How to Keep the Elementary Art Teacher Position

Californians often wonder how the Houston area schools managed to have one - two (yes, count them -- TWO) art teachers at each elementary school. When I tell them I was an elementary art specialist in Texas, it's rather a hard concept to grasp, since art has been out of CA schools for a couple of generations now. Actually, it's a pretty ingenious method. Art, Music, and PE are tied to teacher planning time. And by having all the children in the same grade level go to a specialist at the same time, all the teachers in that grade share a common planning time. Voila - the arts are preserved, valued, and each child enjoys a more rounded education.

Now, a common planning time is exactly what research says teachers need, and what teachers say they want. I've certainly heard all the excuses why this couldn't happen over the years in every district I was in up until we moved to Texas. I have to admit, I bought into it -- that is, until I actually participated in it and saw it work very effectively. It took some leadership and vision on the part of the Texas districts do this. But that's how you save the arts programs. Texas requires far more PE minutes than either California or Washington, so this model ensures that elementary children meet that requirement. Kids rotated through the arts programs -- three days of PE, one of music, and one of art in a week. How much sense does that make?! How much did kids love their specialist time? How much did teachers love that specialist time? They valued that regular planning time each day.

Having a common grade level planning time supported the new teachers on staff, as they had access to their mentors right in the middle of the day. It made scheduling so easy -- none of this crazy jostling of open slots for teachers, which makes for a patchwork quilt kind of day. While it's not so hard on a PE teacher, an art teacher jumping between grades all day long is hard. Setting up and taking down for 5th, then heading to 3rd, then kareening to kindergarten, and then maybe back to a 5th grade lesson can get schizophrenic.

It required four specialists per school in one district's model - two PE, one art, and one music. Another district always had two art and two music specialists, along with the two PE coaches at each school. Some larger schools also put their librarians and computer teachers into the mix, so that class sizes remained small. This ensured that school librarians were also planning and offering instruction in the library, rather than only being a check-in, check-out service. Because we were all held to the same evaluation standards and considered faculty with just as much to contribute, and had our programs funded adequately, the librarians were dynamite. PE programs were creative and exciting, music was outstanding, and art was integrated into the regular curriculum as much as possible. And none of these excellent schools were middle class schools. These were in the toughest, most at-risk neighborhoods. But you couldn't tell from the quality of the work on the walls, or the abundant supplies in the cupboards.

What a difference a lively elementary arts program made in the lives of kids who would have had none of it in their experience. I heard school administrators say on more than one occasion that the parents would have a meltdown if they tried to cut out the elementary arts programs. There was a firm commitment, even in tough economic times. So it can certainly be done. If I'd never taught it, I wouldn't have thought it possible. But I'm telling you, it is.

Wouldn't it be great to sit down with any west coast, supposedly progressive school administrator, using these existing models, and explore the ways those Texas districts did it? Texas gives less money per pupil than California does. Oh, and was there ever a competitive spirit among all those schools to produce top programs. There was nothing wishy washy about them at all. We were expected to be good -- and help our students to be excellent, regardless of their economic situation at home. And they were/are!

Another Report on Creativity and the Workplace: The Need Keeps Growing

I found another report on my favorite topic. This need for creativity in the workplace is receiving more attention. I don't think we're at a tipping point yet. Regarding the recession, many reasons could be made for continuing as we are. However, perhaps we wouldn't be in the mess we are if our leaders and CEOs had been more creative -- or at least somewhat responsive -- towards the problems as they were coming up.

I'll quote the beginning of the article here, and then you can click over to it. I'm always cheering when I find someone smart who articulates the topic so very well!

"Educators and employers agree that creativity is increasingly important in U.S. workplaces, according to a recent report. Yet, the report suggests a disconnect exists between what survey respondents say they believe and how they act: In fact, findings indicate most high schools and employers provide creativity-conducive education and training only on an elective or "as needed" basis.

The report, "Ready to Innovate: Are Educators and Executives Aligned on the Creative Readiness of the U.S. Workforce?," was released in April by the Conference Board and Americans for the Arts, in partnership with the American Association of School Administrators (AASA). Researchers surveyed 155 public school superintendents and 89 American business executives to identify and compare their views on creativity.

The study is a follow-up to a 2006 report from the Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource Management, titled "Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce." In that earlier report, employers rated creativity and innovation among the top five most increasingly important workplace skills over the next five years. (See "Survey reveals the skills employers covet.")

The Conference Board also noted in a study last year that stimulating creativity and enabling entrepreneurship are among the top 10 challenges now facing U.S. CEOs."

Click here to finish the article:
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=53690

How Will Obama Change Education Priorities?

Getting together with friends and family over the holidays, talk turns to education as it almost always does with us. We come from an education family -- going back generations. My ancestors were Pilgrims, who valued education and reading and invented "public" school. Another walked from his home in Ohio to California to make his fortune in the Gold Rush. He was one of the fortunate who returned with at least some meager earnings, and then put his daughters through teacher college -- pretty unheard of in those days for farm kids of the 1850s. Since my husband is a school administrator, and I still teach art to kids whenever there's an opportunity, we live and breath education issues. When I had my radio show "Making the Grade" I got to yak about it on the air with everybody from teachers to governors.

So, the chatter this Thanksgiving centered around the severe budget meltdown facing LA Unified and the possible ramifications, art teachers with no supplies, the enormous frustration with No Child Left Behind, the sometimes ridiculous hoops that teachers have to jump through to stay certified...oh what fun! Truly, only conversations that educators would love. (That's why I had to become a teacher after art school, just so I could join in.)

If Obama is interested, teachers have plenty of advice gained from some crazy real-life experiences. I have my share of war stories, too -- and moments of shining brilliance. After teaching in 21 schools in three states off and on over three decades (started teaching 3rd grade in 1978!!!), I've seen kids change, society change, and education change innumerable times. But I think the verdict is universal -- education has got to change direction now. The testing has reached absurd proportions, teachers and kids are exhausted, vast sums have been spent on testing materials, and though everybody has given it 110 percent, not a lot has changed fundamentally.

What's the 21st century outlook? Are we still educating for the past century? Or even the one before that? If we could start over completely, what would education look like? Tinkering around the edges isn't the change we need.

We haven't heard any rumors about Obama's Secretary of Education yet. But if you've got a solid "how-to" plan, send it to Change.gov. I think we can bag this Texas model that we've all labored under. Having taught in Texas, I finally understood it. But I think a new vision -- along with the capital to fund it -- can be transformative. Maybe the new vision is funding all those mandates! That would be a change.

But maybe we should be like England, Singapore, Finland, and even China -- who are now changing the focus from testing being the primary goal and function of education to teaching students how to think creativity, with the focus on innovation. We kind of got into this testing thing to keep up with the rest of the world. But guess what? They've concluded the way to beat the USA is in the area of innovation -- and that is not achieved through high-stakes, find-the-right-answer type of testing and education.

I've been in a unique position as an art teacher, especially when I traveled between schools in the same district. Not only did I see all the kids in a school from Kindergarten on up, I got to see how policies played out across a district between at-risk and upper-end schools. I knew first-hand how much harder we all worked at schools serving the most challenging neighborhoods and the attitudes towards us from our own colleagues in the comfortable middle class suburbs. Like other specialists who serve an entire school, I knew who the good teachers were and those who were struggling.I've had the opportunity to work under a variety of principals and the effect they have on staff. Basically, I have to say that teachers are amazing. They are one of the few adults who willingly work with other peoples' children, towards the betterment of our country. I salute everyone of you!

President-elect Obama, bring in teachers -- not those who've been out of the classroom for years or holed up in ivory towers. Those who have been in the trenches know what the real scoop is. I can recommend some truly awesome, but unsung heroes. They could really turn things around if we quit hamstringing them!

Is Art Academic?

As I was finishing up teaching an art lesson to a class of school kids, their teacher admonished them to, "Hurry up -- fun and games are over. Time to get back to real learning."

Ouch!

