No Artist Left Behind
To Listen: Get Adobe Flash Player, or download an mp3 at the bottom of the post.
Our next Pinchas Zuckerman?
[Paul-W / Flickr]
Last week Chris caught up with our neighbor, Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. Pinsky was fresh from a fundraiser for The Boston Arts Academy, which is Boston’s only high school for the arts. As a hearty advocate for human expression, Pinsky told Chris that he profoundly admires the academy for sticking its neck out in an academic atmosphere where kids slog through a monotone curriculum of testing, testing, testing, and more testing.
During this hour, with Pinsky as our guide, we’ll be talking about arts education in America. Is eliminating the marching band the best way to keep kids moving forward? Is arts education a necessity that has become a luxury? Will this era of No Child Left Behind give rise to a generation of would-be Gershwins and Ginsbergs? Will we forever be dependent on writers and musicians like Dave Eggers and Flea to keep young artists afloat?
What was your arts education like? How does it differ from your child’s? What are the long-term consequences of short-changing kids’s culture?
Robert Pinsky
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US Poet Laureate, 1997 to 2000
Professor, Boston University
Author of six books of poetry, among them: Jersey Rain and The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems. Just out: First Things to Hand from Sarabande Press.
And weekly literary columnist in Poet’s Choice in The Washington Post.
Abdi Ali
- Humanities Teacher, Boston Arts Academy
- Extra Credit Reading
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Tim Grant, Arts education on endangered list across country, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 22, 2005: “As school administrators turn greater attention to the subjects that states are required to test under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, mathematics and reading are the main entree, while art and music are the delicious but fattening dessert they can do without.”
Chava LeBarton, Bonkers for Kids Doing Visual Arts, Art Teacher, May 24, 2007: “The benefits of engaging our children in the arts, be it visual arts, theatre arts, music or dance, are well known. Art activities help kids develop their own self esteem, self reliance. And when children are discovering the world through art, they also enjoy self discovery. It’s universally true that everyone is different. When I was teaching the visual arts of drawing, painting, and animating, I saw children and adults develop faith in themselves.”
Jenn Prewitt, jp Exposure | Jenn Prewitt, jp Exposure | Jenn Prewitt, February 10, 2007: “I used to think when I was younger that art teachers were just artists that never made it as artists. Now I believe that art teachers are artists that have NEVER given up! They still do their art work and still work in the arts and have NEVER given in to the majority of the world and gone corporate!!!”
Ponder Stibbons, Kivy on Music Education, The Truth Makes me Fret, June 1, 2007: “It’s not obvious to me why being a tool of social cohesion justifies music as something people should be acquainted with. Sporting competitions, too, are a tool of social cohesion: sports fans of all political stripes unite to support their national teams in international competitions. Yet we would hardly think that a knowledge of the most popular national sports is a necessary part of a great education.”
Walter Beasley, Boston Arts Academy, Walter Beasley’s MySpace Blog, May 1, 2007: “There are young people really trying to do the right thing, and I am just so thankful to be a part of the Boston Arts Academy. I lectured and performed today with and in front of young eager students. Man, if they are any indication of what the future holds, I really really look forward to it. Play and sing on! Congrats to the faculty and staff too; what a wonderful job you are doing. What a beautiful day.”
Rod Paige, Key Policy Letters Signed by the Education Secretary or Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Education, July, 2004: “As I travel the country, I often hear that arts education programs are endangered because of No Child Left Behind. This message was echoed in a recent series of teacher roundtables sponsored by the Department of Education. It is both disturbing and just plain wrong.”
J. David Santen Jr., Robert Pinsky laments arts loss, The Oregonian, March 26, 2007: “‘For thousands of years, education has included things like poetry and music as part of how you train people to be in the responsible, ruling class, the governing class,’ Pinsky said. ‘That chain goes back farther than anyone alive can remember, it goes back farther than any record. If we, in Forest Grove or anywhere else, say, “Well yes, that was nice, but now we have serious things like math, literacy and science to learn, we’re going to break the chain and do it differently — give kids laptops and teach them grammar,” woe to us.’”
