The Wallis was pleased to join with The Actors Fund to host a symposium – “The Creative Classroom: An Arts Education Symposium for the Entertainment and Performing Arts Community” – August 4, 2018 in our Lovelace Studio Theater. Over 100 artists from all disciplines attended to learn more about what it means to become a teaching artist. Wallis Director of Education Mark Slavkin gave the opening keynote address to help set the stage for the conversations that followed that day. His remarks are below.
I’m delighted to see so many people here this morning to learn more about the world of a teaching artist. Our goal is to help you understand the possibilities and consider if this is something you wish to pursue further. As you learn more, I urge you to consider is my potential work as a teaching artist important to my professional and personal mission?
To start, what is a teaching artist? How is it different than an arts teacher in a school or someone who gives private lessons or training?
Arts learning consultant Eric Booth has defined a teaching artist as “a practicing professional artist with the complementary skills, curiosities, and sensibilities of an educator, who can effectively engage a wide range of people in learning experiences in, through, and about the arts.”
The work of a teaching artist often involves collaborations with a sponsoring organization. For example, a theater company may hire a teaching artist to conduct pre-show visits at their partner schools or lead a workshop for teachers bringing students to a future performance.
In 2001 the Kennedy Center joined with several national colleagues to issue a report called Creating Capacity: A Framework for Providing Professional Development Opportunities for Teaching Artists. This framework remains a good resource to consider the different hats teaching artists can wear: Presenting Artist, Interacting Artist, Collaborating Artist, Master Instructional Artist.
As the field has evolved, expectations for the role of a teaching artist have increased. As teaching artists are valued as important members of the arts and education “ecosystem” it is important all of us respect and appreciate this work is much more important and demanding than simply a “side gig” to generate supplemental income. We should let go of any past bias that “real artists perform” and “lesser artists teach.”
The very best artists both perform and teach. My friend and colleague Dr. Larry Scripp has advocated a framework for the preparation of future musicians that makes clear their overlapping roles as artists, teachers, and scholars. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, Leonard Bernstein comes to mind as someone who used his artistic capacities to teach a new generation about music, while still composing and leading some of the world’s great orchestra. Indeed, the world’s top music directors are given the honorific title of “maestro,” meaning master or teacher. YoYo Ma and Wynton Marsalis are examples of world-class performers who have made an enormous contribution to music education.
These overlapping roles of performer and teacher get to the question about our own personal mission. How can we each make the greatest difference in the world? The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC is a living memorial to the values and ideals of President John F. Kennedy. In that spirit, the Kennedy Center launched the “Citizen Artist Fellow” recognition program in 2016, which celebrates emerging artists across the country who utilize their artistry form for positive impact on communities. In many cases, the work of a teaching artist can be seen as part of the work of a Citizen Artist.
Educators of all sorts make vital contributions to the development of those they serve. The specific credibility and value of a teaching artists comes from navigating between their professional work as an artist and their teaching work.
Teaching artistry is an emerging and growing field. The field is gaining a stronger infrastructure through groups like Teaching Artist Guild. Their vision speaks to the role of teaching artists as agents of positive change: “We believe that Teaching Artists have the combination of skill, passion, and experience to bring about small and large-scale social change.” The term “teaching artist” enjoys greater common usage and understanding. More organizations are offering training and professional development for teaching artists.
While progress has made to recognize the important roles played by teaching artists, the field is still vulnerable to criticism about the level of quality instruction provided by those who may lack training as educators. The certification programs that exist for teaching artists remain voluntary or optional. A specific credential is not required.
This allows almost anyone to self-declare they are a teaching artist. When someone is not well-prepared and does a poor job, this can do harm to the overall reputation and status of all teaching artists.
Our field does not yet have a single set of criteria to define quality in the work of teaching artists. So here is my own personal sense of some of the elements of quality/ effectiveness:
Artistic excellence and credibility.
Flexibility/ an ability to adjust to many different settings and contexts.
Understands best practice in teaching
- Clear goals for each lesson
- “Less is more”, helps learners develop understanding one step at a time, rather than try too much at once
- Assess prior knowledge. Customize approach to any group of students drawn from what they already know.
- Effective classroom management to keep all learners on point and engaged.
Teaching artists work with learners in a wide range of setting, such as pre-school, K-12 schools, after-school programs, probation camps and prisons, and healthcare settings. Here at The Wallis we work with teaching artists to provide support in some of our school partners, to conduct pre-show workshops for teachers, to train musical theater performers in Broadway Dreams, to work with young people with autism through The Miracle Project, and to serve older adults through our Dancing Through Parkinson’s classes with Invertigo Dance Theater.
Over time, most teaching artists develop a range of lessons and approaches that best embody their skills and values. Yet these unique attributes need to be balanced between the individual artist and aligning with the approach of a sponsoring or hiring organization. It is important that the teaching artist and sponsoring agency get on the same page about expectations before beginning a new project or assignment.
Much of the work of teaching artists takes place in K-12 schools. Often this work takes place in classrooms where students do not have access to a credentialed arts specialist teacher. These programs can be valuable but are rarely sufficient. By that I mean they can provide powerful experiences to spark student interest in the arts, but are not a substitute for sustained, sequential instruction. Our grand vision as a field must be for schools to hire full-time arts teachers, to support non-arts teachers in integrating the arts and other disciplines, and to make strategic use of community arts resources, such as visiting teaching artists. We need to see each other as true partners and allies, and not as competitors fighting over limited resources.
In closing, here are some questions I would encourage you to consider throughout the rest of the day:
- Do I see myself in this work?
- Where do I need to grow to do this well?
- What are the types of settings where I want to make a difference?
- Who already does this well that I can learn from?
- Does the world need me to create a whole new organization, or can I collaborate with an existing program?