We were just finishing a lively session where 100 percent of the kids were 100 percent engaged for the entire period. Since this was said right in front of the kids, I piped up, "Actually, they have been learning the whole time. This was a right-brain activity. "

The teacher corrected me, "Real education is reading and math and that's what we do in my classroom."

Me: "This is educational also. It was open-ended to promote critical thinking and doing. Art is hands-on. The kids made choices and fixed problems along the way to end up with a finished project that they created."

Teacher: "Like I said, real education is what goes on in my classroom."

What do you think?

Here's my condensed version of why art and teaching creativity is academic and educational.

For those of you who haven't had formal teacher's training, there's a 50-year-old academic model that we've all been taught and supposedly use when planning lessons. It's called Bloom's Taxonomy. Essentially, it identifies how learning takes place on any topic.

There are seven levels of Bloom's Taxonomy:
The first four levels are learned in the "left-brain" modality

Knowledge: Remember - learn the basic facts
Comprehension: Understand
Application: Practice
Analysis: Examine
...........................................
Creative thinking begins here once students have mastered the subject. The highest levels of learning occur in the "right-brain" modality

Synthesis: Create
Evaluation: Assess

Creativity is "connectivity." It's the ability to take what you've learned and do something new with it. It's the realization that there are many ways to solve problems. And it's the ability to make choices from all the possibilities. That takes practice. What do you hear when kids haven't had practice at this? "I don't know what to do!" Creativity = doing!

If teachers don't extend lessons to get to the top two levels of Bloom's taxonomy, students remain stuck in analytical, "left-brain" thinking -- learning the rules of how to find the one correct answer. That is how they spend a good deal of their school day.

But creative thinking is exactly the opposite! The rules of "right-brain" thinking are expansive. To activate these, kids have to DO. What is art? DOING.

Filling out mounds of boring white worksheets is not academic.

Remember When School Looked Fun?

I guess I haven't finished addressing my concerns about the lack of children's art and original projects being displayed on the walls of some school hallways and classrooms. This noticeable, sterile trend has been bothering me. Not simply because it devalues the very thing that children actually value, but it devalues creativity in education as being at least nominally acknowledged.
It's very uneducated, in my opinion.

A comment by a kindergarten teacher not too long ago is what concerned me. She had mentioned that a supervisor had told kindergarten teachers she didn't want to see artsy type of work on the walls - only "real" work like writing and numbers. But the real work of five-year-olds is cutting and pasting and drawing in preparation for doing writing and numbers!

What would these supervisors who dictate what's going up on classroom walls think of the Texas elementary principal who didn't allow ANY pre-made imagery to be put up in place of teacher or student-made. Teachers didn't run to the teacher supply store when it came time to change the the bulletin boards. Every classroom and hallway display was handmade -- created from scratch to be visually stimulating and appealing.

Sure it was demanding, but the students and teachers were cocooned in an environment that celebrated creativity as an integral part of academic life. They saw the thought-process made evident. I only wish I could have seen the distinct visual impact of this building. I heard about it from a teacher who taught there when I complimented her very cool bulletin board. Of course, she'd saved all the pieces to pull out when needed year after year.

My belief is those children were far more engaged than the kids spending their days gazing at slick posters they could never hope to reproduce, never seeing peer-created art work to learn from, ignoring walls of never-ending word lists, or trying to jumpstart their bored brains to find something new and interesting to contemplate in the steady diet of bland adult-generated worksheets they're given to consume -- color or fill in the blanks. Again, the lowest level of learning and engagement. A definite creative disconnect.

Children learn a great deal from seeing child-produced artwork and projects.

Elementary Classrooms Devoid of Childrens' Presence

As often happens in education, we veer from one extreme to another when forced to follow the pressures of current demands while making honest efforts to increase student learning. Since I first began teaching third grade in 1978, and covered education on local public radio for close to five years, you bet I've seen a lot of pendulum-swinging. With the opportunity to spend time in various classrooms and watch trends develop and then be interpreted over time, I've now seen the next extreme. It has wiped out the presence of the child altogether on the walls and bulletin boards of more and more classrooms in one district.

There simply is no original or student-generated work on display anywhere in some of these rooms! Hallway bulletin boards are sterile. It feels like the child's presence has been obliterated. I think sometimes I might as well be in a community college setting, as these buildings don't feel like elementary schools which should be brimming with lively, vibrant, creative, authentic work that only young children can produce. Instead it's adult computer-produced, adult-directed, and boringly similar. It's "instructional."

When I first began noticing this, at first I thought I was only seeing evidence of lazy or tired or disinterested teachers. Okay, that definitely exists and has for years -- as evidenced on many high school classroom bulletin boards! But not so much in elementary schools. Now it seems to have come down from the top not to display student work that isn't "educational." The interpretation seems to be expressed only as writing and endless word strip banks, and homogeneous look-alike prepacked projects.

Now, I have nothing against word banks. I thought they were a great idea when they first appeared and still do. I used them myself in the art room with art vocabulary or when listing the big variety of art-related jobs, etc. However, it's become the all-consuming and only "decoration" in too many classrooms.

The brain continually needs new visual stimuli to connect all those synapses. It needs interesting imagery to contemplate. But these classroom walls and white boards covered with sterile word strips have become visual deserts, void of intellectual life! It's definitely visual clutter. The words aren't even printed by the children. There's nothing of the child.

I know the intention is to make it look like education is going on. To make it uniform. To ensure teacher compliance. But once it's registered with a child, these word lists are ignored - maybe referred to now and then with the teacher's guidance. But those that don't change them are doing nothing to stimulate the growing brain. The brain's smart - it got it the first time and skips over what it's already learned. And so nothing is being offered on those classroom walls to provide new, exciting stimulus.

I think it's become a crutch for some -- see, I've put up everything in the reading kit and there's no room for anything else. It's easy to staple up the district-purchased materials -- and in a teacher's best interest to do so. As one teacher told me, "I'd never teach this way. But I'm forced to." What can we say of a system where teachers trained in child development are reluctant to put up child-generated projects because their supervisors will criticize them -- or worse, affect their evaluations negatively!

Although I am a trained teacher evaluator, in my capacity as an art consultant I don't advise teachers to go against directives issued by their district supervisors. However, if it was up to me, I'd be cutting out much of this basic knowledge clutter once it was learned. I'd be looking for student-generated projects as direct evidence that the highest levels of instruction was taking place in that classroom. Only then is real learning taking place. The student must take the basic knowledge and use it or transform it in some way. That's what creativity and divergent thinking are all about. Unless teachers take the kids to that point, they're just pursuing a round and round loop at the lowest levels of the learning cycle.

Gaining the facts is only the beginning of the learning process. It's not the be all and end all. But getting beyond that these days seems to be a very fearful proposition. I understand the reasons why. It will take some strong leadership at the top to make the transition and give assurances that it's vital to provide creativity in education if our US economy is to remain on top this century. Other countries are getting that message and spending mucho $$$ to revamp their education systems to embrace the teaching of creativity.

Are Some Students More Deserving of Art Education Than Others?

I recently had a conversation with a teacher at an at-risk school in a low-income area about their lack of art education. She voiced an opinion that I've heard in similar locales over the years. She assumed elementary kids in the well-to-do areas of the city had art -- that those parents would insist on art teaching at their schools or pay for it themselves.

It's sad that we've come to expect/accept that kids in our poorer neighborhoods don't "deserve" to have art for one reason or another, the same as the other district students. The excuses can range from financial, lack of parental push, or most usually the notion that the kids have to spend all their time preparing for the tests and couldn't possibly spare a moment for such stuff. Isn't it sad that the teacher serving the at-risk students believes/accepts that she and her school receive second-rate treatment because of who they are?

This is not idle opinion. I was pretty shocked while serving on the board of an alternative high school to hear it voiced publicly in the mid 1990's by a city representative, from the mayor's office no less. No joke. At a large group gathering, we were discussing the possibility of going for a bond to remodel the ancient building housing the school. Over the past few meetings we'd already come to the conclusion that we could perhaps halt the drop-out rate if we installed an art track at the school. We were pretty excited about it. It was going to be first-class.