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June 6th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
I’m certainly not typical. I grew up in the 1950′s in Catholic schools in Philadelphia, where there were no opportunities for arts education. (I swear, it was almost Dickensian.) I went through elementary school with 90 kids in each class, and graduated from high school with 1485 kids. I knew nothing about the arts. In 1965, when I was 17, I saw poetry for the first time (other than a single Shakespearean sonnet when I was 14) and I remember feeling amazement that there was an unusual form of self-expression out there that was entirely new to me, and extraordinary. It was the first language to which I felt connected. I mention poetry because I’ve spent the last 30 years teaching myself to write poetry, but I wanted to learn how to paint all my life and wasn’t able to take even one art class in 12 years. I did have an opportunity to be in a drama group at a local city-funded “recreation center” when I was in 7th and 8th grades. I played Jane Eyre in their annual play. These few experiences made a difference that has lasted the rest of my life.
I have been working full-time at (often) miserable jobs for decades and in my spare time, I have been writing poetry. I began to be published a few years ago. Writing poetry is the only way I know to bring the world through myself. I think of it as a way to let my soul speak. If I had to say what would mean the most to human beings in this lifetime and for this society, in particular, I would vote to teach them how to meditate and to allow each child to study three forms of artistic expression.
June 6th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Wow Kate, wish I could have seen your Jane Eyre!
I went through Seattle Public Schools K-12. In Jr High & High School I was always able to take art classes as electives; drawing, painting, in high school sculpture and for PE modern dance. There were choral groups, band, orchestra and drama. I was Stella in Streetcar Named Desire.
That was in the late 1960s. I just looked up my old High School on the Internet and the arts programs available now are: Band, choir, orchestra, drama, photography, drawing – painting, ceramics. KNHC radio; fashion illustration; jazz band; vocal jazz; graphic arts.
The small town where I now live happens to have a lot of theatre talent due to people who have moved here with backgrounds in Shakespearean theatre, Hollywood and Broadway. Kids on this Island benefit even though the school is small. A good friend of mine who is involved in theatre has daughter just graduating High School who will be going to the University of Washington on a full scholarship to study dance. I think having adults around who value the arts is critical to not only teaching kids the skills of art but also teaching them to value the arts as an important part of life. Even though I had opportunities to study art in my early schooling I doubt if I would be a painter or have an MFA today if my Mom had not consistently encouraged me.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:01 am
If I ever had any visual arts experience in school, I have completely forgotten about it. There was an extensive offering in my HS, but off in a separate wing of the school and it seemed like a distant land meant only for the real artists. I was never encouraged, nor was it ever mentioned, that I take any of these classes.
I did have a lot of musical education. And some theater in HS. When I look back at my education, I know that I learned math and read a lot of books, but it is the music and theater that really left their imprints. (And I was a solid math/science student who went on to major in computer science.) Ultimately, life and learning seem so barren without these things. Joy and wonder and the inspiration to keep looking for the grace in life are offered in the arts. Not to mention, creative problem solving, self-reflection and the evocation of vision.
My daughter gets a wonderful art education. She’s in a private, Montessori school. I just brought home a piece that she painted. It was based on the abstract style of Kandinsky and done while listening to Coltraine. 1st grade! They actually discussed abstract art, they way emotions can be evoked with symbols and colors, etc. I can tell you that noone ever talked to me about this stuff when I was school. And she drinks it all in and thrives with it. She sings all theim. Making up songs about what she’s doing. Her universe if so very full of sound and imagery. Who knows what kind of world she can envision and works towards later.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Kate,
Having met you, I can really picture you as Jane Eyre. I imagine you were wonderful.
I’d love to hear your poetry. Maybe we should have an ROS open-mic!
June 7th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
i was lucky..my schools all had decent arts programs.
-thinking critically
-presenting ideas
-thinking spatially
-problem solving
practical benefits from this education..not to mention general enrichment.
arts and phys ed. the first to get tossed from our inadequate education budgets…as we all outsource this part of our children’s education and commit ourselves to this “soccer mom” lifestyle in the minivan…this military budget is chocking us all.
some of us scoffed at the “teaching to the test” predictions..the results are in..
writing is being tossed as well..not on the test in a meaningful way.
what stays with you from elementary school?
