Diversity in the Teaching Force

While not directly related to arts integration nor literacy it is a topic that I've been thinking about quite extensively lately.  We are embarking on a path that will increase the number of diverse pre-service teachers. The goals are two-fold. Enriching all students in our program by having diverse viewpoints and personal histories that will help all children understand their increasingly diverse students. At the same time increasing the diversity in the teaching profession so students have role models that look familiar. I am in no way suggesting that African American students should have only African American teachers or vice versa. I am just suggesting that the data we collected shows such disparity that we have to act and act now. Link to the full file is here.

World Literacy Summit

I am spending a few days in Trinity College in Oxford as part of the World Literacy Summit. We are also trying to create a declaration going forward www.oxforddeclarartion.org.
What has gotten me thinking is the feeling that we are talking about old literacies and we are neglecting new literacies that will really provide a leg up in development.
My question is somewhat neo-marxist in its tone but important to contemplate. Are efforts in the developing world to extend old literacies foundational to integrating them into the 21st century OR are we setting them up to be a century behind so they can stay our industrial periphery while we reap the befits of the information age and knowledge economy?
The best answer I heard was this morning with a focus on adult literacy with Friere's work using the REFLECT process as presented by David Archer from ActionAID International. Let the participants define the parameters of literacy instruction as you help problematize their goals and foster discussion.

I just wonder how much of this work is filtering down to the larger development projects and their evaluation efforts is the true challenge.

Location:Trinity College,Oxford,United Kingdom

Back to Creativity- A Response

I find myself in a discussion on creativity with Kurt Knecht and Bob Woody. I come at creativity from the psychological research side and my experience conducting research on the integration of arts into the elementary curriculum for a decade. I did not measure creativity, in fact I resisted some of the pressures. I find that most measures of creativity are artificially focused on a small subset of tasks without extensive validity to back them up. I am not opposed though to the social science  endeavor studying the phenomena as Kurt has said. I come at it from the educational side and my understanding of how our political and educational leadership systems work.

It is widely perceived that America's advantage in the world is it's creativity. We once manufactured, engineered, were well funded and had a technology edge. As a society we feel that America has lost its edge and we are worried looking for our advantage over China and other threats. Our political system needs to manufacture a solution that will get them elected. The way things go the next logical step is to say: well if our advantage is creativity then how do we promote it from kindergarten and how do we really know children are creative? At this point the big testing companies will offer a test of creativity- a standardized one and we will create a generation of students "uniformly creative" then discover it didn't work and blame teachers and unions. My reluctance is really fear of a series of intended consequences that leads to less time for music and art in school because we have to teach creativity.

Finally a note about the nature of creativity. I believe that creativity is rooted in a deep understanding of a domain as a precursor. Lehrer describes the study of mopping to find a new solution. The key part of the story for me was that Continuum designers studied mopping for 6 months then learned from an expert who was years at the task, that is I believe he described the evidence that creative innovation is actually linked to doing! The second aspect the Lehrer highlights and I actually agree with is having the space to try, fail and retry. It is where schools have the hardest time creating the time and space to experiment. We have packed the curriculum with so much "stuff" so many standards and tests that teachers are hard pressed to find time for their students to experiment and wonder per Kurt Knecht or play per Margaret Latta. Without this space to be wrong creativity is a risk not worth taking.

This space for risk with the notions of Flow and Studio habits of mind are the best linkages to elementary education (my domain).
So in summary I do not think we should shy away from studying creativity, only that we should be very careful as both Kurt and Bob emphasized shy away from over generalizing. My suggestion is always to go back to the original studies and avoid the urge to read journalistic versions.

A Flipping Rant

Khan and Gates

No, its not what you think and it is still a clean blog. I spent some time thinking last week on flipped learning a term that is in very real danger of becoming a cliche. It started with Khan and his academy that I have discussed before and even recommended on my netcast. I have actually used a version of a flipped classroom in a methodology course I teach in the summer using the Khan academy mini lessons to help students go through the fundamental calculations in descriptive statistics. More recently Hake a prolific observer of science education has posted a series of responses to the quality of the Khan academy instructional approaches (very old fashioned really) that can be seen here. I agree with much of what's been said there but here I have another point to make.
Everyone is hailing this approach as the new silver bullet- new thinking about education that will help transform education. I have the sinking suspicion that the support for this model is actually rooted in two very irrelevant sources. The first is the observation that the instruction on the Khan academy video's is in fact very old fashioned. It is exactly the same thing that I had in Math when I went to school, the only difference is that you can watch it your time repeatedly without driving your teacher crazy.
The second reason this approach is deemed great is that it is supported by someone that has never been an educator and knows very little about learning theory. We love innovators in education that come from other realms and can show educators the light.

Students discussing the media they read at home
during Literature Circles

My rant, however, goes in a very different direction. English language arts and social studies teachers (primarily) have from the dawn of time been flipping their classrooms. They sent students home with the direction of consuming media (books, movies, photos, source documents). The  in class everyone discussed the novels, source documents and produced projects about them. Yet, this does not occur to CNN, BBC or Bill Gates. It turns out that every high-school teacher has been doing it for years. So why do we like when Khan does it? again because it is in math, because it is coming from outside education, because first he made his millions in the stock market and then he discovered education- such a sacrifice. Much more than a teacher that has skipped the getting rich part and dedicated his life to children without the benefit of earnings and Bill Gates loving embrace.
My flipping sisters and brothers who teach in flippin' ways you were there first and will still be there even after Khan fades into distant memory.