However, at this meeting to discuss the bond idea, the city rep stated frankly, "Why should the icky kids deserve this?" I was stunned, and embarrassed for her. I've never forgotten that. Because these were the "icky" kids (her exact word, not mine), she didn't feel they should have equal -- or perhaps better than -- the "good" kids at the districts' three regular high schools, who already had art programs. The implication was that the alternative school should be a punishment center without decent facilities or "fun" programs, I guess.

The good news was, we went forward with the bond, the school was beautifully remodeled, an exciting art program (including glass blowing) installed, and attendance rocketed. The alternative school truly became an alternative school -- kids from around the district voluntarily asked to attend so they could enjoy an alternative school experience outside the typical big high school experience. Very gratifying.

I've had the blessed experience to work in three school districts that really did right by their low-end schools. I chose to teach art at the lowest-scoring schools in those districts because I believe art can really make a difference in many ways for those particular students. The districts also believed that it was important to include art, and built beautiful schools in those neighborhoods, not subjecting those students and teachers to substandard buildings. Plus, they (we) enjoyed well-funded art programs.

Those schools were populated by kids facing huge odds. But they were really vibrant places to teach. I should add, they were exhausting, too. But the staffs were incredibly talented and dedicated, as they often are in such schools. Many of our students won art contests, and I made sure student artwork was continuously displayed. When taught creativity, you couldn't tell the difference between our kids' work and the very affluent ones living at the opposite ends of the districts. They proved themselves to be just as talented and creative when given the same opportunity!

Send Obama Congrats and Urge Support of the Arts

While the election of Barack Obama is still reverberating, now is a great time to send him and his team a note about the arts. They are formulating their agenda. Obama has expressed support for the arts. Join an online movement over at American for the Arts. They are sponsoring the "Congratulations letter" campaign.

Add your signature here:

http://www.capwiz.com/artsusa/issues/alert/?alertid=12162316&type=CU

Cast Your Vote For the Arts

This article from the LA Times is a little old, but insightful if you're an arts supporter.
http://http//articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/04/entertainment/et-polartists4

Archive for Tuesday, March 04, 2008

The arts of the campaign trail

March 04, 2008

When it comes to campaign themes, the arts can’t compete with healthcare reform, national security, the sluggish economy – just about anything you might name.

But this presidential primary season, people who work at the crossroads of politics and culture say the arts have attained a higher profile than usual – and the push for an arts agenda has established a foothold in the campaign landscape.

Linda Frye Burnham, well known in Los Angeles arts circles for starting High Performance magazine and co-founding Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, began hearing in January about Barack Obama’s support for the arts.

Along with thousands of other arts figures, she received an e-mail detailing how Obama would increase support for the National Endowment for the Arts, embrace arts education, strengthen cultural diplomacy, advocate an artist-friendly tax law and propose an Artist Corps to send young artists to teach in low-income areas.

In Ohio, meanwhile, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign worked to arrange a gathering at which her advisors hoped to win arts-interested voters with her commitment to the same ideas. Mike Huckabee has promised that should he be elected, he’d follow through on his devotion to arts education, especially. And last March, John McCain answered a New Hampshire theater manager who said he hoped the senator would support the arts by sending the man a personal check for $500.

The statements and promises, as it turns out, reflect an initiative called ArtsVote2008 mounted by the political arm of a group called Americans for the Arts, or AFTA.

In advance of the Iowa caucuses, ArtsVote gave all the candidates then running a 10-point plan for the arts in public life. No. 1 stresses NEA grants to the sorts of local arts agencies and groups that AFTA represents. No. 6 urges candidates to enhance healthcare coverage for arts groups and artists. (The complete text is available at http://www.americansforarts.org/.) ArtsVote then urged the candidates to address these points in public.

Such political pressure “is pretty common among other advocacy centers, but for the arts it is somewhat new,” says Rindy O’Brien, director of the American Arts Alliance, which represents opera, ballet and orchestra groups in Washington. “I come out of the environmental realm, and they would do a lot of that electoral work – and Planned Parenthood does – but, for the arts, you haven’t seen it.”

One reason it’s visible now is a matter of resources. In 2002, AFTA received a $127-million gift from Ruth Lilly, heiress to the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical fortune.

The money, given in annual installments and spread across the group’s political, educational and service activities, lifted its yearly budget to $14 million from about $8 million. And those extra millions helped give clout to ArtsVote, a part of AFTA’s political arm, the Arts Action Fund.

With its 10-point plan in place, ArtsVote tracked candidates’ responses by giving a $40,000 grant to a group called New Hampshire Citizens for the Arts so it could hire Suzanne Delle Harrison, who runs a theater in the state. She, in turn, put candidates and their staffs on the record by asking them about their views before the state’s primaries. On the ArtsVote website are both the campaigns’ arts statements and a diary of Harrison’s lobbying adventure:

The diary alludes, for example, to a lecture Huckabee gave ArtsVote volunteers that Harrison described in an interview as a “fascinating” evangelistic interpretation of human creativity as a conduit for the creative role of God.

Beyond his $500 gift, McCain doesn’t appear in the log. His silence, arts advocates say, is already framing a clear difference on public financing for the arts between whichever Democrat runs and the Republican front-runner. “It would be a stark contrast, especially since Sen. McCain hasn’t responded in any way about supporting the arts,” says Narric Rome, director of federal affairs for the Arts Action Fund.

An issue of particular interest on the ArtsVote agenda is arts education, which, arts advocates say, became a casualty of the test-driven No Child Left Behind Act.

Obama, Clinton and Huckabee all extol exposing students to the arts. Speaking before the Virginia primary, Obama declared: “I want our students learning art and music and science and poetry and all the things that make education worthwhile.”

Pollsters have not attempted to measure the power of a national arts vote, and it’s hard to know how such stands will sway the public.

But the Arts Education Partnership, a coalition of 140 organizations, recently commissioned a poll of 1,000 likely voters from Lake Research, a Democratic polling firm. It showed that 57% of the respondents would more likely vote for a candidate who supported the development of the imagination in schools.

The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, also found that 57% of voters would be less likely to pick a candidate who voted to cut funding for arts education.

Current and former Clinton and Obama campaign staffers speak of the candidates’ self-driven support for the arts. But they also credit former Americans for the Arts officials and members of other arts organizations for helping AFTA develop its 10-point plan. O’Brien of the American Arts Alliance says it was consulted. And Rachel Lyons, the Clinton campaign’s deputy political director in New Hampshire, is a former director of the American Arts Alliance, which ArtsVote’s Harrison believes won her a particularly “open and knowledgeable” hearing with the campaign.

Last spring, a key Arts Action Fund official gave an extensive briefing calling for more funding for arts education and its other priorities to the Obama campaign’s Arts Policy Committee, a growing volunteer group of arts professionals, researchers and artists that both considers arts policy and works politically.

In addition, novelist Michael Chabon has written a statement of principles for the campaign called “Thoughts on the Importance of the Arts to Our Society”.

Clinton advisors, for their part, speak of the ArtsVote proposals as one of several influences. The Clinton campaign exchanged e-mails with Rome about arranging the arts gathering in Ohio.

According to Clinton officials, the campaign has no arts policy committee but instead has opted for what domestic policy advisor Catherine Brown calls “a more organic approach” of reaching out to “Hillary Clinton’s many friends who know about her passion for the arts.”

Overall, the Democrats’ formal responses to ArtsVote are similar in how they parallel the ArtsVote priorities.

The Clinton campaign has outlined nothing comparable to Obama’s Artist Corps, but it has proposed a Putting Arts in Reach initiative, which would “offset the cost of musical instruments, art supplies, drama equipment, and other things used in arts education for children from low-income communities.”

Will such words actually produce programs?

Says Burnham: “I’ve lived long enough to know that platforms mean relatively little when people get in there and find out what is going on. They give a sense of whether the candidate gets it or not – the value of the arts to the American public. I know that Americans for the Arts will keep rattling their cage for change, whether it is Obama or Hillary.

“What I wonder is what would happen if McCain got in and Huckabee were vice president. What would happen to the arts then? I think about that a lot.”