-getting along with others
-organization
-critical thinking
-expressing ideas clearly
-finishing what you start
June 7th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
My father was on his way to study art in college when the government thought a tour to S.E. Asia would be more beneficial. He retaliated by having children and then dragging them, i.e. me & my two sisters, through the world’s art museums. Twenty years later, I now flip through my copy of Gardner’s ‘Art through the Ages’ at least once a week. (If you ever want to piss someone off, send a copy to them C.O.D. It weighs a ton!)
Conclusion:
Art is oxygen! Take it away and we die.
June 7th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
This comment will be about visual art strictly.
Robert Pinsky was the speaker at my recent gradiation from mass art. The theme of his talk was “Artists change the past” which I think meant that artists can reimagine and explain our past not in distortions or golden ages but in something else.
I appreciated the talk, but in truth mass art as an institution was about nothing. As a college it’s not alone in that. My teachers obviously cared deeply about what they were doing, but there is no aesthetic direction really. People could say that is good but in fact what triumphs in that case is chasing money only.
Your choices as I see them are to be ultra conservative and teach strict observational work, or turn to 50s modernism and go for expression. Neither of these however is really backed up educationally. Nobody will make a good case for believing in either as a way to connect visually, intellectually or emotionally with the world of 2007. As a third choice, the middle-class market of course is still there, but if you do that you get called a kitsch maker. Anyway that’s what happened to me.
What people end up doing in the end is driving in directions as separate as they can, like twenty horses tied together and pulling in opposite directions, desperate to demonstrate originality or individuality, or non-individuality.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
enhabit,
“writing is being tossed as well”
As a TA in grad school I corrected many freshman art history essays. I tried to give the foreign students, non-native English speakers, a break but was shocked more than a few times to discover what appeared to be a student with little knowledge of the English language was actually a native speaker not to mention a high school graduate accepted into college.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
About writing being tossed — I went back to school for my BA when I was in my 30′s. I went to school with kids who were 18 and whose parents paid for them to go to very expensive prep schools. They were getting C’s on their papers and had no idea why. I knew more about writing in 6th grade than they knew after 12 years at the best schools. This happened 25 years ago, though, so, apparently, writing was tossed a long time ago. Before I went to that (private) college, I went to UMassBoston with many students from the Boston public schools who could barely read. I want to tell you, THAT was a depressing environment. I don’t want to disparage UMB now — this was in the late 1970′s.
These days, I’ve been in creative writing workshops where I listen to writing that is so boring that I don’t know what to say. I’m unable to give feedback, because I have to put so much energy into not saying what I’m thinking, for fear of being insulting, hurting someone’s feelings. It’s not that I think I know so much — not at all. It just seems that so many people are out there writing poetry that is pointless. I have heard friends who studied painting say similar things about students who learn so little over four years in an art school. At the same time, some of the most talented writers/painters I’ve known have done no art since they left school. They’re working in offices doing some mindless job. Art is scary. All the people I’ve loved working with were artists who had to earn a living and figure out how to have the energy to make art after work.
June 7th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
wellbasically
“but there is no aesthetic direction really”
Re: Art School. In the 90s at my school there was pressure to be “cutting edge” but that usually meant doing stuff like what Yoko Ono was doing in 1970. There were still a few hard core modernists who thought if you were not working abstract it must be because you hadn’t been enlightened yet by discovering that there is such a thing even though its what you were studying in art history. It was confusing, like the pressure to be “edgy” when the grossest things you would ever want to look at have already been done. For a while I reacted by taking up post-neo-classical stone carving but I really had to wing it and didn’t get much support or meaningful instruction. Now I paint in a sort of minimalist constructivist style. I think the art history classes in the end are what turned out to be most meaningful to me.
June 7th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Kate, “artists who had to earn a living and figure out how to have the energy to make art after work”.
THAT is the challenge!
June 7th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Are mandatory visual art programs more a burden than a boon? I imagine most of my gradeschool classmates loathed my favorite art class or only saw it as an easy break from academic thought. That’s how I viewed gym, but others loved it. Keeping visual art as an elective in middle and high school is much less costly and the students who would gain the most from it have the freedom to do so amongst enthusiastic peers. Music is different, it takes a lot of practice to just be competent and should be started early. There is a work ethic that is inherent to music unlike visual arts which would be a shame to lose. Where as most visual artists are self starters, every home has pencils and scrap paper available, budding musicians rarely have access to instruments.
