When the Kingston Middle School choir won a silver medal at Seattle’s Heritage Festival last spring, Director Toby Kemper was pleasantly surprised. The festival is a juried competition with many high school competitors, and he and his middle school students hadn’t expected to win anything: they went primarily for the experience.
Post-competition, Kemper and his students parted ways for the summer, in expectation of a promising fall reunion. The kids were dedicated, and the program was growing. But in early September, shortly before school began, Kemper got a second surprise: the North Kitsap School District announced a cut in funding for his choir program. Make choir an extracurricular activity, he was told, or let it go.
Kemper is the first to admit that there’s no point in demonizing administrators regarding this issue. He knows he isn’t the only teacher who’s impacted by fiscal fallout: everyone is dealing with the budget crunch. He also knows that there are complexities in the master schedule, and that hard decisions sometimes have to be made.
Alone in his classroom, surrounded by empty chairs and a collection of wall-mounted electric guitars, he is wry and a bit philosophical. His stance is not surprising: anyone capable of shaping young people into responsive, creative artists during one of the most emotionally and physically challenging times of their lives – early adolescence – knows a few things about leadership and the art of decision-making. Besides, there are more important things to do than discuss administrators: keeping the middle school choir alive is one of them.
“I keep reminding myself that there are positives to any situation,” Kemper notes, “but in a general sense, I don’t consider this a positive.” He acknowledges that sometimes sacrifices are necessary. But his eyes are sad. “We won a silver medal,” he says. “And the district shut us down.”
Does arts education matter?
The arts (drama, dance, music, poetry, literature, and visual art) have long been stepchildren in the U.S. public school system. Unlike math, science, reading, and writing – subjects which are commonly considered “core” – the fine arts have historically been undervalued and under-funded, consigned to the category of “frills.”
But do they deserve this label? According to arts educator Elliot Eisner, author of “The Arts and the Creation of Mind,” the fine arts are crucial to the development of the critical thinking skills needed by citizens in a global, post-industrial world. Those skills include the ability to tolerate ambiguity, notice and deal with reality, exercise the imagination, and stabilize understanding of difficult ideas.
These critical thinking skills, Eisner writes, form the foundation for individual autonomy, rational thinking, cultural development and sense of continuity. Today, the United States is facing problems which require high levels of critical thinking: a crumbling economy, staggering cancer and depression rates, chronic foreign and domestic conflict, degraded land and polluted water.
Do the arts have a role to play in the education of people who can take on these kinds of complex problems without falling into the trap of easy answers and quick fixes?
Educating whole people
James Andrews, who teaches art and design at Kingston High School, certainly thinks so.
“Art teaches you to really look,” he says. “Without preconceived notions. Especially the visual arts … students learn to consider what is actually there. Art encourages risk taking like no other subject. Art requires you to put yourself out there. It’s one of the few subjects that asks you what you have to say, not about what’s already happened, but about what’s going on right now. Other subjects just don’t teach this, and it’s not to their detriment: it’s just the way it is. Math is not going to ask your opinion. If we want imaginative people who are capable of creating, we have to include art in education. Otherwise we’re doomed to repeat the same things over and over again.”
On a mid-morning in September, Andrews’ studio is humming with the sounds of 24 student artists at work. Warm, yellow light streams in through the clerestory windows as he moves around the room, observing and commenting.
He stops next to a student with pink hair and green fingernails. “Where are your sketches?” he asks.
The student shrugs. “I already did them,” she replies.
“Let’s see,” says Andrews. “Do you have the card?”
She hesitates, then pulls her card out of her backpack and hands it to him. Andrews looks at it then leans toward the center of the table. “What about doing something with paper here –?”
She responds to this comment quickly, her voice holding the hint of an edge. “What do you mean?”
Andrews points to an area of the card as he explains his meaning; the student looks closer, nodding. She takes the card back, and begins working.
Andrews resumes circulating. At another table, a student taps dots of yellow paint onto his card: the more rapid the tap, the finer the spray of paint. Around the room, at different tables, variations of these scenes recur: intense focus, interspersed with conversation and reassessment.
When asked about the value of art in educating whole people, Andrews doesn’t hesitate. “Art teaches people to construct, deconstruct and reassemble in new ways. That’s unique to the arts. There’s a greater amount of synthesis going on than in any other area. This is just as necessary as any subject.”
He pauses, and then continues. “When I start talking about this subject, I laugh: I’m an art snob. But it’s not a matter of wanting to be on top … it’s wanting to be considered equally valid. Art is part of (the experience of) a whole human being.”
Toby Kemper holds a similar sentiment. “To me,” he says, “music scaffolds everything you do in life. It teaches you to collaborate, cooperate, how to piece things together. To consider it secondary is a big mistake. We spend so much time on math, on science, and we think that will help us problem-solve. But what we’re doing is narrowing the mind. If we’re serious about solving problems, arts education – the creative side of the brain – is where we need to go.”
Art across the curriculum
“Our job,” says Wally Lis, NKSD Director of Curriculum and Assessment, “is to educate youth in reading, writing and math, but also in fine arts and health and fitness … art does not have to be a stand alone; it can also be a driver for learning throughout a school.”
Taking an “Art Across the Curriculum” approach can be a cost-effective way to ensure all students are exposed to the skills of art-making; by integrating arts education into core subjects, students learn to think about, and relate to, the world in different ways.
There are many ways to do this: designing a costume for a history class, creating a sculpture to represent mathematical concepts; drawing an annotated timeline for a particular historical period, writing and performing a play to explore a social studies concept.
To learn more about integrating art across the curriculum, visit the arts education partnership at www.aep-arts.org.
Visual literacy
Did you know that the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text? Educators are waking up to the power of the visual for engaging students and improving learning.
For more information about the application of visual literacy principles in education, visit www.lynellburmark.org/index.asp.
Arts education in Washington state
Arts education is mandated by the Washington state legislature as part of the state’s Student Learning Goals. In Washington, dance, music, theatre and visual art are considered “core” arts. Beginning this year, Classroom Based Performance Assessments (CBPAs) will be available for educators to use in assessing student learning in core areas.
For more information on CPBA, visit the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction at www.k12.wa.us/Assessment/WASL/Arts/CBPAentireset.aspx.
Fine Arts Boosters seek support!
The Kingston High School Fine Arts Boosters (FAB) is seeking funds from the North Kitsap School District Board to provide materials for core-curriculum, arts-education courses. FAB is asking for a proportional amount of leftover bond funds, based upon the number of students participating in drama, band and choir.
Some of the items FAB is seeking funds for include stage lighting, storage shelves, a firing shed for the pottery kiln, and dedicated rehearsal and storage space.
For a complete list, or to sign the petition requesting school board support, contact Cornelia Gifford, Fine Arts Boosters president, at cornelia@nerva.com.
