Using the Arts to Develop a Pedagogy of Creativity, Innovation, and Risk-Taking (CIRT)

This paper considers the complex and somewhat nebulous term “creativity”, exploring the ways in which the pedagogical phenomenon we call “CIRT” (an acronym) can enrich classroom approaches so as to enhance Creativity, boost Innovation, and encourage Risk-Taking. In addition, we review elements that impact the creative process and explore concepts of freedom, as well as the constraints and parameters of creativity. In our role as teacher educators, we explore the connection between teaching and creativity by outlining three key examples of approaches that utilize the CIRT framework including: synesthesia, imagination, and audiation activities.  

The Arts Advantage: Expanding Arts Education in the Boston Public Schools

Presents findings from a survey on the availability of arts education in the city's public schools, relevant school traits, funding needs, and partners. Offers recommendations and strategies for a three-year expansion plan. Highlights best practices

What is Specific about Art/Cultural Projects?

The present issue focuses on the contribution made by art/cultural initiatives to the development of multiple identity in some of the European cities having in mind the subjectivity of the artists and plurality of the surrounding cultures. The art/cultural projects (AES- Russia, Europe Art Train – Holland, Life Station – Austria and some others) with intercultural dimension have a special character to offer because: they are dealing with meaning, and enable dialogue between people in different social groups. The examples will be taken from different European countries, which aim to reinterpret the reality of life, to show, answer, and question its contradictions. The attention will be focused on their political, educational and aesthetic contribution to the community construction having in mind their desire for new intercultural policy and practices. Every artist crosses borders daily but those who choose to cross cultural borders (language, expression, music, tradition) enter into a fertile, but dangerous field. Artists do not aim specifically to produce multicultural work but since they are living in specific time, and since art is rooted in real life, the realities of everyday life are transposed into their work. This paper is fundamentally interested in the role that art projects can play in a modern society and promotes the initiative that links an artistic dimension to a form of interactive social urban situation. All projects are representing ‘laboratories’ that use public spaces. It is more than obvious that the social and the economic fields are not separated from the cultural one beside the tendency that is putting them in opposition as artists and the world rather than artists in the world. In the last two decades, the world of the arts has economised rapidly. Increasingly, artists have turned the economy into a subject of their own work. Art/cultural projects engage people’s creativity, and so lead to problem-solving. They encourage questioning, and the imagination of possible future actions. They offer self-expression, which is an essential characteristic of the active citizen. Some experiences from the art/cultural field are shifting attention towards the people themselves: their imagination, motivation, demands, fantasies and only then the city is becoming a cultural product, a community construction.Intercultural actions, Policy agenda, Art/cultural projects, Networking aspects

The Visual Art Critic: A Survey of Art Critics at General Interest News Publications in America

Examines whether art critics provide sufficient exposure for artists and art institutions, given the recent dynamic growth in the visual arts over the past two decades

Arts Education and Practical arts cognition as a Compulsory subject in the undergraduate curriculum

Creativity, individuality, national identity, and the pursuit of freedom are some of our greatest cultural achievements. The cultivation of these values through the arts can be quite effective, and the implementation of these cultural goals should not end at the secondary level, but should continue through the college years. This endeavour is especially relevant in light of contradictory trends between global and local tendencies in cultural development. The disparity between these two forces in the spontaneous development of culture reveals that local culture is at a disadvantage. We are confronted with the problem of how to draw on the accomplishments of current technology without surrendering to globalization at the expense of local cultural traditions and identity. Clearly, a straightjacket mentality will not be fruitful—prevention and constraint will not bring solutions.Peer Reviewe