Had there been time, I would have pointed ROS to Fenway Highschool and Kristina Lamour from the Art Institute of Boston (not part of those AI trade schools) who got her grad degree in arts education from Yale(?). She’s done a lot of work with integrating design into student programs, which is bridges the visual and analytical more concretely than replicating a still life. I think it was a more intensive version of making presentation posters, the effort to convey a message visually. Though it is not quantifiable for testing purposes, this sort of arts education is something the kids are used to and comfortable with.
Computers are everywhere. Photoshop and its free-ware equivalents are no longer hoarded by the cult of the Mac. Everyone (who can afford it) has a camera. Kids are fervently making art with these new digital tools outside of school, even if they aren’t calling it art with a big A.
June 7th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Does anyone know when art even became a segment of public education? I don’t recall hearing my grandparents ever talking about it, or reading about it. Art and music seemed to be a luxury item for those who could afford it, or a foundation for those society daughters who were told they needed refining in order to ensare a husband of good standing.
June 7th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Rahbuhbuh, I disagree that music needs more of a level of expertise than visual art in order to be satisfying. It just depends on what you’re trying to do with the music. If you want to put on a performance of Berlioz, then yeah. But if you just want to have a good time, it’s just as accessible as a canvass and some paint. Drums especially, and singing. Anyone can sing, anyone can drum, and anyone can dance. Of course, the liberating effects of collective singing, drumming, and dancing would be quite inimical to the goals of public education–that is, to promote social conformity and produce good workers for a capitalist society.
June 7th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Thansk for the Re: peggysue
Without a doubt the kids who get into art are often reclusive. It’s hard to develop the skills otherwise. The superstar artist however has to be an extrovert and an entrepreneur.
The blurriness of goals in art education in grade school has something to do with the unclarity of the art world as to what it wants. It is hard for me to justify going to the government and demanding money to feed people into that system. Some people might justify a legitimate public desire but it’s by accident.
June 7th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
valkyrie607: “the goals of public education–that is, to promote social conformity and produce good workers for a capitalist society.”
no, the good workers are cheaper elsewhere, in other countries. that’s why the Harvard Business Review asked “is MFA the new MBA?” in 2004. It follows Richard Florida’s “Rise of the Creative Class” book and it’s sequal “Flight of the…” America now values creativity in our visual and story-telling culture. That’s our export to the rest of the world, it’s why we don’t follow actual news as much. Business is about brands today, which is all reinforced image and less tested substance. So the arts are currently important to our capitalist society. Apparently we just don’t want to pay for training it.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Hi! Glad that you are on the air.
I received an undergrad degree in Music Ed k-12. Because of my bad experience in student teaching, I immediately persued a career in Theatre.
I now have a son, almost 5, and feel that music is ANOTHER LANGUAGE, just like French or German – or Spanish. My son has been playing the violin (Suzuki) for almost a year. At his last lesson, he played one piece that he had NEVER played before.
I have always felt that those “fellows” who can really kick “a##” on the field will bring more recognition to a school than the students who work at music or the arts.
And how long can this fellow who “plays” sports play sports? How long can a musician play an instrument?
Oh, Guuuuurgh!
June 7th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. -Albert Einstein
June 7th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Art saved our kid in high school. We moved to Concord his freshman year for the great academics of the high school, but it didn’t work out as we expected. The established cliques didn’t make it easy for him to fit in quickly and the ceaseless competitive pre-ivy mentality of the bright kids (in which teachers were frequently complicit) didn’t make the academic classes inviting. He fell in with the outcasts and at the end of two years was sick in his soul, seriously lost, and facing real disaster.
Then, (by divine grace) he found his way into a photography course and a teacher (David Prifti) who took him on for who he was and might become. He survived, supported by the art dept. faculty and students, and taking the academic courses like Bush ate broccali.
We egg-head parents still didn’t understand and pointed him to a 5 year joint academic -art program (Tufts-SMFA), but Tufts insisted on all academics the first year and midway through soph. year, he dropped out. Five years in a dead end job, during which his GF got her BA and spiraled out of his world, and he and we were back to square one.
