I believe that across genres there are some common elements all artists share when they sit down to do their work. As you read (hear) my own example, I'd like you to think about your own process and its similarities to and differences from mine.

Usually I am inspired by something -- it may be something in writing, music, a person, or a landscape. I know I am inspired when I am compelled to write something down. I may not write a whole poem, but I usually put pen to paper and write. Then I look at what I've written, am usually not satisfied, and try to rewrite or tinker with the poem, depending on the degree of my displeasure. I craft the poem--moving lines and words around at will. Then I put the poem away for a while. I look at it again, decide what "works" and what doesn't and tinker or conduct massive surgery again. This revision process can go on from two to twenty or so times, depending on my perceptions.

At some point I feel I have done as much work as I, alone, can do. I give the poem to others to read. If I am in a workshop, I can give the poem to as many as ten people. I usually give the poem to one or two readers whose criticism and judgment I have come to trust. They give me further feedback. I discuss their concerns and refine my intentions. I revise the poem again, perhaps share it with them again, repeat this process as long as they and I can bear it, and eventually decide that the poem is finished.

I propose to you that while some people work from inspiration and others do not, and that while different things inspire different people, that the core of what I do -- the crafting and revision of a poem -- has much in common with what other artists do. We use tools (in my case language, pen and paper, or a computer) to express what we want; we hold our work to high standards and craft it accordingly. We evaluate and critique our own work; we make conscious choices for good reasons; we revise. We share our work with others, learn how to use others’ comments to make decisions, and revise again.

In the process I just described, we model (and can teach) the skills needed to use our tools, the ability to critique according to our own high standards, to make informed decisions, and to put those decisions into operation. We show (and can teach) how to work with others collaboratively -- listening to their standards -- and make judgments about how their standards relate to our own. And finally we decide (and can teach how to decide) when a project is finished. I believe all of us who work as teaching artists can do this in one way or another.

I believe that what I have just described is critical. If we all begin to articulate our processes as artists, there is ample evidence that the arts model the kind of reflection and inquiry that is essential to effective teaching and learning. We model these processes when we create our art, teach students how to create art and critique it by actively engaging them in the classroom, while, at the same time, making them aware of what they are learning. If enough of us do this, others might start looking at education reform through the lens of the arts. And then, we shouldn't forget, we will all increase the "magic"
Steven Tennen, Executive Director, ArtsConnection
I want to approach this from an institutional point of view -- what do arts organizations expect from artists and how has that expectation changed?

For ArtsConnection, this change in the kind of work we do, in our work load and our expectations of that work, is not something that just happened. It is the result of alot of internal questioning about the artistic quality and educational impact of our work and about identifying the lessons learned from new program models and applying those lessons to all of our work in the schools. Our in-depth partnership models really began ten years ago with the development of Roots of American Design at the High School of Fashion Industries, which strongly influenced the development of Thematic Art Seasons five years ago. The Javits programs on which we reported in 1996 gave us a better understanding of the role of assessment and evaluation and helped us create new models for staff development and parent involvement. We could not have developed any Annenberg, Empire State Partnership, Project Arts, or Project Read models without those experiences.

Three years ago at a Board Retreat we asked a key policy question: should we continue to add new schools exponentially each year or should we limit the total number of schools we work in and, building on these new program models, do more, and do it more intensively and in greater educational depth, in every site.

Which is of course what we decided to do. In 1985, 65% of our work revolved around performances in schools. As late as 1992, performances still accounted for some 40% of what we were doing. In 1997, we produced 5,200 events in 129 schools. Less then 400 of those events were performances. Last year, 1998, we produced 9,600 events in 131 schools and again, less then 400 of those events -- hardly 5% -- were performances. The nature of our work had changed dramatically.

In 1996, we started categorizing the three levels of artists working in schools. All levels have two things in common -- each of these artists needs to produce work of the highest artistic quality and each needs a real understanding of the politics of schools.

Level One artists
-- Can perform for an auditorium of children, take questions, and explain their work
-- Can provide follow-up sessions in the classrooms
-- Can teach short-term residencies (up to five sessions)

Level Two artists
-- Can teach mid-length residencies (5-20 sessions)
-- Can explain and demonstrate the "process" of their work
-- Can make connections between their work and other areas of the curriculum
-- Can participate in staff development activities

Level Three artists
-- Can teach long-term residencies (20-30 sessions)
-- Can plan for multi-year residencies with the same children that relate year to year
-- Can plan effectively with classroom teachers over time
-- Can make connections between their work and the learning standards in English

language arts and social studies
-- Can work effectively with artists from other disciplines
-- Can train other artists
-- Can conduct staff development activities
-- Can be an active participant in reflection and assessment activities

There is nothing wrong with an artist in any of these categories. There is currently work for everyone. But there is growing work for the Level Three teaching artists.

For a long time, we engaged artists on our roster to deliver set activities or programs in basically the same format from school to school. That is no longer the case. Artists need to be able to discover what makes each school and each schools’ needs unique and we need to help artists connect their work to those needs. We are no longer retaining an artist’s program -- we are retaining the artist!

Teaching artists need to know how to engage classroom teachers in their process. They need to know, and help influence, what teachers will know and be able to do after they leave. They need to be engaged in an active dialogue with the classroom teachers, with other artists working in the same classrooms, with the arts organization, and with the children. We want children to become good listeners and active learners. Teaching artists need those same skills.

We want to begin distinguishing between what we used to call artists-in-schools and what we now call teaching artists. Something important is happening in New York City and nationally. We have created and are institutionalizing a new profession and we need to ensure that this profession meets the needs of schools and the needs of artists.

I start off every Annenberg planning meeting in the schools with the reminder that we are not designing an arts program -- that we are looking at the ways good arts instruction across the curriculum can influence school reform. In a sense we are utilizing teaching artists as change agents in schools. This is a role artists have traditionally played in society and, if we can provide the appropriate foundation, it's a role where they can be particularly successful.

Finally, if teaching artists are going to fill an expanding role in this work, we need to provide some support for them. Schools must find the time for planning and reflection between teachers and artists. Funders need to support the cost of that time. We are building a delicate infrastructure and we need to invest in that infrastructure. This is not going to take time away from services to children. It is going to make that time more educationally productive. Arts organizations must provide the training teaching artists need to understand the connection between what they do naturally and what schools are teaching and students are learning.

There really is an important place for artists in public education and we all have a responsibility to help them fill that role effectively.