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.

Reflection

This is a part of study reflection one of my students Marsha Silver who has taught art for over a decade:

"When I was in elementary school in the1960’s, I don’t remember having art. I know that I liked to draw and read but why don’t I remember any art? Maybe that is because I did not experience Art Education in a manner that impressed me. Some of the most important and influential artists of the ’60 and 70’s lived in my lifetime! Why did I not know about Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup (Tomato), 1968, or Rauschenberg’s Retroactive, 1964, not to mention Jasper John’s Map, 1961, or Flags, 1968? Art Education is when students acquire different techniques to learn things such as drawing, sculpting, and other artistic abilities. It also teaches about artists from the past and present. In my opinion, I think that Art Education enhances creative expression. Using the multiple aspects of art education such as art history, art criticism, art production, aesthetics and assessments provide students with a greater understanding and appreciation for art. Being organized, defining learning objectives, teaching art production, exploring art history and  making connections beyond the classroom helps students become aware of the significance and influence that art has on other subject matter and their personal lives. Art integration, again, is interdisciplinary as I said in the first paragraph. So it does not go unsaid that art and other subjects cannot interact... It is my personal opinion that everyone has their own ideas about how to use the arts in education. Isn’t teaching about sharing knowledge and experiencing the unknown?"


I think we must be aware of the generation gap between us as  art educators, the contemporary art world, and the world our students grow up in. The question is how do we who grew up in different eras can stay open to new media and ideas in art and help deliver them to our students. Our own view of art and "what counts as art" is most often formed in our early interactions with art. By the time we become teachers this view is established and we are in danger of not "moving" with the times. I think it is easy to see why a student might not hear the clearest artistic voices in that very same era. Chances are that these voices are controversial in their time, possibly even unknown to the teacher who grew up  a different era.
Once in a while we must ask ourselves, are we exposing our students to the voices and media who 30 years from now will come to be the voices representing the first decade of the 21str century? 

The Place of Integrated Arts Courses in Preservice Elementary Education

This week Deborah Loewenberg-Ball visited UNL and gave a talk on the place of Schools of Education in Research Universities. You can access the powerpoint of the talk here, and soon we hope to have a video up.

One notion that I find very interesting now, as I coordinate our Elementary Education preservice program at UNL is the notion of our programs as "labs of practice in which we explore and research new and innovative ways to educate the next generation of teachers. This approach is very much in line with my thinking about the role of formative or design experiments in which rigorous curricular design and assessment are intertwined to create an innovative self- correcting structure that is focused on development not as a result of external pressures but instead of growing understanding of process and product as well as influenced by the research we do in schools.

So what that has to do with the arts? Well we have a unique opportunity to leverage what we've been learning in the field into our preservice program. In the last few years we shifted from a domain approach in arts education (a class on music, visual etc.) to an integrated experience focused on aesthetic experiences. Our masters in elementary education (MAET) program has an integrated arts education course that integrates the arts, science, and literacy in the context of place based education (in our case the prairie). We are now ready to make the arts more prominent throughout our program. I am not yet sure of what form it will take but the possibilities are truly exciting.