But then we stumbled into the idea of him just taking a course at the SMFA, and 5 more years and a BFA later, he has snagged a prize for his work during the fifth year, and his sense of self is healed.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
well we had to write a lot of papers in school, my kids..almost never.
and by the way, education goes beyond trade school. a nation of thinkers is a nation of problem solvers.
June 7th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I agree with that last statement about education going beyond “trade school.” It’s seems like all we’re doing now is english and math proficiency in order to be productive members of the global economy. I find our society seems to put a very low premium on real education, which includes not only the arts, but the ability to see cross-overs between different disciplines and subjects, and indeed to learn how to learn, and learn to love learning. It’s really sad to see how little value people place on all education, let alone the arts.
That having been said, I went to a really great public school and excelled in both science/mathematics and music, and kept up both interests into my college and education. I have found that a lot of the students in math and engineering who do the best do have an interest in music and often play and instrument. Among the students who didn’t were those much talked-about students from China and India, who were very talented in computer science or whatever field they chose, but still seemed “uneducated”, without the ability to connect the arts, or history, or creativity to their own field. Certainly not across the board, but this was my overall experience (and made it sometimes embarrassing to be a CS student).
June 7th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
I’m looking back in the thread to some of the laments of “hard core modernism” by PeggySue and others, and I want to stick up for modernism. As a kid I had an opportunity to visit lots of art museums in New York with my family, and very quickly and very naturally gravitated towards modernism, both the abstract and the “edgy.” I am now a very modern composer/musician and collector of modern art…traditional subject-oriented work bores me…
June 7th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
peoplestank
I didn’t mean to give the impression that I do not like modernism. My own work is greatly inspired by it. My favorite art is minimalist and constructivist. I simply meant to point out the odd circumstance of having an art professor assume that if you do representational work it could only be due to the fact that you’d never heard of abstraction even though its been in the art history books for over 100 years now. No, I do love modern painting. By edgy, I meant going for the shock value, which has been done so much it even it can get boring.
June 9th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
OK I listened to most of the show, I was a little disappointed that they didn’t get into exactly what it was about art that made the school a success. I believe that it does work, I just don’t think it’s clear why.
I think if that was thought out more, the school would be more successful. It would be impossible to do it without being exclusive.
June 9th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
There are some very good points being made on this thread.
In the end I gravitated towards an arts education. It filled the void. My ever growing awareness and appreciation of the arts has to do very much with what is transmitted: love, meaning, a sense of awe, aesthetics, philosophy ethics and morality- through the various languages of the arts. This should not be optional in education but as well kids should come to it naturally over time. It’s possible that the more arts education get cut the more it is sought out too because we miss it and therefore we get more creative about it.
Speaking of transmission, my grandfather awakened a sense of music in me at age 5. He taught me to read write and sing the notes one summer with no instrument. He was a choir leader near Kiev before he came here. One on one, it was pure love from him and it stuck with me a lifetime. My parents felt that I ought to learn to play the piano. My cousin inspired me-he was fabulous on the piano- later went on to become a neuro-surgeon. My mother loved poetry and literature. Had she gone to college she might have stayed on to teach and she would have been great at it her love of lit was so great- but she was not educated.
When I went to school, art classes in the public schools did little to nurture creativity. Still, despite that, or maybe because, I felt very drawn, a spark was ignited. I think I found some solace using that awful paper and those unappealing poster paints. I won 2nd prize in junior high school for a painting I did. I looked out of my bedroom window at the Harlem River, the Washington Bridge that crossed it, the park alongside, the water tower on the other side and painted it all- down to a little squirrel on the tree. I must have discovered something about myself because I gambled my future with a major and minor in art history and design ending with a BFA. What a difference it made in my life though I qualified for no real job at the time other than gallery assistant. That lead to public relations at a museum. I was extremely lucky though to have the benefit of being around instructors who were simply very creative people and so it was not what they produced but just being around them that was inspiring.
Some of the comment here about the pressure to be cutting edge and so forth really rings a bell. It’s true. I refused to go out there and produce what felt inauthentic to me. The gallery scene turned me off .
Art history should be core curriculum. Camille Paglia said this too. But it’s also good to have the time and room to just explore various mediums, materials and feel the horror of the empty space, canvas, paper. Painting (for instance) in school for a required course is really exploratory. It’s different when you leave, when you give yourself permission to do something or must paint from something deep- write something- make something w/o worrying what anyone will say. It’s ultimately a private process- then you share or you don’t.
