AERA

I just finished the AERA presentation on literacy and arts. Despite the fact that we had a round table presentation on a friday afternoon- 7 people showed up.
I presented our the results but on the way conveyed key ideas that have been guiding our research for the past three years.
The first thing I thought was- we need a better forum. As much as I like the Arts and Learning special interest group- too few people pay attention. We must make sure that we reach a wide audience. I think we have something to say. There were also two graduate students in the mix and I thought to myself... they seem to be getting their education in a place that cannot support their interest in arts yo... So nery few places do that. Maybe we need to advertise our expertise or offer a way for students to participate in classes across institutions.
As you can sense these are only beginning thoughts as I enjoy my free afternoon in San Diego.
I can see a number of institutions with faculty interested in education in and through the arts creating a consortium that would help graduate students the kind of classes that really enhance their thinking. Maybe AEP can be the organizing mechanism...
Another random thought- Oxford University Press is interested in a book about arts integration. The editor and I had some ideas about what is needed and how a book can be molded in that direction but I invite comments from others...
Off to get some fish tacos...

What did I learn?

In my last post I was just before my visit to Skinner Academy Arts magnet.
So what did I learn? I learned that things are much better than I imagined in many areas but not all the way where we should be in other ways.
What is encouraging? Well all of our teachers are enthusiastic, they are excited to participate and do the cycles and all of that even when the project stops. What they really have said is- these are well designed units and they are part of our teaching now. We like them, the kids like them, they achieve our learning goals and require some energy in maintenance. I think that the project really encouraged this pattern by focusing on providing professional development and supports that lead to independent application. Our teachers do with a lot of support and very little other resources. As a result once practices become entrenched these "scaffolds" can be easily removed and the building still stands. After we will be gone teachers will not miss the resources as much because they have not come to rely on stipends, lavish classroom products etc.
So if it's all so good what is still missing?
The ongoing struggle is define the boundaries between the arts and music specialists and the classroom teachers. We have different ways of negotiating the boundaries in our different schools (this goes well beyond Skinner). The patterns are- disconnect: you do your thing I'll do my thing, Soap box: I am the expert on this (classroom teachers do this too) you must listen to me, Servitude- Tell what you need me to do . These are all paths on the way to true collaborative practice. We are simply not there yet.
Finally, I've seen only some evidence that the practices we encourage are "spilling over" to the general curriculum as an everyday occurrence. But more on that next week...

Spending Time

Monday I am spending a whole day at Skinner Magnet Center. This is very exciting as I often do school and classroom visits but they are so short that I do not have enough time to sit and talk at length with multiple groups of teachers. As we planned our work this semester, the emphasis was on understanding what is happening in our schools. The results is this visit coming after multiple observations of participating teachers' classrooms.
The questions on my mind are many:
What is working well?
What are the obstacles to arts integration in the different grades?
How is the depth and consistency of arts integration mediated by teacher dynamics (leadership, group vs. individual teacher)?
How do they feel collaboration with Arts specialist is going?
Are teachers stretched or is there some capaciuty (now in our third year) to push even further?
Most important of all- how do they see and feel about arts integration? will they still be doing it after we left?
More questions than answers this week. I'll fill in some answers (or more questions) next week.

