John Abodeely

The Future of Arts Education

Posted by John Abodeely, May 28, 2009 1 comment


John Abodeely

One of the session proposals that Americans for the Arts sent to Grantmakers in the Arts for their annual conference this October in Brooklyn, NY was about the future of Arts Education. Here's a brief bit:

Future Forms of Arts Education

What are trends? What's the next format? What arts education is relevant to kids versus relevant to arts administrators or teachers? Drawing on the most successful new programs, this session will illuminate now nonprofit arts education programs are empowering youth to be cultural creators to whom adult intervention is optional.

The stunning idea is that adults are optional. Kids learn and do without them and sometimes, unfortunately, in spite of them. With a computer, kids can create music, videos, and visual art. Internet platforms allow for global distribution. Folksonomies and comments become teachers, guides, and distributors, launching the most acclaimed photos, videos, or songs to the highest visibility.

The 15 year old British photographer, Eleanor Hardwick, got her start on Flickr. Now, she's shows in professional galleries, make s living on her art, and photographs celebrities and models. Hardwick has celebrated contemporaries in music and film as well. These young people are the extreme end of more typical youth that might not make a career, in their youth, out of their art, but certainly don't require artistic authorization from arts teachers, arts partners, or even parents, necessarily.

If this is the case, I wonder what the role of arts organizations, teaching artists, and arts teachers is today. What are these arts providers supposed to do if the art can be made without them, critiques can come from all over the globe, and exposure to professional artists happens virtually?

My initial idea is that they no longer be teachers. Now, they're job is facilitator. Facilitate the student's own art, the student's own interests, and the student's access to and understanding of the endless information and contacts that exist. Help them to reach the next level of understanding, of risk-taking, of achievement. Facilitate them forward in their own process and on their own path.

Some teachers do this already. But this proposal is based upon these assumptions.

1. There is plenty of information available to everyone in the classroom.

2. Sorting the information and putting it to use is the challenge for humans today.

3. Students own interests and abilities will determine their content.

4. Adults are there to help the learning process if needed, not to manage it.

Assuming changes are happening and that arts adults need to change too, here are the questions: What do you think teaching artists, arts teachers, and arts partners should do? What's the new arts learning classroom, process, assessment, and goal?

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1 responses for The Future of Arts Education

Comments

Christian says
June 09, 2009 at 12:38 pm

As a "teaching artist" I feel it is my duty and a pleasure to help students have an experience that is unique in comparison to a traditional academic setting. The young writers, actors, and directors I work with are venturing out on the tightrope for the first time and it is wonderfully and horribly exhilarating (for all parties involved). I actually support this model as the classroom of the future (which may be now by the way). True independent study is a shift from guided practice to independent practice. The learner, like the young bicyclist is unaware that the training wheels are off but they are madly and feverishly peddling and can't consider anything but the goal. I know this can work if it is built into the curriculum, particularly for students who are experienced in the discipline. This year I had a student director work with four students from the Introduction to Theatre class with mentoring, supervision, and very little else. The show was an outstanding example of the success of the independent study model. One of the students commented, "if they take this (theatre) from us, we will go underground." Maybe the need is that strong. Maybe that can give us some hope.

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