It took me years to find that I really wanted to work with clay. That was after I settled down emotionally. It was a strong impulse and I had the support thankfully. I was interested in the material and the process, not fame or fortune, and I wondered about my own expression, what would come out. I challenged myself for years ( still do) to learn a very formidable process. Although I studied with a local Japanese potter for 8 years, and a woman ( my dear friend now) who specialized in porcelain most of what I know comes from just working at it, studying the results, getting better and also having failures ( from which one learns the most). I get excited about possibilities (such as making a glaze with ashes from my fireplace or gathered blackberry cane across the street). It’s a dialogue with myself and after that to share a great moment.
I listened to the podcast after I wrote most of the above. This was a show after my own heart. Thank you. These points about how important the arts are in education are not new and yet they don’t penetrate the system do they? We know something the powers that be refuse to acknowledge. We have been saying this for years and yet it’s the arts that are the first to go and so many kids who could be found are lost or lost until they somehow find themselves through their creativity. The lucky ones.
June 9th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Potter — I love what you wrote. It was very moving and I could feel how much it came from a great depth inside you. Thank you.
peggysue — once again, I love to read your observations. And, also, a while back, I “toured” your website and I liked it very much. I’m so envious of you for being a painter.
Allison — thanks for your interest in my poems. I think the idea of an open mic — however that could happen on ROS — is a good idea. There must be many poets among the people who have registered on ROS. I’ve been working for the last few weeks on poems for a manuscript to enter into a Poetry Foundation contest for poets 50 years old or over who haven’t had a book published. The experience of compiling the manuscript — putting poems into the order they should go, writing new poems so that I have enough (48 pages at least), just making a decision about what is good enough and what I am willing to stand by — has given me perspective on my life as a whole that, I think, is extremely valuable. I can’t believe how many things I’m seeing for the first time.
Art has saved my life and I bet all of us who have written about it here would say that. I went recently to the Edward Hopper exhibit at the MFA twice, and I hope to go a few more times. Of course, I have seen many monographs of Hopper’s work and all the other places where it is reproduced, like post cards and greeting cards. All of that reproduction has made the work trite. I had not seen the paintings — in person. The first time I went with a friend, I was floored by the work to the extent that I never got beyond the second room before they closed. The second time, I would say that I spent enough time with 20% of the exhibit. He taught me so much about my own life. I stood in front of certain paintings and felt as if a great weight of beauty was about to throw me to the ground. I know I was more aware of his process because of the experience with my own process. I know I probably have a bias in this sense, but I sometimes think that people who don’t have an experience with an art form are going through life unconsciously — they are asleep.
Another thought I had about art in school — in workshops in which I’ve participated, no one talks about process. “Product” is everything. If I ever teach writing, and I think I’d like to do that in an alternative setting (e.g. kids locked up, or in some community college where no one expects that much), I want to have a class where everyone talks about their experience making art — how the ideas came to them, what it felt like, how they came to what they love most about the piece. I want everyone to listen to someone’s experience and talk about all the ideas it gave rise to in themselves. That feels alive to me. The way it’s done now bores me. I have friends in various of the arts and they tell me that often people are afraid to talk about process. I didn’t study writing and what I missed most was the lack of discussion of process. I looked forward to being in classes to hear how other people learned to write, but it never happened. I heard often how great one of my poems was, but that didn’t give me very much in the end. When I was a nun, I once taught writing (for student teaching) to 5th graders and we had a GREAT time. Afterward I painted a mural with a bit of writing from each student in it and we put it up in the hallway at the school. I could tell that the kids were amazed to have their own writing given that much attention. The thing is, it wasn’t difficult to find something great in each piece to include in the mural, and I’m certain that I learned as much from each of them as they learned from me. I know that each of them wrote a good piece because they were so alive and open in our discussion before the actual composition was written.
June 10th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Thanks Kate. Amazing that you have run into such focus on product. That misses so much if not everything that the arts are about from the standpoint of creating. In the end others want to experience what you have come up with or what you do- but you can’t make/do anything before you get in touch with yourself- which is a process. So focussing on the product corrupts. So much with ceramics ( which is a long process from start to finish) is about process. I never really know what I am going to get in the end IF I get anything. I am not a “production potter” either. There is so much to learn- and it IS the process.