An atypical post: Empathy and the act of Artistic Creation

Last week I had two encounters with artists that expressed an empathetic link to exceptional students. Last thursday I went to listen to my son performing as part if the Lincoln High Slam Poetry team. Before they performed we had the pleasure of listening to Chris August Slamming. His most potent poetry seems to have emerged from his interaction with students with disabilities when he was a special education teacher. An example is in this selection that reminds me at times of Taylor Mali. That night I started thinking about ways this experience with students makes us more empathetic in a way that finds its way into an artistic outlet OR maybe it is a shared sensitivity that manifests itself in teaching and caring as well as for creating.

Later in the week I read Kurt Knecht's (a friend and fellow blogger) post about deciding to become a composer. In it he concludes with: "After that morning, I knew two things. I didn’t want to play in places with non-union stagehands, and I wanted to learn how to write music that could make mentally handicapped children clap."

I do not really think that all artists have more empathy. I think there are too many examples to the contrary, but I think that in the act of creating for an audience there is at times a sense of audience (and both my examples are from performance art) that makes us more empathetic. To do that successfully an artist must achieve at least a limited sense of empathy.

The interesting piece in this empathy sense is that empathy is a "pay it forward" idea. I think that when an audience is privy to this empathy they are automatically more empathetic towards the person (think Teebo). In Chris's case it makes his word choice and other choices easier to swallow because he did show us a different side as well. 

I think that the same can hold for kids- performance and artistic creation can foster their sense of empathy as well.

Teaching Art Online

A prospective graduate student came by a few weeks ago. His goal as he stated it is to minimize damage to rural students by providing quality arts instruction online or through distance education in other means. I worry.
I told him that I worried, arts education is a field that requires demonstratin, proximity and more than anything else mentoring. This kind of mentoring is extremely hard to reproduce at a distance. I think that the ability to look at the dancers moves from multiple perspectives, the painters brush strokes or the guitarist hands are crucial elements that cannot be done at a distance. I teach distance courses and Ithink some of


them are great- but not in arts education or arts integration.
My second concern was that by creating online replacements we urge districts that have stuck by their specialists and invested in them to stop. If the quality is there, they might say, why not save a bundle. So what can be done instead?
Here are some ideas:
1. Train classroom teachers in arts integration and enhance their understanding through studio experiences with local artists and museum resources.
2. If online lessons are created integrate them with rich artist in residence programs- mandated not just as an option. The experieneces must be bundled and truly integrated.
3. Educate school boards and administrators about the importance of the arts.

Do not let rural schools do without arts....

Learning Design in Educational Apps

In the past few weeks I have started a netcast on using iPads in k12 education (tech edge on iTunesU). My co-host Allison and I spend quite a few hours every week trying to find apps that are educationally sound. The challenge is quite real. What we've learned may not be surprising, but it spells opportunity or disaster. Most of the "educational" apps are based on implicit and false theories of learning and design. This is not a failure of understanding a specific domain (say social studies) but instead a failure of understanding how we learn.
So what do I mean by opportunity or disaster? The opportunity exists for innovation to take over the marketplace with excellently designed educational apps. The disaster will emerge if after schools invest heavily in mobile devices and fail to deliver on learning simply because the apps that carry the lad are subpar.
We will keep looking fir educationally sound apps (or try to get close).
Check out the website and connect to the netcast:
http://cehs15.unl.edu/cms/index.php?s=18&p=190



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Thinking Fast and Slow in Education- Part 1

I am currently reading Thinking Fast and Slow by Nobel prize winner Kahneman (see a book review here). I am still processing some of the information (or thinking slowly...) but I see some obvious implications for teaching and technology. The first is the positive bias- we almost always underestimate the challenge and overestimate our capacity, the second is our lack of ability to intuitively understand statistical properties of the world around us.
In  1999 I saw this first hand in a classroom. In a summer school based on Bob Calfee's WordWork we had one kindergarten teacher who claimed to have gone through the eight-week program in three weeks. We were surprised but she claimed that all of her students have a solid grasp of all short vowel CVC words and are ready to advance beyond it. How do you know? we inquired, she replied that she has been observing her students being successful in making words. Since we assessed students in every classroom on a biweekly rotation we soon had some results from the classroom. Only four out of 18 students could actually produce the patterns reliably without repeated teacher cues. In essence the teacher saw her best students succeed and conjectured that all of her students could.
This is the reason that we should have an emphasis on formal assessment points in which we can get an honest estimate of what our students can do- not what we believe or want them to. Often I hear teachers saying - I know this student can do a lot better - yet they didn't. Now, sometimes it is true and due to some setting event, then a retest is in order. But if a student is consistently under-performing in a well designed assessment opportunity- then we have simply overestimated their capacity based on effort, our support for their work etc.

In technology and especially project based learning that is emerging as a major component in the (welcome) push for 21st century skills we need to make sure that we have a solid way to assess achievement that circumvents our biases and gains a real windows to what students can do.

