Highlights from 2010 Arts Education Partnership Conference

This weekend I am volunteering as a note taker at the 2010 Spring Conference for the Arts Education Partnership (AEP).  The theme of this year’s conference is State of Change: New Leadership in Arts Education.  The mission of AEP is as follows:

The mission of the Arts Education Partnership is to demonstrate and promote the essential role of the arts in enabling every student to succeed in school, life and work in the diverse and global economies and societies of the 21st century.

Being that this year’s conference is in D.C., AEP was able to bring out the “big dogs” in policy for arts advocacy and education.   NEA Chairman, Rocco Landesman and U.S. Education Secretary, Arne Duncan both opened the conference yesterday morning.  One thing Mr. Landesman said about arts education that struck me were his comments about failure and not being afraid to fail.  The crux of his message about failure indicated that education nowadays is want for teaching young people how to fail.  Not only does traditional modern educational structure  ”fail” to teach students how to LEARN from their failures, but it also fails to embrace and teach the idea that it is, in fact, OKAY to fail.  This sounds like a paradox of sorts, but it is not.  These life lessons are something best taught through arts education where learning through failure can be done in a safe space.  Overall, Landesman was, I think, well received and quite personable in his approach to the subject.

The second big name of the morning was Education Secretary, Arne Duncan.  The room was eager to here his commensts, with the hopes that he would have some encouraging and supportive words about the value of arts education and his plan as education secretary to support arts education initiatives.  The sentiment in the room seemed to be: what would the new education secretary do in the near future to publicly support the importance of arts education, arts integration, and how the arts can teach STEM education. Like any good public speaker, he understood who is audience was, and therefore spoke to the importance of arts education.   Ultimately, however, some felt he left the responsibility of advocating for these ideas too much on the shoulders of those listening in the room.  After speaking with some of the attendees, the sentiment was that Secretary Duncan acknowledged the plight of arts education and arts educators, but that he didn’t really plan on doing anything about it personally.

Day two was met with a whirlwind series of large and small breakout sessions on diverse topics ranging from the successes of a new hip-hop recording academy in Portland, to how to begin to develop creative networks, to the theory of collaborative learning. My personal favorite session was the hip-hop school in Portland that, as the founder and guest speaker indicated, “meets kids where they are in their lives, and goes from there.”  Simple, but wise words of wisdom.

Many good and productive things were discussed, and the director of AEP, Sandra Ruppert, as well as her staff deserve many lauds of praise for their hard work in putting together a successful and productive conference.

Re-evaluating value

Why do we have to defend the value of the arts? Why do I constantly feel as though I have to convince people the arts are valuable?  Why is art seen by many as a luxury; merely a form of entertainment void of any greater intrinsic value?  These are the questions that kept popping up in my mind the other night as I sat arguing with my father over the value of having public arts funding.  Yes, I realize not everyone has the same level of appreciation for art as I do.  To each his own.  However, I feel we as a society have lost our “cultural direction” when the majority of people don’t see the intrinsic value the arts hold.  When value is measured in terms of how much “it” costs, as opposed to what “it” does or accomplishes, then something is amiss.   Okay, maybe I’m just a little worked-up right now… just a little.  However, this kind of attitude isn’t only towards the arts.  It is also the attitude towards education and teachers, more specifically arts education and arts teachers.

Of course everyone touts the importance of a good education, quality teachers, above standard schools, but not very many people seem willing to put their money where their mouth is.  A similar situation is true for the arts in this country, albeit to a lesser degree of enthusiasm.  Just like teachers, artists barely eek out a living providing a service highly valuable to every civilized society.  What is wrong with this picture?  How is it that we value the skills of a professional athlete, someone who more often than not gives nothing back to their community, by rewarding them with outrageously high salaries?  The answer lies in what our society values most.  And clearly, in the case of athletes vs artists and educators, the value is placed on the income, and more importantly the amount of commercialism, created by each respective profession; in other words, the profession that gets the best (ROI): return on investment.  For an interesting commentary on value from the perspective of someone well versed and passionate in the area of non-profit/philanthropy, see this blog post by Ian David Moss and his blog “Createquity”.

Whenever I think about these issues of which profession is more important or more valuable, I think of a line from the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus.  In the movie, there is a scene where Richard Dryfus, playing the high school music teacher, is arguing with the school principal over the proposed budget cuts taking out the music program.  The principal asserts the precedence that math, english and science classes must take over extra-curricular activities such as music.  The response from Mr. Holland essentially goes, and I am paraphrasing, ‘sir, with all due respect, without the arts and music it won’t matter if the kids can read or write, because they won’t have anything to read or write about.’ I love this line because it speaks to the heart of why artistic expression and creativity are so vital to a well-rounded education.

Focusing all our energy on testing, scoring and numbers is a game of meeting quotas and not about education.  I have a strong inckling that the arts are not important to schools right now simply BECAUSE they cannot be tested the way writing, reading, and math can be.  I understand we have a huge education issue in this country, and that our youth are falling far behind world standards.  I don’t pretend to be an educator, but I do have friends who are, and they don’t like the way our schools are operating these days.  If we keep going down this road, our children will be very good at taking tests, but will be fat, inarticulate and uncreative due to cuts in physical fitness and arts classes.  Slippery slope you may ask?  Look at the rising rates of child obesity, early onset of diabetes and lack of interest in anything other than what can be texted to a friend, and ask yourself that question again.  Our future as a society depends on being creative and innovative.  How will we ever achieve that when the youth of today, who will be the adults of tomorrow, have never learned how to think creatively?  I have managed to go off on a tangent, and yet interestingly enough, I’m right on topic when it comes to how we as a society value these two areas of society.

Bottom line: art is, for the most part, not a product that can be valued in terms of its physicality or substance.  Yes you can talk in terms of jobs created by it and tourist dollars brought in, but it doesn’t fix the over-arching question of why it is valuable in and of itself.  It is something that creates spiritual and emotional value in humanity.  It helps build community.  It fosters self-understanding and awareness, both with oneself, and with one’s fellow man.  If that isn’t an example of intrinsinc value, then I don’t know what is.  Now the challenge comes for us as arts advocates and administrators to MARKET MARKET MARKET our little butts off, all the while using this general premise of intrinsic value as our underlying guide.

Here is a little imagined inspirational story I read over the weekend on the Americans for the Arts blog.  Its little things like this that keep me going whenever futility starts to creep in.  Enjoy.