When my son was in elementary school, many years ago, I was invited to come into his class to lead the kids in a project that I created based on Henri Matisse’s cut paper collages. Matisse made his own colored paper ou know- painting each sheet a deep rich color. Then he cut shapes from them. That’s what we did. This went on over a few days. After we made all the colored paper, everyone had blank square white sheet to make their own design. Then we put it all together in an enormous “quilt” collage. We had a “border committee” to make a border around the whole thing to tie it together. It was beautiful!- and the kids were so proud of themselves and their group project….their creative juices were flowing! It hung in town hall for awhile.
Thanks for the nudge to go and see the Edward Hopper show.
June 10th, 2007 at 7:50 am
I forgot to mention my father who put a camera in my hands when I was about 12. He also let me use his 8mm movie camera and showed me how to run the projector. I tend to forget that because I love to take pictures. Taking pictures, especially today, is such an easy way to get kids in touch with their creativity.
A special thank you to Robert Pinsky for carrying the torch, for that high level of caring about us as a society, for recognizing and saying that what was given to us or what we have somehow found for ourselves, we must pass on.
June 10th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
We are all artists in one way or another.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:30 am
A very interesting program, but I don’t like the idea that was often implied that students should do the arts in order to ‘better their chances’ at getting into good schools or ‘doing well on the MCats.’ Is this why we want our youth to become interested in the arts? I fear that if this is the main motivation for studying the arts the actual value of them—their quality of being humane, often delightfully ‘irrelevant,’ and encouraging the discovery of self—will be missed, and they will be used in the same driven way in which other pre-college subjects are pursued. I don’t mind that the outcome of studying the arts may actually be doing well, but I don’t think it should be the goal or the expectation.
June 11th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
The great irony of this is that we’re not exactly getting much in return for giving up the arts. I’ve commented before about the absolutely ABYSMAL grasp of basic history, civics and geography of Americans today. So is it science and math? I’m an engineer and my company ROUTINELY fails to find qualified American job applicants for positions we open in engineering, math and physics. (my company makes scientific and medical instruments), so I don’t think so.
So would someone please tell me WHAT anyone is actually LEARNING in US schools?
I’m a poet, painter, and photographer, as well as being an engineer and science geek. They’re not mutually exclusive. My wife is an amateur chamber musician and I’m constantly blown-away by the intellectual and academic stature of the people I meet in chamber-music circles! Lots of physicians, but also professors, university department heads, scientific researchers, business owners, etc. I just got back from a chamber-music weekend and it wouldn’t surprise me if the AVERAGE academic achievement in that crowd was a doctorate!
So I wish people would disabuse themselves of the idea that the arts and other academic achievement are mutually-exclusive.
I’ll tell you what IS mutually exclusive with everything else – TV. Turn off the damn TV and it leaves plenty of time for music, art, poetry, history, science, math, etc.
June 12th, 2007 at 9:05 am
I have two young kids and this story made me think of how important it is for parents to take an active role in their children’s education. If there is no money in the schools for music and arts, then we have to do a better job of finding it in the community–or creating such opportunities for them.
June 12th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
If there is no money in the schools for music and arts, then we have to do a better job of finding it in the community–or creating such opportunities for them.
While I think it is wondwerful and essential that you and other parents seek out oportunities to expose your kid to the arts, I’m distressed by the sense of resignation in your comments. It the topic was “math” you wouldn’t be saying “If there is no money in the schools for math, then we have to do a better job of finding it in the community–or creating such opportunities for them”.
Instead, most parents would be DEMANDING that the schools and towns and states provide adequate funding for a proper education. The arts are not some sort of frivolous luxury that we can dispense with anymore than any other academic subject is.
June 12th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
rahbuhbuh said “There is a work ethic that is inherent to music unlike visual arts…”
I am going to assume that rahbuhbuh just didn’t think about this comment very long before posting it. Of course visual arts require hard work, patience, persistence and practice.