Changing Media

In the past few months I have been carefully planning a shift from writing to video as an expression. I have to admit that it is still very much a work in progress but we finally came up with UNL Tech EDGE available through iTunes U and UNL's Media Hub. Working in a new media is a challenge but I have to admit that I am enjoying it. Maybe it's just a novelty effect...
We have received a grant from Nebraska's Coordinating Commission for Post Secondary Education that will support our professional development efforts across the state. In the grant we combine four professional development days, technology coaching and online resources for teachers- including our netcast about iPads in education.
More soon.

Mentoring

Listening to the authors at the Plum Creek festival Gala (thank you Laurie for the invitation) I was struck by the importance of mentorship mostly informal for the development of "talent". The great illustrator Pinkney told the story of how an established artist took interest in him as he was drawing while selling newspapers and invited him to his studio. The two other speakers that spoke at length also discussed individuals who took interest in them and helped guide their development. As I listened I wondered, do motivated "talented" individuals attract such attention and feed on it or is it a phenomenon that can be expanded and if so. Are we giving students the opportunities to forge such relationships that will lead them to new ideas new images of future selves?


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Excellence- Or it's ok to work with talented motivated students too!

The credit to this post goes to Jim Lewis a professor of Math and long time math educator. In a conversation yesterday he said (my memory so the responsibility here is mine) excellent educators I work with are reluctant to focus on working with high achieving students, it only counts when you help struggling students. The question is whether our focus on clsing the gap s leading us to neglect our most talented students. We sometimes assume that those are also motivated and understand their own strengths. Do we have art classes for advanced students, those who may with some support become adults who are first and foremost artists: dancers, musicians, authors, actors, painters etc.



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The Question

A colleague challenged me today. How do you know hat student learning is increased using technology. The context is our discussion about mandating technology in our pre-service teacher ed program. It is a common question that in my struggle to answer at that moment had a hard time calrifying.
Like art technology is NOT just a handmaiden to other learning. Technology at this point is to me like the arts, it is part of the fabric of our lives, not an add on. We cannot afford to teach kids in schools without art and without technology. The world is looking to us as an example of nurturing creativity while we move away from it under the guise of BACK TO BASICS. The problem is we are asking the wrong questions- the goal is not just to improve old ways of knowing- include new ones.
Written during a faculty meeting, the ultimate proof that they are not totally useless...

A World without Textbooks- Lessons from the Art-room

I have been contemplating the idea of no textbooks for a while. Part of it stems from the onslaught of new editions in higher education. At this point major textbooks are reissued on an annual basis- changed so you cannot easily integrate the previous edition easily. I do not blame the publishers, it is their business and they are trying to stay ahead.
The issue in K-12 is a little different since schools purchase the books directly- again a lucrative market to capture.
When you walk into an art-room the teacher does not use a textbook. Instead she uses the materials of art itself. Side note: Schools often complain about the cost in art supplies but never balance it out with not buying textbooks. What the art teacher has figured out is that in some cases it is better to do the learning than to read all about it. At that point of course we must recognize that not ALL school topics can be covered that way. Still I would argue that much of science, math, art, music, can be done without a textbook. I am not saying that we can teach science only hands-on from experience, instead I argue that we can combine with other non-textbook resources to the same or even better effect.
In many of the other topics digital resources or authentic resources can be found. For example: we can teach much about the civil war from a Ken Burns episode, and museum resources available online.
In higher ed textbooks are a great way to reduce the load on the teacher- the sequence is there the main points, the PowerPoint presentations and quizzes. It is the first step in "teacher proofing" your curriculum.
For me in teacher education I find that whenever I use a textbook I am patently unhappy about it, since it is someone elses idea of what should be taught at what sequence and with what emphases. I find myself spending quite some time ignoring the text re-emphasizing points that are lost or correct what I consider mistakes. In short, even the best textbooks I find are "not just right". This summer I taught a few classes all of which avoided using the classic "textbook" instead I used professional materials- practical books for teachers that are resources for a professional while the pedagogic role of explaining theory, history, and big themes was left for me as an instructor. To that I added many Internet resources that are plentiful in the literacy field, video, podcasts, articles and voila: Textbook free courses.
I just want to close with the idea that I would like to teach without textbooks but NOT without reading or preparing for class. Textbooks are necessary sometimes in one format or another but their application has to be thoughtful. In k-12 schools using less textbooks would lead to great savings that can be turned around to professional development or much needed technology.

Making a difference

This week I visited the Avenue Scholars Foundation in Omaha. Jef Johnston their chief operating officer said something that resonated with me. Referring to recruiting diverse teachers he said (I am paraphrasing here): this problem is solvable, if it has not been solved yet it is because they don't really want to.

I found this approach to be very much inline with my feelings about many of the problems I encounter in teacher education.

At the heart of it it is a design problem- not the external shiny stuff but design in the full sense of the word- the way someone like Steve Jobs would use it:

In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.

Steve Jobs

Visual Art and Reading Comprehension

In last weeks post I described a student who improved his writing using visual art representations and learning about the writing process through the drawing process. This time I'd like to describe the use of visual art as a reading comprehension scaffold. 

J.N. is a student who had a really hard time comprehending texts that were two grade levels below her biological age. Her decoding and fluency were adequate but when she tried to retell a story or answer comprehension question it was clear that she was not able to locate main idea. In fact in text retell she would often mention details sporadically with no connection or clear understanding of what the text was about. After a conversation with me J.N.'s tutor decided to use drawing after reading as a comprehension strategy.

