Five Myths about Arts Integration

1. The arts are a messy, chaotic distraction from learning.

The common image of the artist is that of a fuzzy-thinking, disheveled, undisciplined “creative type.” Teachers assume that there is no structure or form to the arts, and that artistic creation depends on talent and inspiration.

Yet artists, especially performing artists like dancers, have to be extremely self-disciplined in order to practice their craft. Each art has its own forms, structures that create order out of chaos, and learning to stay within the forms is part of learning any art.

Harvard’s Project Zero researchers have identified eight Studio Habits of Mind that the arts help students develop. Check them out here: http://pzweb.harvard.edu/research/StudioThink/StudioThinkEight.htm

Creating in an art form also stimulates the natural curiosity of learners. By attempting to fit science ideas into choreography, or write poetry about history, or paint a mathematical idea, children delve deeper into both subjects.

The new common core standards that are sweeping the nation expand the definition of literacy to mean “critical and creative thinking.” Children who participate in arts integration experiences are developing vital thinking skills we will need to solve 21st century problems. What could be more relevant?

2. Arts integration takes too much time.

It is true that planning an arts-integrated unit of study is time-consuming — but so is planning a “traditional” unit, unless the teacher is simply following the publisher’s guide verbatim.

Creating an environment with conditions that are ideal for learning is the teacher’s job. If the planning time spent results in vastly deeper and more-lasting learning for the students, is that “too much time?”

Consider also the synergistic effect of arts integration strategies. One plus one, as my friend and colleague Sean Layne has said, is more than two.

The nature of creative thinking is to be divergent and holistic. In pursuing the best way to demonstrate in movement the processes that create metamorphic rock, we also venture into history, mathematics, geography, visual art, and even poetry.

The cumulative effect of trying to distill our learning into artistic form dwarfs the results of teaching to the test when it comes to lifelong learning skills and enduring understanding.

3. Creativity is impossible to teach or assess.

Another result of systematically eliminating public art instruction has been to completely obfuscate the creative process for most people. Creativity, contrary to popular belief, is not something you either have or don’t have. Everyone is born creative — it’s our human birthright, both blessing and curse. It takes school to train creativity out of most of us.

Graphic courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

It turns out that there are common traits of “creative” people, and those traits are teachable. The old inspiration / perspiration saying is quite true: very little of the creative process involves being struck over the head by some Muse or another. Most of it is thoughtful, purposeful, intelligent, and persistent pursuit of the best way to realize that inspired idea in a form that speaks to others.

Becoming familiar with the ebb and flow of the different parts of the creative process will help teachers get comfortable with letting their students’ imaginations loose. When it comes to assessment, the job is easier than it looks at first.

Since there are clear expectations and rules for all the arts, we can use those expectations as the basis for assessing the products. Most often, a rubric is the tool of choice, since it allows room for judgement but is clear and quantifiable enough to result in a “grade.”

With a rubric, teachers and students together look at the expectations. Was the dance designed according to the rules and using the elements of the art form? Did the dance communicate a linked idea clearly and correctly? Did the performers show focus and concentration? Click here for a sample:  STIM Rubric.

Students then evaluate their dance constructions according to a multiple-point rubric, and teachers do likewise. Then, and this is crucial, students return to their creations and revise them, comparing the results with their first draft by using the same rubric. The goal is to move up the rubric, towards mastery.

These assessments become part of the student’s portfolio, along with a video recording of the dance. They provide clear evidence of learning and growth.

4. Teachers do not know enough about the arts to integrate them.

The truth in this myth is that very few teachers receive even rudimentary basic training in the arts, though that is changing in many schools of education now. That means that it is up to teachers themselves to seek out artistic experiences and professional development in the arts. Without a doubt, the more classroom teachers know about the arts, the easier and more effective their planning will become.

Trying it Out

However, every single teacher who is competent to lead a classroom is also able to lead authentic arts integration experiences. It starts with “baby steps,” such as skill-building to help students lay a foundation for further learning and creativity. In dance, that might be something like the kinesphere activity, which helps students visualize and experience their own personal space without interfering with others’.

Those beginning steps lead to confidence in both teacher and students, and they assume co-learner roles as they go deeper into how dance might help them in their other studies. Once teachers see that their students can help them design and facilitate these lessons, the whole process becomes one of discovery and invention, rather than something scary and chaotic.