I teach pottery, art and art appreciation at a community college. My beginning pottery students are always surprised by how difficult the skill of throwing is to learn. The ones who succeed in learning to throw and the ones who get the most out of the class are–without exception–the one’s who put the most time and effort into practicing the skills (just like learning to play the violin, huh?).
Even my art appreciation students are surprised by how hard my classes are–not because they have to write a lot of papers or do a lot of worksheets, but because I require them to articulate their own opinions and I don’t hand them a key to the “correct” answers.
My art appreciation students have commented that they are frustrated because my class isn’t like math “there’s no right answer.” This type of open-ended thinking is not encouraged in the schools around here. Often they’ve never been encouraged to have an opinion before my class.
June 13th, 2007 at 1:16 am
Due to constantly moving around as I was growing up, I never had much of a chance to take part in the art classes for the rare schools that had them.
When I did however, it was always such a wonderful event, it was fun and I could learn and grow as my own mind wanted to.
I often hear about “schools need to teach morality and character”, and yet the one subject that does that so well for so many is often the first to be thrown away.
Bands, orchestras, dancing, mural painting, and more are wonderful chances to learn how to work well with others and grow as part of a group.
Learning an instrument, figuring out how to throw, understanding Photoshop or life drawing, all require patience and willingness to keep at it.
Creating a terrain in 3D, creating an epic, writing a world within a story, teach the mind to see the larger idea with a concept of the small by your hand.
Arts aid the character, they can heal the mind, and they can let you grow. Yet all to often we cut it out as a seed before we get a chance to reap what we have sown.
Too often it is easy to lose sight of the values we can get from such classes when so much is dedicated to just a few tests that have no room or ability to test what can be gained or sought from them.
A WASL, A CAT, the ITAD, Exit Exam, Entrance Exam, Qualifying Exam none have a box for a haiku nor a picture of a rose. What a world we would live in if they did?
I am an artist by trade and my life is viewed as such, but I know I am a better person for the rare chances I had in art classes then I would have been had none of the schools or tutors never shown me how to create or articulate.
June 13th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
“There is a work ethic that is inherent to music unlike visual arts…â€
rdorn: I am going to assume that rahbuhbuh just didn’t think about this comment very long before posting it. Of course visual arts require hard work, patience, persistence and practice.
it was phrased sloppily. there is an immediate sense of right and wrong when learning an instrument. i differentiate “learning” from “playing.” a note is either pitch perfect, flat, or sharp. it is either on or off beat. visual arts do not have that precise criteria, so the work ethic is different and mastering the skills is more subtle. i mentioned nothing about visual arts being easier only that, generally, they are judged in subjective terms.
June 13th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
if you’ve ever had a solo in orchestra and the moment comes when the conductor points at you…well there are few moments in anything quite like that!
June 13th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Bands, orchestras, dancing, mural painting, and more are wonderful chances to learn how to work well with others and grow as part of a group
I’m a photographer, painter and poet and my wife is a chamber musician.
One think I envy about the chamber musicians is that chamber music is INHERENTLY collaborative. Painting and poetry are solo by nature. You can create exercises in group poetry writing or group painting but those are usually artificial constructions for the purpose of creating a collaborative effort or for community-building. Very little, if any, great art has ever been created that way. Whereas you can’t even have chamber music without extensive, intimate, ongoing collaboration between the musicians, during practuce and performance. And jazz takes it to an even higher level because it involves CREATIVE collaboration even during the performance.
So even though I’m a poet, photographer, and painter, I do think that music offers something that other arts don’t with regard to learning important life skills.
June 13th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
…Sorry for the extended bold, above.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Everyone should check out the fifth grade chorus at PS 22 in New York City. Their amazing music teacher, “Mr. B” (Gregg Breinberg) keeps a blog that demonstrates the great potential of arts education. Reading through the blog and watching the video clips it becomes clear how his students gain poise and a strong, confident identity through public performance.
Mr. B is a major fan of Tori Amos. Youtube videos of the New York City fifth graders singing Tori Amos songs have developed a huge following on the internet. In May, Tori Amos met the chorus in the atrium of Sony Music headquarters in Manhattan. Below is part 1 of 4 of the meeting.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:25 am
I thought I could embed the Youtube video directly. No such luck. Here is a direct link to the video of the PS 22 chorus with Tori Amos.
July 19th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
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