After each chapter in the book J.N. was asked to choose a scene from the chapter. Here, the direction were aimed at creating a thought process that would lead J.N. to choose the key scene - the main idea. The tutor used modeling and scaffolded self-talk to promote this kind of thinking. Next J.N. was asked to draw the scene in as great a detail as possible. As she draw she explained her choices to her tutor and how they made sense based on her interpretation of the story. Finally J.N. wrote a summary based on her drawing. 

Within a few week J.N. acquired a deep understanding of locating main idea and supporting detail using the scaffold and metaphor of visual art decision making process. This strategy was extremely useful and J.N. ended up raising her comprehension level to grade level expectations by the end of the five week session. 

Visual Art with Struggling Readers and Writers

This summer I spent nine weeks in our reading center working with pre-service teachers who tutor struggling readers and writers. I love the work but what struck me was how effective visual art supports were.
One student A.S. was a student headed for second grade but having significant delays in achievement and some challenging behaviors to boot. The most challenge was getting A.S. To write. We were lucky to get more than a short sentence. I then suggested starting with a drawing. Now A.S. was more easily engaged, persisted, produced a picture, contributed significant oral language about the picture but still wrote very little. Finally we decided to insist on details during the art creation. In addition we modeled a questioning technique that exposed A.S. to ways of generating text. This time his writing filled a page and was full of detail and interest.
I truly belive that for young writers this link is foundamental and will help all writers do well- as we have seen in our work in Arts LINC.

Composition- Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving

A few weekends ago Kurt and I found ourselves in a Uhaul truck moving furniture. Kurt as is his habit levels a multi-layered question in a matter of fact way. This is in no way a direct quote but the essence of the question was How do you teach and evaluate [musical] composition at the graduate level? What I love about Kurt is that he asks this just as if he was asking "Should we make a right here?" That is while the question is complex it is also very concrete in his mind (and mine I think).
Anyway this post are some of my thoughts about the topic that applies directly to creativity in other domains and has clear parallels in the writing process and in visual arts. I borrow here from Ken Robinson and define creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value. In the context of education as a process I think that most often creativity is about finding novel solutions to meaningful problems. The problems themselves can be defined by an educator or the learner. When teaching composition, writing or visual arts this definition holds, and one can see how we can ask students to create in a familiar style or form (say painting a still life picture or writing a Haiku) making it uniquely our own by identifying the problem and providing a solution to it. In a sense teaching writing is very much just that. Lucy Calkins coined the phrase "Teach the writer not the writing" (I am actually borrowing it from Evi who is one of the best teachers of writing I know) which I take to mean there is no one uniform way to go through a program, instead as educators we must allow room for learners to define their own problems and find solutions to them. In a way teaching creativity is about teaching our students to identify problems, learn how others solved similar ones and then coming up with their own solution.
This is exactly the reason that I believe there is no universal creativity factor but instead expertise leading to creativity in a specific domain. The process in broad strokes has parallels but the details are often too different. For example I have no capacity to identify problems  in [music] composition , but I am extremely capable of doing that in educational research (it is a strange field to be creative in I know).
The area that has the most to offer I think for educators interested  in developing the ability to compose is Teaching Writing. You must decipher the parallels of course and the elements that are uniquely linked to writing but I still believe that it is useful.
A place to start might be:
The work of Lucy Calkins, Linda Flower, and unl's own Robert Brooke.

Twenty First Century Learning

We are here at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century and yet the "we" of education and teacher  education has not arrived. I retweeted some interesting comments recently (@tgite) about this phenomena so I will not go back into it. Instead I choose to imagine here what a Masters level program around 21st century learning might look like.
The drive is to provide an interesting, relevant, flexible "just structured enough" experience. It makes me giddy with anticipation!
1. Creativity- a class on current view on creativity that will include the work of Pink, Robinoson, Csíkszentmihályi, Gardener, Eisner. (this one is all mine)
2. Problem Based Learning
3. Teaching and Learning in Digital Environments (currently taught by my colleague, friend, and web based education pioneer D. Brooks)
4. Action Research Methods for the Digital Classroom
5. Arts Integration in K-16 environments (a class we have been teaching at UNL for the past 5 years or so)
6. Teaching as an aesthetic text (a fantastic class by M. Latta)
7. Assessment in rich environments


As I was looking for images it occurred that we are once again turning to the Renaissance Man: Leonardo Da Vinci as an ideal, part scholar, part scientist, part engineer and part artist. 


Welcoming any comments, this may very well turn into a reality soon!