Change in Teacher Practice

It is still cold but I am assured that spring is almost here...
The question that is always on our mind is how do we help teachers change their every day practices while honoring the efforts and pressures they have to contend with daily.
Recently I read a masters thesis by Alinda Stelk one of Dr Kathy Wilson's students in it she quotes from Black and William:
Similiarly, Black and William state in their 1998 volume Inside the Black Box, "Teachers will not take up attractive sounding ideas, albeit based on extensive research, if these are presented as general principles which leave entirely to them the task of translating them into everyday practice- their classroom lives are too busy and too fragile for this to be possible for all but an outstanding few. What they need is a variety of living examples of implementation, by teacher with whom they can identify and from whom they can can both derive conviction and confidence that they can do better, and see concrete examples of what doing better means in practice" (pp.15-16)... Cahnages require teachers seeing temselves as learners and working with researchers to learn more."
The fit to our experiences is immediatly validating and daunting. Validating since it is identical in many ways to our practice, daunting because we need to imagine what such a system might look like. It does show as many of the AEMDD grants have in past and present that demonstration projects are invaluable labs for examining such change.
The question still remains; How do we translate it beyond existing projects? Or are we 'doomed' to have pockets of excellence in a sea almost completely devoid of Education in and trough the Arts? One possible answer has grown out of practice in Reading and more recently Math- coaching. Coaches are part of schools but they have the great advantage of focusing on "close distance". They are not of the classroom, but available enough and know enough to be immediately helpful. Their focus is mainly on helping teachers reach their potential and thus reach students mostly through the change in teachers practice. Coaches have the time and distance to think compare and transfer new ideas as well as plan, assess, and critique.
In a recent visit to a reading first school I discussed the new vocabulary emphasis with the coach (one of our best).
She said "We wanted all of our teachers to go into the units and decide which vocabulary should be taught. It was too much for them, finally me and [a coach from another school] used some time in the summer to go through the units and pull the vocabulary out. They simply did not have the time!" Her experience similar to ours is that teachers can be asked to do so much at any point, as expertise grows they can do more but still they need modeling, support and ideas- and I would claim, coaches in their close distance are the way to go.
We can think about it as re purposing the teaching artist/ artist in residence more explicitly guiding them to work with teachers as many projects have been doing to a certain degree for a long while. But as I read my own text I realize that repurposing is the wrong approach. We need the artists to help us build domain knowledge but coaches who are (were) classroom teachers as coaches. It goes back to the observation of Black and William:"What they need is a variety of living examples of implementation, by teacher with whom they can identify and from whom they can can both derive conviction and confidence that they can do better".
Can we (those outside the classroom) do better?

Honesty

We have reached a great point in our project. As in all professional development we spend quite a while building understanding , confidence in each other, and fidelity to the program.
We use fidelity in a very different sense than other programs. When we talk about fidelity is not about adhering to a specific script, instead its about confirming to "big ideas" of integration, quality and discourse.
The process by which teachers learn trust and accept the research team and vice versa is long. In my experience, it takes at least two full years of work together usually much more. I also believe that many projects never actually get to the point where participants from all sides feel confidence about what they are doing and what everyone else is doing.
In Arts LINC we are there. We now have quite a few teachers that keep us honest. Let me give you an example, one of our teachers emailed me today about a problem in our Teacher Log. Some other teachers expressed concern but he questions were concrete grounded in the work. I immediately found that in answering her questions (coming from a need to understand and help the research) I found some of the redundancy in our data collection. I was called to the carpet and found wanting (in a small way). Similarly another teacher looking at the data for kindergarten is asking pesky questions. When I say pesky I mean they bother me because they force me to think again about my chain of reasoning and force me to retrace my steps and make sure my data and interpretations are correct. I lose that- so if you are teachers on any research project, ask, question, participate. Do not let your question prevent you from action, but remember that the researchers can learn from you as much as you larn from them. That is what makes ist so valid ... and fun.
Not much about art this time-

Getting our hands dirty

We all are afraid to get our hands dirty, metaphorically speaking.in the army every friday was dedicated to cleaning our equipment, as a loader and later Tank commander I was in charge of cleaning the machine guns. Early friday I would start the dance of trying to clean without getting dirty. The problem is that everything needed to be washed in a half barrel of diesel and motor oil. The dance would usually end midmorning with me covered with a few diesel stains. From that point on I would embrace the dirt and oil. I did not care anymore, but as a result had the cleanest MGs in the company. The metaphor for me is clear. To do something well we sometimes have to get our hands dirty, and embrace the dirt.
Some teachers I know are literally avoiding trying any 'messy' media. I have really tried to resist professional development. It's not that I do not do a decent job, instead it's the feeling that I'd rather do something else. As a result I tried to use colleagues and students in that capacity. Having done some professional development recently- which turned out well, I finally realized I have to get my hands dirty and love it. Stretching the metaphor, I think that Education in and through the arts should identify these areas that canbeuseful but nobody wamts to touch. Then we shpuld take the plunge.
Come to think of it, quantitative research is exactly one such area, but I am sure there are others. Thoughts anyone?

Transition

The new administration that is getting ready to settle in DC is a cause to celebrate and a cause to worry. President elect Obama is quoted as a supporter of arts education a good sign. Further, a change is always an opportunity to do something new and bold. On the other hand this administration is handicapped by major challenges economically and on the international stage. Will there be enough political will for battles in education let alone arts education?
At these point I always emerge as the eternal pessimist. The choice of secretary of education and the focus of this administration may signal that the time is not right.
Politics aside the economic situation may very well signal that we need a new creative generation, that the whole child initiative (ASCD) and specifically arts education can provide answers not found anywhere else.