Save/Share:

Listen to an Expert on Teaching Creativity in the Schools

I felt very vindicated when I first stumbled upon Sir Ken Robinson's talks about creativity and education and human development. He's now living in Santa Monica, and has done consulting work with the Getty. You'd think I'd have plenty of opportunity to hear him in person. My guess is, he'll probably become more prominent on the US education stage with an administration change.

Robinson's thrust is that creativity and the arts were shunted aside due to the education system's hierarchy of math, science, and literacy teaching as the main ingredients of the industrial revolution of the 19th century. We at the bottom of the hierarchy already know that. But that old model is failing before our eyes as degrees become useless for promising job security. Robinson's definition of creativity is "original ideas that have value." Might there be room for such a concept in our children's school day?

I have had a dickens of a time trying to get the link to this talk working. This is the correct address, but in case it doesn't work, try pasting the address into your browser. Excerpts are on You Tube and TED, so you can also go through Google to find Sir Ken Robinson's talks.

It's worth hearing what Robinson has to say on the topic of creativity teaching in the schools. Not only is he quite a humorous speaker, but he's got some substantial credibility. He's responsible for helping England, Singapore, South Korea, and now China reinvent their education systems for the 21st century. He has plenty to say about the ailing US system as well.


http://www.ted.org/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Can "Amy the Art Mom" Trump " Sarah the Hockey Mom?"

Here is a wonderfully insightful piece I found on HuffingtonPost.com. It really captures all of us moms (and dads) who have gotten our kids to sports practice AND to some kind of arts or music lesson on top of it. Don't miss this. It gives you heart. Hopefully, the politicians we elect are the same kind of parents and will begin supporting art funding whole-heartedly.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-krevolin/hockey-moms-make-room-for_b_137648.html

Elect Pro-Art Candidates

The advocacy group Americans for the Arts has identified seven key races across the country that could have a positive impact on the arts. Check out their list complete with supporting statements, then elect one of these candidates if he or she is yours!

http://mail.google.com/mail/#inbox/11d45431b67577f1

Here is a list of all the candidates the Arts Action Fund has contributed to across the country. Let's get our country moving ahead in teaching creativity and supporting American innovation once again.

http://www.artsactionfund.org/pdf/special_reports/2008/pac_contributions08.pdf

Anti-gang Measure Promises Afterschool Art Programs

If you live in Los Angeles County, you received a glossy flyer in support of Prop A - a minimally priced anti-gang tax. The proponents for the measure include our top law enforcement officers Sheriff Lee Baca and Police Chief Bill Bratton, as well as Mothers Against Gang Violence. Aren't we all against it?

I have some small experience in this arena, so I'm interested in what Prop A will provide. One is my involvement in dealing with gang activity in Washington state, and the other is in being an early provider of afterschool art programs for seven years.

First off, I must digress for a moment to make a comment about the glossy color image on the Prop A flyer. It shows an elementary-aged child showing off her art creation in order to persuade you to vote for the measure. I had to shake my head though, for the girl is holding a glued-together popsicle stick box. Oh, dear. As if this is a fine example of what children will receive in an art program funded by the $3.00 per month tax every home owner will pay. It's an okay craft project for the Brownie troop, but certainly not what a skilled art educator would be teaching. I suppose the ad agency folks that staged this didn't have a better examples at their disposal.

Unfortunately, to me the popsicle stick box exactly typifies what people think of when it comes to elementary art programs. No wonder school personnel think art programs are less than educational if that's the only kind of craft project they ever experienced when they were school-aged. It stands to reason then why administrators don't think kids should spend precious school time pulled away from test prep -- even for 50 minutes per week. I'm not really knocking this fun project, because kids love it, but it doesn't begin to encompass the scope of a comprehensive art program.

Okay, enough soapbox. I don't know that anyone can knock having children and young people productively engaged in those critical hours of 3-6 p.m. Maybe that's where we should focus our right-brain, creative education programs. It's truly something to think about, LA. I'm just curious who will be guiding this new bureaucracy. I haven't been able to find that out.

But back to the gang issue and why we need to act big. After we left LA and moved to Washington, I was appointed by the mayor of our community as the chair of the Mayor's Youth Commission. I enjoyed this position for five years. The commission was charged with overseeing anything concerning youth that city government was involved with in our city of 80,000. Coming from LA, I had a heightened awareness of gang issues. (Indeed, having attended Otis at the old MacArthur Park campus, I was cautious about safety. I had the dubious distinction of being robbed down in the basement dark room, which led to the school finally getting a security guard. I filed a report with the Rampart Station, and my credit card was eventually found on the person of a gang member who'd been enjoying it. I went to court in Watts to press charges.)

So, up in seemingly remote Washington, I was a bit surprised when bits of gang graffiti began to appear. The police and supposed gang experts said it was just wanna-be's and copycats -- not the real thing. (In fact, the belief of the LA cops in my day had been that gangs didn't move outside of their own neighborhoods -- I'd been concerned that since they had my driver's license they'd know where I lived. Now we know that they are very mobile.) But back to Washington: we got a new member on the commission who came from LA and had worked with the Hispanic gangs starting in the 1950s, and then with the black gangs in the 1970s. He knew his stuff. He said he saw evidence all round town of the Crips and Bloods. They traveled unhindered up and down I-5.

We organized neighborhood meetings in order to alert the community. This gentleman stood up and told parents that he would be happy to come to their home and tell them if their child was involved in a gang. He told school principals they had gang members walking right under their noses in the hallways. It was that obvious to him. But nobody believed him. And within two years we had our first drive-by shooting at a local high school, gang-related beatings, etc. It gets rooted quickly when left uncheck.

So now we're back here in LA. And gangs certainly haven't stayed confined to South Central or east LA. Instead of being a problem "over there," it's become an incidious spiderweb across the entire region. The folly of that kind of thinking 25 years ago resulted in not ever addressing the underlying causes. As we all know, the ignored problems festered, than exploded. It seems that communities and neighborhoods once remote and supposedly untouchable are defaced.

Let's support the effort to address this region-wide problem with a region-wide, coordinated response.

During my tenure on the Youth Commission in the mid 90s, there was mounting evidence that afterschool programs were a very promising solution to the problem of latch kids and working parents. But there wasn't much out there, and certainly no outside funding for them. Youth sports programs were dependent upon parents getting the kids to practice and games. They couldn't absorb unattended kids or those in need of transportation. The "Y" hadn't yet begun offering its school programs.

I hired some artists and we took an art program to several schools. This came right on the heels of our district axing the art teacher position at my daughter's school when the first rounds of state testing were dropped on the district. Later when we moved to northern CA I provided a similar program. The biggest problem was that we basically only reached those who could afford to pay our reasonable fees, except for when PTA's provided scholarships for specific kids. So the idea of making art programs widely available to LA kids wins big with me!


This is information is taken directly from the VOTE YES ON PROP A in Los Angeles county:

ANALYSIS
A recent citywide poll indicated that gang and juvenile violence ranked as a top concern for area residents. In fact, a staggering 80% of voters said that gang and juvenile violence was a very serious problem that needed to be addressed. If passed, this initiative will have a dramatic impact benefiting children and neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles by taking kids off the streets and keeping them away from gangs, guns and drugs.

Consider the facts:
There are currently more than 700 gangs and over 40 thousand gang members in Los Angeles.
In 2007, the LAPD reported a 14% increase in gang crime. In the Valley, gang crime is up 4% in the West Valley area and up 11% in the Mission area.
We spend $1.67 million on each gang murder. It costs $218,000 per year to incarcerate a juvenile.
Prevention and intervention programs are needed to complement the addition of more police officers. Chief Bratton has said: “We cannot arrest our way out of this problem.”
Students who take advantage of after school programs like LA’s BEST are 20% more likely to stay in school.
80% of prison inmates are high school dropouts.
If we can keep 120 kids out of jail, we will save the $30 million cost of the measure. If we can prevent 1,000 kids from being jailed, the measure will save $250 million.