Parallels

This week I had the opportunity to consult informally with a local educational leader (I would use names, but I did not ask for permission so ... maybe another time). The Discussion focused on ways to implement and measure professional development in social studies education with an emphasis on American History in elementary schools. While it has been a while since I taught history (15 yrs to be exact) the knowledge I brought to the table was actually related to the work we've done in Arts LINC. Interestingly Nancy A., my long time collaborator in Arts LINC, is now a project director in a Teaching American History Grant.
The parallels between the two domains are uncanny. In the past decade, social studies in the elementary schools have been declining, despite the fact that it was one of No Child Left Behind "Core Subjects". The bottom line was that social studies were not tested at the elementary level and thus less and less attention, time and resources were directed at them over time. Social studies curriculum leaders find themselves needing to convince others that social studies matter for all students and that understanding of history can have added benefits to other domains through integration and 21st-century learning. In short they present an argument not much different than the one we presented over a decade ago in arts integration. Luckily, I could bring to the discussion our lessons of making integration work. So here they are:

1. Partner with teachers as co-researchers.
2. Allow for leadership opportunities and encourage initiative
3. Measure teacher implementation and student achievement and provide short feedback cycles of results
4. Integrate into existing curriculum (do not add instructional units), let teachers decide where and how much
5. Set clear yet flexible criteria for quality that will become your fidelity checks
6. Develop teacher's knowledge base/ model lessons
7. Visit teachers to teach and learn

Hedonic Adaptation and the State of the Arts

In his recent book Dan Ariely discussed Hedonic Adaptation, the ability of our mind to adjust to new baseline conditions. An example of short term adaptation is a smell that initially overwhelms us but after some time becomes tolerable and eventually recedes into the background. ariely claims that the Hedonic adaptation to larger changes is about 6 months (e.g. for a new car to not feel to us new anymore). I would like to stretch the concept to the idea of societal hedonic adaptation- when our expectations as a society and culture shift and a new baseline is created. A good example that jumps into my mind is the phenomena that has always fascinated me, the semblance of "normal" life in the height of the ghetto period during the holocaust. The idea that even under horrific conditions Jewish society maintained a new normal with social events, music, art, organization and celebration of life cycle events. Against all claims that our evil nature emerges when the thin veneer of civilazation is scraped by circumstance. That ability of society to adapt through the individual ability of hedonic adaptationcan be a blessing and a curse.
When I think about education I fear the same Heonic adaptation. We get used to excessive pointlessy invalid unreliable testing (see Berliner's post on that recently). So what oes that have to do with a blog about arts integration? As I was reading Ariely's book it occured to me that we have generation growing up with very little to no art in school, heck in the elementary years there is in some places just math and literacy. The same is true for large, complex, and integrated unit of studies. If this becomes he new standard, as past students become parents that will not demand arts education and arts integration for their kids because it has never existed for them then we will be in perpetual trouble. Kaiser pointed that out in his national tour two years ago as well.
Since I do not want to be glum I would like to point to an alternative. It may be that we need the arts in a way that resists hedonic adaptation. Ariely points out that we cannot adapt in this way to eveything. It cold be that he arts are so foundamental to us as humans that we will know them even in their absence and ask for them, just like the fact that music and art lived on in the bleak ghettos. Kurt Knecht suggested in a recent blog that we finally move away from the notion hat to create art one has to suffer, I suggest that we go one step further and claim that art does need us, instead we need art. It may very well be hat it is such a deep need that it defies conditions and we cannot exist for long without it.
This may also explain how after decades of neglect teachers are still seeking opportunities to integrate the arts into their classrooms embracing the complexity of self expression.

And What about Architecture?

Yesterday I happened to go to the Joslyn in Omaha. I was struck by the collection and the superb way it was displayed but more than anything I was struck by the architecture. I admit to having a soft spot for architecture and everyday design, but I have not payed enough attention to the potential in education. Architecture is inherently interdisciplinary part engineering, part technology, part art, part social science. It is all around us, yet we do not spend much time teaching or learning it...
In early education the urge to build is always evident. Young children often build in blocks, Lego and assortments of other toys. As they get older these urges to build and create seem to be channeled to the world of play, while school becomes the serious place of thinking and being academic using our heads but not our hands, solving all problems in the abstract giving up on the trial and error process. Yes I am channeling a bit of Sir Ken Robinson here. While I do not think he is right about everything we definitely can find common ground here!

So my thought for the day is that with some thought we can integrate design process and architecture into our curricula- enhancing them while opening new avenues of creativity and thought for our students and for ourselves!

Engagement in Teaching

It is a rainy morning punctuating a beautiful but extremely busy week. In a short conversation with Monique who is doing some thinking and writing about what is left from arts integration projects after the project is over.
Our conversation turned to thinking about different responses by different teachers and the conditions under which these responses emerge.

One factor that we did not explicitly discuss was teacher engagement. For me we, as teachers, are not fully accepting a practice until we let that practice "fill" us. That is we enact it with students fully embracing and participating in the practice. This is even more important when integrating the arts, since the arts are meant to be displayed, shared, and audienced (not sure this is a word...).

If we stay reserved while playing a song, drawing, dancing, making a movie- our students will feel our reservation and will limit their own participation, viewing full engagement as "childish". Maybe the term I am looking for is JOY (parallels the notion of ">FLOW). If you find joy in integrating the arts and your students can feel your joy, they will buy into it, fully particpate, and learn what it means to really enjoy what you do.

Now I do not mean that finding JOY in a practice shold stop you in any way from being critical after the fact, evaluating what worked and what didn't and improving a practice. This JOY/FLOW is ot always there because to reach it we must have expertise, practice and confidence. But when we reach it the results and the JOY can fill us with a strong sense of efficacy and empowerment.


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Art Education and the Elites

It is an untypically pessimistic post for me...

The drive to make sure that students are on grade level in Reading and Math has hurt many of the other subjects. It is simply the arithmetic of time in school, so we're told. All the surveys show that the public wants creative and even artistic students but whenever faced with the false dichotomy of either reading and math OR art, people admit that they think reading and math are more important to them.