5. The arts are not for every child.

There is a persistent belief that some children have artistic “talent,” and others do not. There is another, related belief, that arts experiences are for those who can afford them. The centuries of European influence on art were not kind to those not born to nobility or money. They left the impression that, to enjoy art, you must wear evening clothes and eat caviar. For the masses, there are ruder entertainments.

Yet there is not one child on the face of this earth who would not benefit in head, heart, and health from an artistic education. There is no one who cannot create something of beauty and value if they are given the opportunity.

For every child whose creative voice we silence, we deprive the world of what could have been, if not a world-class leader or thinker, at the very least a happy and well-adjusted citizen.

Everyone has the power to create and to imagine. It’s time to honor that in our schools.

Revolution, Not Reform

A recent education blog post pointed out that teachers who survive their first two years in the profession mostly still leave teaching by their fifth year.  The author, Debra Vladero, notes that these teachers grow in effectiveness, as measured by various criteria including student test scores, for their first three years, then level off. Their performance actually declines in their final year of teaching, as if they are giving up before they actually quit. And teachers who start later in the school year are less effective than those hired before it begins.

I have been pondering this information, and thinking about its relationship to Daniel Pink’s book, “Drive.” Then I heard a song by Jeffrey Lewis and all the parts began to come together.

The song is Time Trades, and the gist is that we don’t get our life’s satisfaction from working for money or for other people’s satisfaction. Lewis suggests that, in addition to whatever we do to survive economically, we also need to “try something you can get smarter at, something you might just be a starter at. It could be poetry, it could be chemistry, it could be trying to make a new happy family.”

The point is that we get deep satisfaction from deep learning – lifelong learning. So, you trade time for mastery. As Lewis puts it, then “when you get old you blow some whippersnapper’s mind.”

Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose

This hits directly at the same point Pink makes about our three, overarching psychological needs: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The movement for school “accountability,” as put into practice through laws like “No Child Left Behind,” has removed all three of these from the grasp of teachers. Is it any wonder that good teachers are leaving in droves?

Our model of education does not treat learning as a dynamic, lifelong pursuit. The politicians and bureaucrats who operate the factory system of public education treat learning as a fixed-outcome, limited-time-only necessity before people can get on with the business of being good, cheap labor.

This means that, just like educator Edward Cubberly suggested in the early 20th century, teachers should be considered workers who are turning raw materials (children) into finished products (workforce-ready laborers). Just like in factories, you offer bonuses to the more “productive” workers and punishments and layoffs go to the laggards.
In a factory, there is no chance to master anything more than a simple, repetitive task that offers no challenge to an adult mind. No one pursues additional classes in hole-punching or screw-driving. Any challenges for the intellect and the whole person are left for “leisure” time; hence the idea of “hobbies,” which grew up to help 9-to-5-ers keep from going insane from the mind-crunching monotony at work.

So, in our system, we don’t treat teachers like respected professionals. We treat them like replaceable components. We grind them up and spit them out by denying them access to any of the three human needs that motivate us.

Look at autonomy. It doesn’t exist for many teachers. They are shoehorned into overcrowded classrooms. Then they have to deliver literally scripted curriculum in which every teacher in that grade level must be at the same point in the same lesson at the same time on the same day. These scripts are written by private companies and purchased with taxpayer dollars. These same companies then develop and sell the standardized tests that schools are to use to evaluate student learning as well as teacher “effectiveness.”

The move to a national set of “common core standards” is yet another way these companies are working to swallow the bulk of public education funding in the name of “reform.” Fewer and fewer local choices in what and how to teach will mean a further dumbing down of our population while swelling the coffers of the biggest publishers. Don’t forget how laws are made, in that old saying about gold and rules.

Not only does the system reject and thwart teacher autonomy, this same straitjacket approach removes any opportunity for teachers to develop true mastery. It takes very little skill to read from a prepared script every day and to follow a carefully-prescribed set of steps to someone else’s goals and objectives. By making teaching a factory-like job that extends without variation into a gray, bleak future, we all but put up a big “KEEP AWAY” sign for our best and brightest.

Last on the hit parade is purpose. If a teacher’s purpose is to train parrots, and if the measure of that teacher’s success is how many parrots learned 100 percent of their lines — well, I don’t see that as motivating too many gifted individuals to the profession.