THE INITIATIVE
Mothers Against Gang Violence is the principal proponent of an initiative on the November 2008 ballot that will provide $30 million each year to ensure that every student in Los Angeles has an opportunity to participate in safe after school, job training, mentoring, and apprenticeship programs.
Only funds programs that have a proven track record of successfully boosting academic achievement, reducing high school dropout rates and preventing youth from joining gangs or using drugs.
Guarantees a dedicated funding stream for critical programs that focus on gang prevention, job training and after school programs—without the possibility of being redirected to the general fund or other administrative expenses.
Funds apprenticeship and mentoring programs so that at-risk youth obtain job training and learn important life skills and lessons about respect, discipline, and personal responsibility.
Provides additional funding for after-school and community-based programs such as LA’s BEST, to increase opportunities for safe and supervised activities during the critical hours of 3-6pm, which will keep kids out of the streets and out of trouble.
Provides in-school programs such as GAP (Gang Alternative Program) that expands dropout prevention programs and establishes a citywide 4th grade curriculum that has been phenomenally successful in keeping kids away from gangs. Additionally, it funds a program to escort students to and from school that will keep young people safe from gang recruitment.

ACCOUNTABILITY
Will only fund programs that provide kids with real alternatives to gang involvement, programs with actual success.
A Citizen’s Oversight Committee will oversee and make recommendations to the Mayor and City Council about which organizations receives funding.
The measure requires annual City Controller audits to ensure that all taxpayers’ funds are used effectively, efficiently and as promised to fight gang violence in Los Angeles.
Programs that receive funding are required to demonstrate effectiveness, which will be measured by long-term success of kids participating in the programs or an actual reduction in gang violence. Programs that cannot demonstrate effectiveness and not shown to reduce gang violence will not be eligible to receive funds raised by this measure.
Funding comes from a $36 annual parcel tax on each property, with exemptions for low-income property owners, and senior citizens, which comes to $3 a month.

Click on the VOTE YES link to get more information:

http://www.voteyespropa.com/

The Call is Getting Louder to Embrace Creativity Education in Schools

Another call from an expert to reinstate arts to the schools. Sir Ken Robinson says its imperative to make us competitive in the 21st century. Apparently, the Brits have injected a billion dollars into their education system to improve the teaching of creativity. Singapore, South Korea, and China are reinventing their teaching strategies and testing -- opting instead to emphasize the teaching of creativity. They've decided that curriculum based solely to satisfy test scores is counterproductive to innovation. Ahem!

We can't lag so far behind! That would definitely be a creative disconnect. After all, wasn't it the alarm sounded 25 years ago by the report "A Nation at Risk" comparing our students' test scores against these same countries that sent us in our current direction? We've now arrived at this incredibly intense testing frenzy as if it's going to get our country ahead ... and what has it really gotten us? If we don't pay attention to what the rest of the world is now doing, we're off in left field. We need to be in the right field, providing more right brain education.


http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=6d37953d-0486-43d0-8cc4-c70f389f4b06

Taking Art-Making Away From Kindergarteners is Anti-Education

So, I was having another one of those headshaking conversations with a kindergarten teacher that makes me crazy. She mentioned that a LAUSD supervisor had told kindergarten teachers she didn't want to see cutting and pasting or art-type projects displayed on the walls. Teachers were only to put up real "work."

O my gosh!

As parents know -- and supposedly well-trained educators who've completed child development coursework -- the work of five-year-olds is cutting, gluing, drawing, painting, and gaining those fine motor skills in the right and natural way. You can't get to fluid writing until you provide those opportunities consistently.

Now, kids who have had this normally at home during their preschool years are prepared for the "rigor" of kindergarten. But, our schools are full of children who have not even made marks on paper. The teachers see the result of this every day. Yet their hands are tied. Instead of doing what they know is right, they are forced to make young children try to perform beyond their abilities. It just doesn't work. These kids need double the amount of cutting and drawing opportunities to make up for the deficit.

You know the catch phrase -- we need education reform. True reform means providing education that is developmentally appropriate. Kids learn through art-making. It develops half their brain power, their hand power, their focusing power...which must be in place to master the school-type subjects.

We get more for our education bucks when we provide systematic art education. I've personally seen it work. Just because California hasn't been doing it, in no way means it doesn't work. We have to teach young kids in the way they learn best. Through art. That way, teachers have a better chance of helping kids learn subjects that aren't so natural or of interest to them -- and get those all-important test scores that are important to...adults.

In other school districts that spend less per student, but still have their art programs, they know they can't get rid of them even in tight financial times. There's value in giving kids even 50 minutes per week of art instruction. It's really is so little time out of the frenzy of test prep, so it seems easily expendable. But schools get a big bang for that focused instruction devoted entirely to right brain thinking. It ripples out into the rest of the school day.

Otis Art College Celebrates Its Big 9-0!

The Los Angeles art institution founded by Otis Chandler of the LA Times turned 90-years-old today. That's some tradition. But is an art education relevant today? You bet it is! Otis is expanding. It's rigorous. It's students are in demand as innovators in the creative industries.

As an alum, I was impressed listening to the presentations made by each department. The college has really grown since I was there over two decades ago. There's a recognition of the variety of opportunities and industries worldwide craving creative talent, so the majors available have expanded impressively. But two Otis hallmarks have remained intact that drew me to it initially: all students spend their first year taking a foundation in basic art fundamentals, and instructors work in the industry rather than spouting outdated theory. Students learn from the pros bringing the latest techniques to the classroom. It's an awesome arrangement.

But here's what I wondered. One department chairman mentioned offhandedly that few Californians were in his program. Of course, when I hear something like that my ears prick up! Also, I was struck by the high caliber of student ability at the freshman level. How many students coming from California high schools could step right into the program? We are cutting our kids off from fantastic opportunities by cutting out part of their K - 12 education.

I think we should reject the wornout argument trotted out by CA districts that the arts cost too much. Not that I want to harp on the point, but Texas districts provide full programs based on far less funding per pupil than the state of CA gives. They have to deal with the same expensive issues such as immigration, special education, and testing -- hey, it's their model of testing that's been imposed on the rest of the country. Even so, they include elementary art and music rooms in buildings each district raises itself without state funds. LAUSD is building new schools for the first time in eons, but they don't include art and music rooms, or gyms. It's not even in their thinking to build for a future when they might have more money in their coffers. That's not tax dollars well-spent, in my opinion.

I think we need an uprising.

Are the Arts "Academic?"

I've been thinking over the years about having an elementary charter school for the arts. Last spring I took a more serious look into it - visiting other charter schools and interviewing the movers and shakers behind a couple of successful ones to learn about their personal involvement. It was exciting to find a group of eager funders who wanted to put money towards seeding some Los Angeles charter schools. They were actively recruiting founders who didn't have education backgrounds. Really, it was surprising.

With a masters in education, principal certification, and teacher appraiser certification, I thought I was a shoe-in. Ha! My idea for an art-based school couldn't even make it past the initial screening process. I was told straight out: art is not academic, it isn't college-preparatory, it can't get funded. Why would you waste time teaching creativity in school?

My, my.

So, no matter that I who have worked in schools and taught thousands of kids, successfully proposed to a school board and implemented a middle school pilot program integrating art across the curriculum, and have a husband who is a school administrator, was told I didn't have an "academic" school proposal. No wonder it's so easy to cut school art programs when the guys at the top haven't a clue about the academics of art education.

Friends, we have a lot of work to do to if we're going to change this huge misperception.

By the way, if you want to to keep the little bit of funding the legislature has given towards art education for the last three years, there's a "thank you" letter getting sent around. Please sign it. And kindly ask your friends to sign it, too.

Give your legislator a hug. With the latest dismal Wall Street news, there will surely be some very hard choices ahead. Let's try and keep the funding we've got!

Here's the link to California Alliance for the Arts' Thank You Letter. If the link doesn't work, copy and paste it into your browser. Send you letter now!

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5155/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=710

Importing Creative Talent Instead of Growing Our Own

Over twenty years ago or so, I got acquainted with the man who was hiring talent at Warner Brothers. As fellow artists and art teachers, we bemoaned what was happening way back then! California's Proposition 13 (freezing property tax at 1978 prices) had been gutting money available to the schools. As a result, he was not able to hire enough US-born talent for the studio's entry level program.