Of course this impacts some students more than others. Uper middle class professional parents will support extra curricular programs in their schools and will also fill the gap themselves. At the same time a self reinforcing pattern of alienation from the arts will occur through the rest of society. Depending on what outcome you care about we will have less creative adults (when we need thm most), we will ave less patrons of the art, and finally and mot importantly art will once again be part of class distinction.

If only a small and well off segment of socuety gets true exposure to the arts then the arts themselves become part of class. When people discuss class they talk about class warfare. I do not agree I see instead a slow eroding change that willl not be understood until it is irreversible.

This call is not only for educators and thepublic but also to art organizations- make sure you engage your future audiences and include education in your goals.

Looking Forward

At a retirement party yesterday I chatted with Margaret Latta, a great colleague, about the future of art education at UNL. Yes, despite the budget cuts we think there is a future. In a previous post I have hinted at that option but yesterday we went one step further.
We are looking to situate arts education as part of an MEd program that focuses on 21st Century learning. Pre and in serrvice


teachers will participate in core courses on creativity, arts integration, technology and media in education. The idea is to transcend the traditional disciplinary boundaries in education to create a more coherent
vision and practice of education.
I am not sure if we can pull it off and get a critical mass of faculty to become interested. To make it work we need enough involvement to ensure sustainability and enough focus to ensure a cohesive program. I think that doctoral students might be a great part of a structure like this...
Part of the challenge will be to reboot some of our existing courses so that they fit our vision of integration as we practice what we preach!

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Location:S 44th St,Lincoln,United States

What do I mean by entrepreneurship?

In a comment on a previous post Kurt (whose blog is worth visiting) asked what I meant by entrepreneurship. Like all good questions it made me think a little more deeply on the issue- which is the main reason for the existence of this blog in the first place.
For me that word extends to any self initiated activity that interacts with the community in a positive way. It could be economic (and showing the economic importance of the arts is part of it), but it could also be a part of applying an entrepreneurial approach to community involvement, community action or giving.
The idea is that the arts can help students be more aware of their community and connect to it. See themselves as relevant players in building a community. I believe that shared art that crosses personal boundaries shared in new ways can become a vehicle to contain the alienation that kids and adults often feel in their everyday life.
One can argue that our modern school system is a product of the industrial revolution and the structure of the disciplinary approach to school (most obviously in high school) is akin to an assembly line in which each teacher has a specific and narrow task. His output can be measured easily most recently in value-added model suggested by economists (see Kurt's take on this issue here).
What I am arguing is that education and most easily elementary education can strive to create an alternative approach which connects the learner to the community and reduces the alienation not just for the learner but also for the community at large. Art can be such an instruments if we allow and support our students in becoming social and economic entrepreneurs.
Theoretically I am aiming at a sense of agency- a sense that schools (and society) strip away from children instead of finding meaningful ways to foster it.

What if we combined arts, technology and entrepeneurship?

In a series of conversation about the arts in the last few years I have heard repeatedly the argument that the arts help sustain communities from an economic standpoint.  To be honest I have paid little attention to it. Not because I think they are wrong but instead because my main concern is not the business of the arts, it is maintaining the place of the arts in education.

In the last few weeks one of our graduate students Laurie has been conducting interviews and observations with teachers who integrate technology in their instruction. Quite a few of the teachers were art teachers that integrate technology into much of their work, some were technology teachers using art (visual, video and music).

At the same time schools are being "squeezed" and respond by limiting art and technology. What would happen if we combined arts, technology, and entrepreneurship in meaningful ways? What might that look like at the school and community level? I think there is great potential here that would help students see connection become active learners and strengthen communities. There is one risk- doing this might make school learning relevant and meaningful, not much irony actually, if some areas are highly motivating other areas that are less immediately relevant (say physics) may actually decline even further. Much to think about would love some comments.

Budget Cuts and the Arts

This time I would like to talk about the recent budget cuts at UNL. While this may be not be directly about arts integration I still believe it has direct impact on my main topic. In the recent round of budget cuts a decision was made to cut K-12 arts education. What does it mean? It means that we will cease to prepare arts educators at the undergraduate level within the next few years.

I am sorry to see any program go, and even sorrier to see my good colleague Dr. Jean Detlefsen go, but in times of budget difficulty choices have to be made. The pattern, however, is familiar to K-12 environments- the arts goes out early with PE and other "nice but not necessary" subjects. I argue here as I did before the Academic Planning Committee, that the loss will impact our program beyond that of arts education. The disappearance of the program will lead to fewer graduate students in arts education decreasing our ability to teach art methods to all elementary teachers. In addition, this group of future arts educators interacted directly with future elementary teachers in our arts teaching methods course. But all of that will cease in less than two years.

So what now? As I am more prone to action than dwelling on things I cannot change I started working with colleagues on a new M.Ed. program that will focus on 21st century learning- marrying my care for elementary education and my interests in creativity arts integration and educational technology and media.

In some ways I am very excited about this new idea whose time has come...
Hopefully this idea can support the ongoing creation of diverse art teachers that would be able to combine art media and technology for the benefit of all students.