Add now the disrespect for teachers that political candidates have stirred up, the constant demands for “pay for performance” (a proven counterproductive strategy), and the increasing requirements that teachers pursue advanced degrees and national board certification at their own expense. It’s a wonder that anyone studies to become a teacher any more. So many other jobs are lots more fun, and many of them pay better in the bargain.

All of which begs the question: Who will be the ones left teaching when nearly all passionate and skilled professionals have fled this prescribed and punitive environment?

No More “Reform” — Please!

Wave after wave of “reform” has swept American public education since the mid-20th century. I can personally remember things like New Math, Phonics, and Whole Language taking over the curriculum for a while, then fading into the background.

Lately, “reform” has taken on a new, more political meaning. American corporations, seeing the huge gobs of money spent on public education in the US every year, determined to take as much of that money as possible. They set their legislative minions to work crafting a law that would create the illusion of accountability while actually breaking the back of public education.

The goal: eventual privatization, meaning profits, of the “broken” system. And in the meantime, sell as many new productis (textbooks, materials, tests, remedial systems, etc.) as possible to lock up the marketplace for the big boys. (My thinking here is not sexist; the system is.)

So now “reform” was driven by one measure alone: test scores. Everything done to improve public education would be focused on driving test scores higher. And because we are a simple-minded folk, we would only pay attention to reading and math. And maybe science later on. Things like geography, art, history, dance, literature, music, philosophy, theater — who needs ‘em? They just muddy up the waters. People can’t pay attention to all that.

It was brilliant, really. Define success in stark and simple terms, and then make success impossible. In the end, ride in to the rescue on a wave of free market rhetoric and rake in all the bucks. Run education like a business, goes the refrain.

The strategy is working like a Swiss-made timepiece. Around 50 percent of American public schools are now labeled as “failing” under No Child Left Behind. As the standard moves toward 100 percent proficiency, that number will only go up. Hand-wringing and teacher-bashing dominates the conversation. Profiteers are poised to pounce.

Like a Business? Really?

Doesn’t it sound great when politicians promise to run some governmental function “like a business?” Sounds all down-to-earth and hard-nosed and unsentimental. Harrumph.

But do we really want that? I mean, businesses go out of business all the time. Wouldn’t that be a bad thing for an essential service? And since the purpose of business is to make a profit for the owners or investors, wouldn’t that lower the quality of the service? If the company could make a better profit by squeezing more kids into the classrooms and firing more teachers, they would not think for long before pulling that switch.

If the business was better off as a result, would you mind your children doing without textbooks, or computers, or desks for that matter? If profit’s the goal, why put students together in “schools” at all? Why not have all teaching delivered to the student’s portable device, wherever they are?All for only a few hundred dollars a month subscription fee. Per child of course.

It has never been possible to just pour knowledge into children and have them magically transform into thoughtful adult members of society. That is a fable we have told ourselves. And it has never been possible to create a cadre of workers who can reliably teach every child to pass every question on every test invented by people who probably couldn’t pass the tests themselves.

The Arts Should Be First

What the arts offer us is not just an elegant, memorable, and powerful way to communicate our understanding of the universe around us. Though that should be enough right there, don’t you think?

The arts offer us a way of thinking that is completely aligned with our need to solve difficult global and local problems of all types. Thinking as an artist means being able to think creatively and in new ways about complex or stubborn challenges, and finding enduring ways to express those solutions. It means being persistent, able to look at situations from a variety of perspectives, and willing to find the humor in a tough spot. It means being empathetic yet playful, organized but willing to yield to inspiration, and always remaining open to new possibilities.

If we were to train all children as artists, then everyone would bring that set of skills to every profession. (Can you imagine how much more intelligent debates in Congress would be?)

Revolution, Not Reform

There is no way to save this system by re-forming it. The parts of it that don’t work have been shored up and entrenched and buttressed, while the parts that used to work a little have been dismantled or allowed to crumble away. We need revolution.

• We need to re-use the factories we used to call schools in some appropriate, business-oriented way. Let them be incubators for new small businesses, whatever.

• We need to find places for our new schools that are in the hearts of communities, visible to all, and part of the world around them.

• We need to be sure those new schools have places for learning in all modalities, places for celebration, and places for interaction with experts and learners from everywhere in the world.

• We need to expect more of teachers, to demand that they be dynamic, creative, and inspiring lifelong learners that children will want to be like.

• And, most of all, we need to restore the foundational place of the arts in the learning process, for they embody everything we know about speaking to one another of the complexity and wonder of the universe.