At that point, we were about 10 years into the loss of public school art programs. He said that he almost never, if ever, hired someone from California. I was shocked. A fabulous Los Angeles institution not able to give good-paying jobs to Los Angeles residents! They could find talent from the east coast, but mostly they had begun importing it from India. Imagine that. And it was so expensive for the studio to do that -- $50,000 at 1988 prices! They paid for the visa, helped to buy a home, brought the wife along, etc. I wanted to scream about it from the roof tops. We were cutting our own children off from an education that would provide them wonderful jobs in the creative industry right here. And then complained loudly about foreign talent "taking" the jobs instead.

Has anything changed in the intervening years??? Even Google couldn't find enough creative US educated workforce, and woefully cast an eye offshore. Dear Californians, are you getting the point? Creativity must be taught the same as spelling, or reading, or math. It's not something you grab out of the air.

To the immense credit of the Warner Brothers talent scout, he scraped together a demanding graphic arts program at his local high school in an underserved area of Los Angeles. He knew what the kids needed in their art program before they could even be considered as an intern. Those students had to work extra hard outside of school to make up for the lack of art education from K-10th grade before he got hold of them. They were off to the zoo on the weekends to draw. They took life drawing at the community college at night. It was draw, baby, draw! But he was getting some success for those high schoolers who were driven to make it. Who could help but cheer for them all!

But it shouldn't be so hard. When we recognize that art education provides the foundation for an unbelievable number of industries and jobs that define Los Angeles, we'll start to put it on par with science and math and fund it. The talent's already here; it needs to be educated. It's cheaper to provide meaningful training to work in the creative industries than to let that young talent be idled, unfulfilled, and frozen out from contributing their brain power to fuel our creative economy.

We can change the mindset here. Creativity is about thinking broadly -- looking at things in a different way. Yes, millions have benefited from the windfall Prop 13 has given them over three decades, pocketed their personal pots-of-gold, and not paid their fair share towards our infrastructure. But now that we're seeing the crumbling results thirty years later, we know something's got to be done. Frankly, we crave it. We want thriving, livable communities. We must pay up in order to provide creative schools that prepare students for the well-paying jobs that are right here -- and should belong to them.

ArtsVote Releases Comparison of Obama-McCain Arts Positions

Americans for the Arts Action Fund artsusa.org>

With only 32 days left to Election Day, now is the time to act and show your support for the arts!

Arts Positions of the 2008 Presidential Candidates
	Sen. Barack Obama Democratic Nominee	Sen. John McCain Republican Nominee
Campaign has met with Americans for the Arts Action Fund to discuss policy issues.	Yes Meeting held 4/1/08	Yes Meeting held 4/1/08
Campaign has published policy proposals on the arts and/or arts education.	Yes Read policy proposal 2/28/08	No
Candidate has made statement on federal support of the arts.	Yes View Pennsylvania speech on 4/2/08	No
Candidate has made statement on federal support of arts education.	Yes View Texas speech on 2/28/08	Yes Read Statement 10/03/08
National party platform includes statement on the arts and/or arts education.	Yes Read platform statement on page 49	No
Candidate has pro-arts Congressional record.	Yes Co-sponsored S. 548, Artist-Museum Partnership Act, 2/25/08	No Voted to cut funding or terminate the National Endowment for the Arts (see listing of votes*)

Otis Data Proves It: Creativity is Big Business in Los Angeles

Some would say creativity is THE business of Los Angeles. Otis College of Art and Design has got the data to prove what tourists have always known -- the LA brand is a powerful economic draw and engine.

Otis College commissioned the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) to compile and analyze the "2008 Report on the Creative Economy of the Los Angeles Region." Maybe it's no surprise that a 90 year-old art education institution such as Otis recognizes that creativity and innovation are what will define and drive the 21st century. Good news for Angelenos: we don't have to try to invent a creative community from scratch. We're already here. It's robust, but rather unrecognized for the powerhouse that it is. That was the most surprising message, given how many jobs and tax revenue it generates.

For number crunchers, the data is undeniable. This is not frill or fluff. As was mentioned time and again, this is serious business. Almost a million jobs are directly and indirectly based on creative industries! This is mind-boggling. Each direct job in the creative industry supports 1.6 indirect jobs. The interconnecting web supports the entire region, even down to containers being unloaded at the port in San Pedro.

An impressive panel of business and community leaders, moderated by KCET's Val Zavala, shared personal insights about "Imagining a Creative Future." The CEOs of Mattel, Inc. and Hurley International (a subsidiary of Nike), the Mayor of El Segundo, and the directors of the California Arts Council and L.A. County Arts Commission were clear about the potential and needs of the creative community. Instead of being ignored by our government agencies, they need to play a bigger role in planning and using us. Considering the significant portion it generates in the 17th largest economy of the world, government and business leaders need to help ensure the future of L.A.'s creative community.

One of the biggest creative disconnects mentioned: the lack of art education in our K-12 schools, while the college and university opportunities are renowned. I aplauded the clarion call of Laura Zucker, Executive Director of L.A. Arts Commission: quadruple the effort to provide art education to the students in the region's 80 school districts. What a concept: educate our own kids to actually get some of these creative jobs, rather than importing talent from other countries. How are the schools in India and Russia and Asia providing a creative education superior to ours?

The second biggest creative disconnect: Los Angeles gives far less to support its creative community than other major cities such as New York, Seattle and Chicago. According to Arts For LA , we rank lowest in public, private, corporate, and individual support for the arts. Isn't it time we changed that? Wow. If you think we're a powerhouse now, just imagine what we can be with some fuel!

You can download the full report at: www.otis.edu

You can support the advocacy movement to improve our creative economy at www.artsforla.org

Otis College of Art and Design Zeroes in on LA's Creative Engine

Today my alma mater hosted an impressive morning gathering at the Skirball Cultural Center. Art nonprofit organizations, mayors, business CEOs, cultural commissioners, educators, fine and performing artists came to hear Otis College of Art and Design President Sammy Hoi give an eye-opening presentation. It definitely woke up anybody feeling sleepy due to the early hour. One wondered, will artists and designers rescue the economy?

We've been hearing more and more about the creative economy. Some communities -- Austin, TX, Fairfax, VA and Asheville, NC come to mind -- have made a conscious commitment to invest in their creative economies. They are drawing in those types of folks to form a lively community. In fact, the first-ever "National Conference on the Creative Economy" for the business community was held in Fairfax in 2007, drawing such popular economic speakers as Richard Florida and Thomas Friedman.

Now at long last, the original city built on creativity has our own report. Otis has headed a study tying actual numbers to the financial engine that creativity-based jobs generate in the Los Angeles region. If there's any doubt about this importance, putting dollar figures to it brings clarity. That an art college has taken the lead to identify this for the city made me proud. I was very surprised that it hadn't been generated by the Chamber of Commerce or the Mayor's office.

There's plenty of good news to report. But of course, as a long-time art educator, I wring my hands over the lack of substantial school art programs. That was brought up as recommendation in need of overhaul. It just astounds me that Texas not only has maintained their programs, but in the districts where I worked, they wouldn't have thought of building a new elementary school without an art room. In the last district where I was, they always build two art and two music rooms in each elementary school!! And that's not only in the richest part of town, but in every neighborhood. Folks, we can do this here! We've got a magnificent creative economy to maintain.

Okay, enough of the soap box. Let me share some of the items that jumped out at me during the two hour presentation.

Creativity in the Age of Accountability

Here's a link to a published article I wrote that parents and educators should find helpful. If you're interested in ways to increase the teaching of creativity in school, I included several that aren't expensive or difficult to do. We just need to redefine exactly what a balanced education looks like!

http://www.caisca.org

When you get to the site, click on Publications. Go to Faculty. My article is found in the Late Spring 2008 edition. Look for "Creativity in the Age of Accountability," which begins on page 6. As it's in a PDF file, you can't download just my article alone. But there's wonderfully creative applications written by other educators as well. This is a publication authored by teachers who gave workshops for their peers.