Teaching Artists Research Project

There have been remarkable advances in arts education, both in and out of schools, over the last fifteen years, despite a difficult policy environment. Teaching artists, the hybrid professionals that link the arts to education and community life, are the creative resource behind much of this innovation. Their best efforts are redefining the roles the arts play in public education. Their work is central to arts organizations' strategies for civic engagement and diverse audiences. Excellent research has shown that arts education is instrumental to the social, emotional, and cognitive development of thousands of young people. But little is known about teaching artists. The Teaching Artists Research Project (TARP) deepens our understanding of world of teaching artists through studies in twelve communities, and it will inform policy designed to make their work sustainable, more effective, and more meaningful. A dozen study sites were selected where funding was available to support exploration of the local conditions and dynamics in arts education: Boston, Seattle, Providence, and eight California communities (San Francisco/Alameda County, Los Angeles, San Diego, Bakersfield, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz, Salinas, and Humboldt County). A thorough literature review was conducted, and NORC conducted stakeholder meetings and focus groups, identified key issues and began designing a multi-methods study that would include surveys for both artists and program managers as well as in-depth interviews of stakeholders -- teaching artists, program managers, school officials, classroom teachers and arts specialists, principals, funders, and arts educators in a wide variety of venues.There are no professional associations and no accreditation for teaching artists, so a great deal of time was spent building a sample of teaching artists and program managers in every study site. The survey instrument was developed and tested, and then fielded on-line in the study sites sequentially, beginning in Chicago, and ending with the southern California sites. To assure a reliable response rate, online surveys were supplemented by a telephone survey. Lists of potential key informants were accumulated for each site, and interviewers were recruited, hired, and trained in each site. Most of the interviewers were teaching artists themselves, and many had significant field knowledge and familiarity with the landscape of arts education in their community. The surveys collected data on some fundamental questions:Who are teaching artists?Where do they work? Under what terms and conditions?What sort of education have they had?How are they hired and what qualifications do employers look for?How much do they make?How much experience do they have?What drew them to the field? What pushes them out?What are their goals?Qualitative interviews with a subsample of survey respondents and key informants delved deeply into the dynamics and policies that drive arts education, the curricula and pedagogy teaching artists bring to the work, and personal histories of some artists. The interviews gathered more detailed information on the local character of teaching artist communities, in-depth descriptions and narratives of teaching artists' experiences, and followed up on items or issues that arose in preliminary analysis of the quantitative survey data. These conversations illuminated the work teaching artists believe is their best and identified the kinds of structural and organizational supports that enable work at the highest level. The interview process explored key areas with the artists, such as how to best develop their capacities, understand the dynamics between their artistic and educational practice, and how to keep them engaged in the field. Another critical topic explored during these conversations was how higher education can make a more meaningful and strategic contribution toward preparing young artists to work in the field. The TARP report includes serious reflection on the conditions and policies that have affected arts education in schools, particularly over the last thirty years, a period of intense school reform efforts and consistent erosion of arts education for students. The report includes new and important qualitative data about teaching artists, documenting their educational background, economic status, the conditions in which they work, and their goals as artists and educators. It also includes new insights about how learning in the arts is associated with learning in general, illuminating findings from other studies that have suggested a powerful connection between arts education and positive outcomes for students in a wide range of domains

An Interdisciplinary Approach in the Art Education Curriculum

AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH IN THE ART EDUCATION CURRICULUM By Terri L. Suraco Under the Direction of Melody Milbrandt ABSTRACT This study investigates how interdisciplinary lessons are taught in an art education classroom. The teaching strategies used are: Integrated models, the use of Big Ideas (Jacobs, 1989, 2003), the use of constructivist methods (Freedman, 2003; Brooks and Brooks, 1999; Milbrandt, 2004), and the use of essential question inquiry (Erickson, 1998; Mallery, 2000) and teacher collaboration (Jacobs, 2005; Erickson, 1998; NAEA, 2005). I am the only participant in an autoethnographical study. In the Literature Review: Why arts integration is important is explored. Positives and negatives of teaching integrated disciplines are addressed. I include four units from my interdisciplinary curriculum in art education and observations with teaching reflections from the units taught in elementary and middle school. The models that are described are: Parallel Disciplines, Multidisciplinary, Interdisciplinary, and Integrated (Jacobs, 1989, 2005: Mallery, 2000;). The study results reveal how interdisciplinary teaching can be implemented in an art education classroom. IDEX WORDS: Thesis, Interdisciplinary, Integrated, Art Education, Big Idea