This week we are hosting a musical theater intensive with our friends from Broadway Dreams. The week will culminate in a showcase performance in our Goldsmith Theater. While I know the show will be fantastic, I am most proud to see the work behind the scenes in classes and rehearsals where the real learning and growth takes place. It made me wonder why we spend most of our energies promoting the show, with far fewer opportunities for guests to see the program in action. I see the same bias in schools. How can we change the way we present and promote the importance of arts education?
Advocacy for arts education often suggests there are many school principals, superintendents, and school board members who “just don’t get it.” Our common and oft-repeated lament is “you know, the arts are always the first to be cut.” The implication is that these key decision-makers do not value the arts as core to the learning process, and instead see the arts as optional and expendable. So the question is what should we do about it? What is the key to changing attitudes? In my experience, the key is to share the learning process more and focus less on the final show and performance.
The rewards systems for arts educators place enormous weight on putting on a show or displaying the finished student art work. School leaders like to see the auditorium filled with proud parents. The community takes great pride when the jazz band wins an award at a festival or the school choir finishes first in a competition. These achievements are wonderful. But they also reinforce some misconceptions about arts learning. They play into the bias that the arts are for the “talented few.” By showcasing a subset of students with exceptional skills, these events place “the artists” apart from the rest of the student body. As a result, it seems acceptable to offer such experiences to only a minority of students.
Most of the skills and habits of mind students gain through arts education come from the everyday process of teaching and learning, not the achievement of the final product on stage. When students read and discuss a new play, they are able to consider and grapple with novel concepts. When they learn a new dance for the first time, they use an exploratory process of trial and error to see how the piece can be best executed. When they view and discuss a new painting, they learn to support their views by citing evidence within the piece. These learning processes often involve collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. It is these moments in the classroom or the rehearsal studio where learning is best revealed. Yet many educators resist inviting in visitors to see this part of the process. Teachers will often apologize and ask that the students not be judged, since they just started to work on a new piece. The pressure to put on a good show remains at the top of their mind.
In my experience, the “aha moments” that lead school leaders to change their thinking about the arts come about when we open classrooms to show arts learning in action. Contrary to our assumptions, thoughtful educators are not always fixated on the final show. In fact, they are anxious to see more evidence of active learning that benefits all students. They want to see English Language Learners perform scenes from a story as a way of strengthening oral language skills and comprehension. They want to see middle school students use tableaux to life key moments from their history book. They enjoy seeing students in small groups actively debating the best way to create a found poem. They like to see one student guiding another through a difficult dance sequence. They are proud to see newly arrived immigrant students taking the stage to share their personal stories.
These first-hand experiences can be instrumental in changing attitudes about the value of the arts. They help educational leaders imagine the arts as part of the instructional program for all students, not as an enrichment opportunity for only a few students. With this in mind, we can consider the steps needed to launch an effective advocacy campaign to change the way the arts are valued in a given school or school district. I see this process as a cycle with these action steps:
1. Create compelling experiences by inviting your principal or school district leadership to visit classrooms and see arts learning in action. No matter how rough or messy, if the work students are doing is meaningful, trust that thoughtful educators will “get it.”
2. Discuss with your visitors the many ways students are benefitting in their academic abilities and social-emotional skills. These are when the “Aha moments” are most likely to happen.
3. Focus on equity to propel a desire for change. If we see the valuable benefits for students from quality arts programs, how can we ensure all students have access, not only the luck few in a single classroom or grade level?
4. Request a Commitment to act. How can new values be applied in the development of important school and district plans and budgets?
5. Connect schools leaders with tools, resources, and coaching to support change. Lacking prior knowledge of effective models and approaches to arts education, school leaders need help creating and implementing quality programs.
6. Continue to monitor progress and advocate to address remaining needs and gaps.
7. Repeat.