Art can be a little bit of magic in the classroom

Evie who is my co-teacher in Elementary methods. She just said that during our class. Maybe just maybe we're raising a new generation.
Technology in its wider space drives this generation to be more creative, more open, more visual and maybe above all more performance oriented with a strong sense of audience.
Today, I am hopeful.

The four Minute Post

I recently went back listened and read Ken Robinson's work.
I think that education at all levels should develop an agenda with art organizations if we are ever to move this thing. As a parent and a member of the "non artist" masses, I often do not get to have art be part of my daily life. If art is not part of daily life parent and the public will be highly unlikely to keep art as a top priority for school either. If I who aware and really cares about this topic often cannot get to it. How can others?

Art is important we need to make it accessible and a conscious part of everyday life.

Arts Education and the Rise of Skill Based Education

Art and Technology

I read recently a blog post contrasting art and technology. The theme was: technology is to the brain what art is to the soul.
As my seven year old says: "Really?!?"

 Art and technology have more in common than apart. They both relate to the brain, through creative processes. Finding novel solution to meaningful problems. If games and social media taught us anything it is the centrality of the emotional experience to technology.

A second note is about "right brain" the research presented on TED on brain activity and creativity shows very clearly that "right" brain "left" brain ideas are highly irrelevant to the complex way we use our brains.

That's it for now,
Oh and Happy New Chinese year

Wordles based on the Blog

Preparing Teachers

In the last year I have been for the first time in my career fully engaged in Teacher Education. The real struggle, following my previous post from today, is that the field wants educators for education as it is right now not as it could or should be. Jim Walter made this point last friday. The solution may be engaging schools in a dialogue that combines change in schools and preparation programs together, learning from each others strengths and experimenting with new ideas. Research university preparation programs are uniquely positioned to do this well and move education ahead. For this to wotk you need to work with a school system that is NOT under attack, finding opportunities to work without the constant threat of sanctions and political endgame.
Of course I may just be delusional, probably am but right now i am hopeful.
I say all of this because this may be the only way creativity can sneak back into school and get the place it desrves.
The funny thing is that I resisted refocusing on creativity in our grant but now I am preoccupied with its broader implication.

Can we find room for creativity in the curriculum?

We have competing values in education. We want our kids to be motivated creative and innovative. At the same time we want them to succeed in assessments that are anything but motivating, creative and innovative.
The assessments always win, perhaps because we're obssessed with numbers and international comparisons... Are we first, eleventh? In what?
We need to rethink our assessments to represent what we value otherwise we are doomed to marginalize arts, foreign languages, design, enterprenuership. Marginalize them to magnet school and rogue teachers who find places to teach as they believe they should, half hiding, always defensive- totally right!

Arts Integration in a Preservice Class- log

In my literacy methods class we went through an accelerated Arts LINC cycle today. We started with a Taylor Mali poem- reminding everyone that poems are often meant to be read out loud. We then proceeded to poetryfoundation.org where each student chose a Thanksgiving poem (their search engine is awesome and now they have a ipod app).
Students joined with1-3 others who chose the same poem and practiced reading it out loud (mini readers theatre). Then we followed up by creating visual art based on the poem- using pastels. The results were stunning and diverse. After the art was completed each student generated 5 vocabulary words (no one cent or nickel words please) to describe the art (and not the poem). Finally they used the words to create a poem describing their art.
Results wer engagement, achievement and deep understanding. We finished with a few minutes of research results from Arts LINC long live arts integration.

It's the first time I've had this much fun with this group.

Thinking about Long-Term change in teaching

This fall two grants that I have evaluated came to a close. ArtsLINC and Reading First. They could not have been more different from each other is some very foundamental ways. Reading First was a top down federal initiatives while ArtsLINC was a local bottom up effort.
In rReading First professional development was mandated and practices were regulated, in ArtsLINC we sat with teachers to define what how and when they would like innovate and integrate the arts. both grants had exceptional leadership, adequate resources and a well designed professional development.
The progress in both grants have been very different. Reading First had immediate impact on the way Reading was taught, however, after the initial impact very little has changed in subsequent iterations. there were small incremental improvements to teacher practice and very little change in student outcomes.
ArtsLINC on the other hand had a very slow start changes in teacher practice and student achievement lagged. Overtime just like Reading First slowed down ArtsLINC picked up and the change in teacher practice became more pronounced. If you're looking for a quick fix go with the Top Down approach, that seems to be the way we are headed as a nation. If, however, you'd like to have long lasting impact then choose the long and tedious road. The difference is rooted in teacher agency, efficacy and development.

Time to Smile

Much of what I've been doing lately was griping. Griping about how we're headed down the wrong path, about the politics and about "Waiting for superman".
I have decided to stop griping and move on. There is much to do and many places and people to work with in wonderful ways.
I think part of my gripe comes from our much less intense artsLINC group. The grant is over and we are finishing up the report. I miss the interaction and the sense of something exciting is happening with a group of dedicated professionals. The truth is that I need to snap
Out of it, smile and remember that all of us are still in education and as long as we are there is great hope.
So No, I am not Waiting for Superman.
Integration of the arts technology and different subject matter is happening, will happen because in the 21st century we must be all connected, all integrated if we are to be full global citizens.