If this link isn't working when you click on it directly, copy and paste it into the browser above. I can't access the publications through Firefox. However, I can read them in Explorer.

If you'd like me to send you the publication directly, please email me at twcheney@gmail. com.

A Test That Makes A Difference: Simple Art Assessments

I've long-advocated that kindergartens be given a simple drawing assessment when registering for school. And once in awhile I get teachers to take me up on this. It's actually easy to read these. They provide an immediate visual insight as to where the child is age-wise in his/her development stage.

If a child is drawing like a three-year-old, he's clearly not ready for kindergarten curriculum. He'll be behind before he even begins. This child needs plenty of art practice before he's ready to form or recognize letters. Assessing the drawings would help the teacher group children appropriately and provide insight as to how to plan for maximum learning from day one.

I've done this in first and second grade classes, too. Teachers are expected to meet the learning needs of a wide variety of learners in their classrooms. We've found it helpful to lay the drawings side by side, or pin them up with clothespins. I group them by developmental age as the children's drawings indicate. We look at the class drawings in order from the "youngest" to those drawing at grade level, and beyond. It helps explain visually to the teacher why certain kids are falling behind or can't handle certain aspects of the curriculum. Then hopefully the best intervention will be put in place.

The groundbreaking work on deciphering children's developmental age based on their artwork was pioneered in the 1940s - 1950s. Viktor Lowenfeld's identification of the stages of cognitive development were quite remarkable. In his book "Creative and Mental Growth," he included charts and samples of children's artwork. His work has been expanded, and long-time art educators such as Betty Edwards have added their insights in how to read children's visual work.


I find all this fascinating -- and so easy to do. And cheap! A fortune of education dollars is forced to be spent on extensive, laborious testing. Educators can learn a lot from simple crayons and paper and letting kids draw. This test prep is easy and fun.

This great site compares Lowenfeld's and Edwards' description of each stage of cognitive, visual development. You can see for yourself:
http://www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html

Want Better Test Scores in Low-Performing Schools? Double the Art-Making

I want to continue sharing my insights into kindergarten-age students from my last post.

When children enter kindergarten, they should have had two or three years of drawing experience already (progressing from scribbling to being able to make a representational person). That doesn't mean filling in coloring books that are adult-drawn! Kids are naturally inclined to start making marks between age two and three. You can't teach them to draw better. Just providing paper and crayon for making big movements, and lots of opportunity to create their own imagery, promotes the natural development of large and small motor skills. Kids draw first, then read, then write. That's the progression.

However, the schools are filled with kids coming to school without any practice. Too many homes don't have basic art supplies like paper, crayons, and scissors. Parents don't realize the value of providing this practice to help their children be school-ready, and this applies to affluent families as well as low income. So the kids simply aren't ready. But the kindergarten curriculum now starts at the point where this development should have taken place. There is no time provided in many kindergarten classes to make up for this lack.

If we recognize this and want to improve test scores, kindergarten -- as well as the early elementary grades -- needs to provide double the amount of time spent on art and creativity, not reduce it. The remedial work must be done through art. That's where the gap begins. Kids will then be more ready to take on the accelerated curriculum. Yet at schools where the students score low, the tendency is to cut out the art and"play" to concentrate on writing. Educators, who are trained in child development, are in such a bind. They know they can't leapfrog children's development, no matter how much the state regulators think it can be done.

Kids move through predictable stages of development. It's like learning to walk -- kids spend a lot of time crawling first, figuring it out on their own. It doesn't matter what the adult wants. Children develop on their own timetable to progress to the next level. If the state wants kindergartners to perform beyond their readiness, everybody's time, effort, and money is being wasted. Talk about a creative disconnect! School becomes an endless frustrating fog for these kids. On the other hand, engaging the kids in lots of art to address their developmental needs will do more to improve their abilities faster than giving them piles of worksheets to fill out.

I once received some state grant money to tutor very low kindergartners who were not school-ready. I knew from their backgrounds that they had not had regular access to crayons and paper. Our tutoring sessions involved art-making, not trying to make them to write sentences or sound out words. Scribbling, coloring, and painting worked towards fluidity of movement, teaching their fingers to grasp a pencil as they gained some control to make shapes. Cutting and playing with clay built up strength; gluing helped them focus. They were better able to process their own ideas. When children haven't built up the motor skills schools take for granted, and depend on for success, it's pretty difficult to prod them forward.

Providing art education would transform the kindergarten struggle into a more positive, forward-moving experience. We cannot leapfrog kids over their developmental stages, no matter how dire their test scores. Of course, the panic over scores results in a consequence to the principal who bears the brunt of low scores. It explains the unrelenting push to get kids to perform on subjects that aren't of natural interest to them .

One of the things making me the angriest is that these kids will struggle all through school. Lots of resources and interventions will miss the mark. We have to address the first lack -- no art-making. It only compounds as they get older and the curriculum gets harder. Schools have inadvertently become so one-sided -- lop-sided -- because they must teach only the left-brain type of thinking. The right-brain subjects need to be instructed, too. That's where kids are taught how to problem-solve and work with ambiguity.

Low-income schools with the best principals and fantastically dedicated teachers still can't get the results until we teach the whole mind. Business will continue to experience the "creativity gap" because workers coming from our schools have been taught there's one right answer instead of being able to think expansively. That's what extreme testing and accountability has produced.

The Next Art-Free Zone: Kindergarten

It used to be that when art programs were slashed in the elementary schools, at least kindergarten was the last bastion of painting, drawing, and weekly, if not daily, art projects. Who couldn't imagine that five-year-olds would at least be the lucky ones still getting to enjoy their right-brain creativity exercises. One expects to find creativity still lurking around the corners of the kinder classroom.

But alas, anything that resembles art has been banished in some kindergarten classrooms.  I'll never forget the day a kindergarten teacher ran into the art room on Valentine's Day, stunned that the principal had just made an upsetting proclamation. The little kids were coloring pictures related to the holiday. When the principal had come into the room, she acted as if the teacher was doing something wrong with her class.  The principal announced that there would be no more coloring in kindergarten! They had to spend all the time getting in their academics.

Unfortunately, this true story illustrates the preposterous stress schools face. Second, we've lost all perspective about kindergarten age children. Third, art is "academic," regardless of the wild misinformation out there. 

Where to begin sorting this out?  

Since education was commandereed by the accountability movement (not necessarily an all bad thing), schools are ranked on test scores. We all know this. Meeting this expensive demand means less money has been available for what used to be considered normal components of education and the school day. Just to arm students with never-ending practice worksheets preparing for the tests has gobbled up school budgets nationwide (and mowed down our forests). 

School administrators are in a bind: they have to carefully mind their budgets, even while their staffs copy increasing blizzards of worksheets. Copy paper is their most expensive item, often breaking the bank. Having taught in three states, I can attest to this universal response to test-prep. Art supplies can seem expensive. If a principal doesn't grasp the importance that art brings to the school experience,  not only does the expense look frivilous, but the time spent engaged in a right-brain, authentic, hands-on activity once a week does, too. Employing an art specialist? A school could get two aides instead to tutor low-performing kids in reading or math. It's a trade off. It's not balanced, but the bottom line is panic over test scores. Period.

One of the consequences of the accountability push is that kindergarten has become the most pressured grade of all, in my opinion! In Texas, and I'm sure in other states as well, some of what had been the second grade curriculum has been shoved clear down into kindergarten. Five-year-olds are expected now to write sentences before they can even hold a pencil. Their day too is filled with worksheets. Some kids with a lot of experience under their belt can do this if their parents or progressive preschool provided it. But this push comes at the time when more and more kids are not getting the normal early childhood preparation that might enable them to do this. It's especially true in many low income homes. 

A rather narrow, anemic view of "academic" has developed. Teachers are expected to cover a big amount of material. It ends up looking like worksheets and textbooks. It feels entirely left-brain. It's analytical, not creative. There is no time in the school day for teaching innovative thinking.  But somehow, the adults making these curriculum decisions believe children will be able to do this without instruction or time spent cultivating it. They'd never do that with spelling or math. Let's face it, we have gotten stupid with all this testing. We've lost sight of the children and how they develop.  