Art Technology and Integration

Recently I had a conversation with a technology coordinator from our local school district. We had a great conversation. At the core though the problems we were discussing in technology integration mirrored similar conversations I've had about Arts integration.
At the end of the day technology is considered as nice but not necessary with most teachers ignoring it.
Instead of integrating most schools employ or nominate a technology teachers often actually reducing the chance of true integration into the curriculum.
As she described what works in technology integration it was very similar to our own growing understanding of connecting to the currculum, fostering technical expertise and providing support for real needs on an ongoing basis.

The Immutability of Schooling Practices

It's been awhile since I posted, so I am a little rusty. At AERA I went (among other things) to listen to Michael Cole in a distinguished lecture. I will not claim to present this complex talk in a blog posting. The essence as I perceived it was to say that schooling is a persistent institution not just in goals but in practices, norms, and rituals. In challenging the view of modern schooling as a result of industrial modes of production, he claimed (with evidence) that these modes of instruction are as old as literacy itself. 
Faced with this notion of immutability, schooling has a clear and constant structure, I was forced to ask myself: How can we then engage with arts integration and its implications for the classroom (exploration, ownership, professionalism) as educational reform.? We know that as a wide phenomena we are doomed to fail. At best we can insert ideas from our practice to standards that then will be narrowly and mechanically interpreted by many.
Here too Cole provides an answer. He claims that only major social change in goals and dispositions that redefines the way we interact with each others, with other living things and the planet. Our job then is to create ideas and practices that will continue existing in small pockets- waiting for such social change giving future education options and choices to follow.

AERA is Approaching

So I thought I would pick some of the sessions related to arts integration that looked interesting to me.
Hope to see y'all there.



1. Artful and Creative Processes as Modes for Teaching and Learning

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Paper Session
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 4:05pm - 6:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 707

2. Arts and Learning: Activism, Transitions, and Integrations

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Mon, May 3 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 109, 111, 113

3. Arts as Innovation for Reforming Practice

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Paper Session
	Time: Sun, May 2 - 2:15pm - 3:45pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 707

4. Arts, Learning, and Community: Developing Practices and Discovering Identities

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Paper Session
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 12:25pm - 1:55pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 711

5. Creating Across Languages: The Arts Benefit to English-Language Learners and Second-Language Learning

	Unit: SIG-Bilingual Education Research
	Session Submission type: Symposium
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 606
	Descriptors: English Learner, Arts Education, ESL/ENL

6. Critical Literacy and Expression in Early Childhood Education

	Unit: SIG-Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Tue, May 4 - 12:25pm - 1:55pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

7. Diverse Pathways to Literacy Development

	Unit: Division G - Social Context of Education
	Sub Unit: Section 1: Local Contexts of Teaching and Learning
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Sun, May 2 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

8. Impact of Arts Integration on Content-Area Learning

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Fri, Apr 30 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

9. Indigenous Visual Ecologies of Knowledge as Repertoires for Learning

	Unit: SIG-Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2
	Descriptors: Indigenous Peoples, Arts Education, Social Context

10. Language, Literacy, and Arts in Teacher Education

	Unit: Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education
	Sub Unit: Section 7
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Fri, Apr 30 - 2:15pm - 3:45pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

11. Lines of Flight: Studying Children’s Production of Art and Culture

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Symposium
	Time: Mon, May 3 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 705
	Descriptors: Arts Education, Adolescence, Early Childhood

12. Linking Teacher Education to Teacher and Student Performance: Research on National Policies and Assessments Instruments

	Unit: Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education
	Sub Unit: Section 2
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Fri, Apr 30 - 2:15pm - 3:45pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

13. Making Art to Make a Difference: Exploring the Educational Significance of Using Art to Impact Social Change

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Symposium
	Time: Mon, May 3 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 704
	Descriptors: Arts Education, Social Change, Communities

14. Mediating the Creative Experience: New Literacies, Methods, and Assessments

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Sat, May 1 - 2:15pm - 3:45pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 2

15. New Teacher Induction: Promising and Innovative Practices for Support, Development, and Leadership

	Unit: SIG-Research on Teacher Induction
	Session Submission type: Roundtable Session
	Time: Fri, Apr 30 - 4:05pm - 5:35pm Place: Sheraton, Grand Ballroom Section 2

16. Poster Session: Culture and Learning Environments

	Unit: Division C - Learning and Instruction
	Sub Unit: Section 5: Learning Environments
	Session Submission type: Poster Session
	Time: Mon, May 3 - 12:25pm - 1:55pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Korbel Ballroom 3

17. Reflective and Narrative Practices for Aesthetic Development and Learning

	Unit: SIG-Arts and Learning
	Session Submission type: Paper Session
	Time: Sun, May 2 - 10:35am - 12:05pm Place: Colorado Convention Center, Room 707

Race to the Top of what?

Two states won race to the top moneys. I highly suspect that arts education and integration was not a big part of these two states application. Moreover, I suspect that future applications to the "Race to the Top Money" will emulate if not flat out imitate the two accepted applications. This in long standing tradition of educational funding born out of the Bush years and continued unhindered by the current one. Even in application there is no room for creativity.
Secretary Duncan has repeatedly made public statements in support of arts education as an essential part oif a 21st century education. The proof, however, is in the pudding. The two proposals that were approved included very little reference to the arts, and the rubric used does not seem to require it.
In many ways it seems that arts education, once again is not part of the national conversation in the way that matters- resources.