Who Will Fund Future Innovation Training in Schools?

There's an interesting block of voters emerging that link the issue of US innovation, creativity, and arts funding for the schools. They've been nicknamed "Imagine Nation." A survey of 1000 voters was taken in December 2007. It uncovered a preference towards candidates that support funding for the arts in education. The school reform they're pushing for is one that meets the demand for creative thinkers able to compete in the 21st century global economy. It gave me hope to read that "73% of voters believe that education in and through the arts is just as important as the so-called "basics." Only 19% of respondents feel the US is ahead in innovation. Check out the website http://www.imaginenation.com/

If you'd like to know how your states' legislators have voted in the past on bills related to the arts, there's a score card maintained at www.artsactionfund.org/pdf/specialreports/2006/congressional_report_card.pdf. It's behind the times, but you can see the trends.

What stands out starkly nationally is the huge number of Republicans scoring a "D" or "F." I must note an A+ for one Republican in NY, who voted 100% for the arts. He must be a maverick! Nearly every Democrat earned an "A" or "B," with many voting 100%. It's clear that Republicans have gutted attempts to bridge the widening "creativity gap" our economy is experiencing going up against other nations. If this is an issue that would determine your support for a candidate or party, take a look at that website. If you don't like what's become of American education, or the state of our creative economy, there's something to consider in these voting records.

In CA, here's the shakedown of our legislators:
Democrat / Republican
A+ (100%) 9 ----A+ 0
A 15 ------------ A 1
B 9 --------------B 2
C 2 --------------C 3
D 0 --------------D 6
F 0 --------------F 6

Girls Need Drawing to Express Themselves

In the last post, I talked about why boys need to have at least some of their school subjects presented in hands-on, authentic, creative ways. Well, girls need this too, of course. But their needs are quite different.

Letting kids draw during the school day activates their entire thinking process. Drawing is the way children think. They naturally draw as small children. Little kids are happy drawing. They don't make judgements about the quality.

But around age ten - twelve, all kids need instruction to help them do what they want to do -- draw more realistically to express their maturing ideas. Drawing becomes a struggle for some because they compare themselves to competent peers or adults. This seems to be a human development stage. Kids need help getting over the hurdle. How this was handled in your case probably still reverberates deep down. I've found this to be especially true for women decades later. A negative experience in art has lasting power because it hits the core.

Girls need art instruction because they don't tend to draw the things that boys do. They get stuck drawing such symbols as hearts, rainbows, and flowers. Ask any 4th or 5th grade teacher. It's universal. I was really struck by this when my daughter -- who always had lots of art opportunity in her experience -- started drawing those same cliches. They looked just like the ones I was doodling in sixth grade.

Around that time, a lot of girls start closing down -- either covering up their drawings or not drawing at all unless forced to do so like making a poster or report. They can see that their work doesn't measure up. This is especially hard on girls who have the rest of school mastered. They feel inadequate. The solution is not to cut out art. Duh! Girls need systematic instruction and encouragement.

Here's an article I wrote with simple art and teaching creativity ideas for teachers and parents. The publication is from Arts in Education Aid Council (AEAC). Look for "Welcome Back to the New School Year":

http://www.chatsworthchamber.com/attachments/f59/30d1221871470-2008-aeac-fall-volume-9-issue-1-aeac_vol9-issue1_r4_final.pdf

Boys' Trouble in School: Maybe They Need More Art

Last week, there was an article on Newsweek.com that caught my eye about the struggle school-age boys are having. There were numerous reasons sited, and possible solutions given. As a long-time educator, I've experienced the upheavals in society, parent-rearing, and the education system. But as an art educator, I've gained some unique insights that the author of the article and many experts miss.

Here's the deal: we've always heard that girls develop/mature linguistically faster than boys. We accept that to various degrees, almost as a put-down to boys. But what are boys doing at the same time? They are developing their spatial intelligence. This is crucial to know. Watch what they do -- they build, practice drawing realistic subjects like cars and rockets and robots, play with Legos, actively do things with others, and study the details on bugs.... It's always intrigued me that this spatial intelligence is expressed in the type of work many men are drawn to -- architecture, engineering, art, and being able to estimate the amount of boxes needed to pack up a house of furniture. They are good at these types of visual puzzles. However, school rarely addresses the style of learning that many boys crave, little yet acknowledging their spatial intelligence.

School is geared to the subjects that can be easily measured. These are "left-brain" skills. Reading, math, spelling, grammar, etc. are subjects that follow patterns, require one right answer, are logical, and taught methodically. It's possible to teach specific strategies to improve in these areas fairly quickly -- which school does well. However, with the extreme push being forced upon children and teachers alike to excel in these subjects, the "right-brain" activities that actually nourish kids, and boys in particular, have been shunted aside. They require lots of think-time and doing, and school doesn't have that kind of time anymore under the current regime.

There's little left in the school day that honors the way boys learn best.

I thought when I got my masters this would be the topic I'd study for my thesis. But I ended up doing a project involving intervention models for at-risk middle school kids. Had I gone for my PhD, maybe then I'd have been able to set up a formal study just to prove officially what I already know. But I think working with thousands of elementary age children in the art room has given me plenty of insight that I didn't get in the regular classroom teaching one grade level. I've had the advantage of working with K-6 grade students on a daily basis.

There are certain things that have held true over the decades because they relate to child development. They've held true working in three states, in numerous school districts rural, suburban or urban, in schools serving the well-off, the economically disadvantaged, the homeless, and new immigrants. Kids are kids. They pass through very predictable stages of visual, creative thinking development. When this is ignored by adults, it's not the child's fault. Not teaching to this intelligence strips boys of their ability to process the typical subjects in a meaningful way.

My first real inkling of this was when I was asked to serve on a committee for the alternative high school in one community in the 1990's. They were struggling with their dropout rate and wondered if putting in an art strand might help. I spent time in the classes, chatting with students. What I couldn't help noticing was the predominant number of boys in the school. And how many of them doodled really well. It struck me that traditional teaching had failed them; they'd really fallen through the cracks far earlier in their school career. That set me to looking at what we were doing in elementary and middle school. Oh by the way, they instituted that art strand -- including glass blowing -- and had 99% attendance rate.

By the way, I'm not a fan of the "left-brain/right-brain" lingo. However, they've become acceptable mainstream models to explain complex thinking processes. They were actually coined twenty-five years ago by art teacher Betty Edwards. Her book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," has spawned numerous new approaches to old topics such as spelling, even if we don't get to practice them.


You can read the full article "Struggling School Age Boys" from September 8, 2008 at http://www.newsweek.com/id/157898

A Return to Los Angeles

We left Los Angeles twenty years ago. Not that we really wanted to, but for us educators not making enough to buy even a studio-sized condo in the toughest section of the city, we had a toddler and wanted a real home. In the late 80's, it was a middle class/professional migration out in search of housing. Coming back, it's like returning to a time-warp, only everything that needed fixing back then is worse. Housing prices?! Even with the downturn, we're back to renting a condo.

Having raised our daughter in far more affordable circumstances, we wanted to come back to the city that values creativity -- or does it? We'll be examining that question and what we can do about it in this blog. As an art educator, it's downright dismal. For the city, not tending to creative education has had a detrimental effect. But the business community nationally is starting to sound the alarm. And because of that, I have great hope. It was the business community that rightfully sounded the alarm twenty-five years ago when they were having to spend too much on basic remedial education for workers. The schools responded.

Now the business community is seeing the result of ignoring a key part of education -- teaching students how to think. In the rush to beef up measurable scores -- left-brain subjects as some would say -- the unmeasurable, right-brain subjects were discarded. As fluff. As expendable. As something only for those who could afford to get it on their own, or "deserved" it. All of the arts educators who've been sidelined for a quarter century (since the publication of "Nation at Risk" in 1983) have been screaming about this, along with frustrated parents. Now, finally, the business community is raising its voice. Could it be that we'll be gaining some balance? Soon?