Arts in The NEK

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Created on Thursday, 12 May 2016 14:03

Written by Tim Laroche

THE CURRENT ARTS LANDSCAPE

President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) into effect on December 10, 2015. The ESSA reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and replaced NCLB.

On page 807 of ESSA, the act includes a definition of a “well-rounded education,” which the act states as one of the primary goals of educators. Supporters of the ESSA have heralded the inclusion of arts as part of a “well-rounded education” as being a step towards further federal support for the arts.

However, it should be noted that in earlier drafts of ESSA, “well-rounded education” was referred to as “core subjects.” In an attempt to garner bipartisan support for the act, the writers strayed from the “core” language to avoid being connected with the Common Core Standards, another educational reform from the Obama administration that has divided educators and legislators.

In NCLB, the arts were listed as core subjects, but encountered little federal support. But with only a few months since the passing of ESSA, not enough time has passed to see the full effect of the new legislation.

A key difference between ESSA and NCLB though is that music has been listed as a separate subject under the new legislation, whereas, under NCLB, it was included under the “arts” designation.

But an even more important difference between the two acts is that ESSA is not intended to penalize schools for low performance on standardized tests – a change that educators hope will result in an opportunity to teach subjects that are not commonly tested.

However, art teachers in the NEK don’t see ESSA as a panacea to all of the ills wrought by NCLB.

“Some people have been telling me it’s some of the same as the No Child Left Behind,” Clements said. “There’s going to be some of the same recycled ideas. People are going to start realizing that students aren’t achieving that well academically and that we’re giving them all these policies and procedures of computers and technologies. And they’re going to realize that they aren’t really that successful. And then they’re going to say ‘we need to start giving these kids some more hands-on things to do.”

But other recent pieces of educational legislation have garnered greater support from art educators in the NEK.

On February 17, 2016, Chris Case from the Vermont Agency of Education issued a proposal to the Vermont Department of Education regarding the viability of adopting new National Core Art Standards.

Clements joins the Vermont Arts Council in support of the new NCAS standards.

“I like them because I think that they are to me the first time they talk not as much about skill building but about the thinking that goes behind art education,” Clements said. “How do you think like an artist? How do you do your work, how do you plan your work? And that’s been sort of a push that I’ve started this year, getting kids to think about how do I think and see and work and getting that habits of mind of an artist.”

The NCAS website explains the goal of any sort of federal educational standards as such:

“The central purposes of education standards are to identify the learning that we want for all of our students and to drive improvement in the system that delivers that learning. Standards, therefore, should embody the key concepts, processes and traditions of study in each subject area, and articulate the aspirations of those invested in our schools—students, teachers, administrators, and the community at large.”

Essentially, the standards provide a framework of expectations that individual educators can then overlay their curricula.

The NCAS are separated into four broad models, each of which containing smaller anchor standards. The actual curricula, in accordance with NCAS, would work within the framework of the anchor standards to achieve the more abstract models of teaching.

For instance, in the NCAS’s current form, the models of teaching are such: Creating, Performing, Responding and Connecting.

The first educational model in the series, Creating, is meant to foster “Conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work.” The second model, Performing, consists of the act of “Interpreting and sharing artistic work.” The third model, Responding, promotes “Understanding and evaluating how the arts convey meaning.” And the fourth and final model, Connecting, involves “Relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context.”

Under the NCAS, teachers would structure their curricula to meet each of the models outlined in the framework of the standards. The specific lesson plans can be modified and changed as need be, but the essential components remain the same: each unit or project should involve a creative aspect, a presentation of work, an evaluation of the work and the work of one’s peers, and a connection to other subjects, projects and ideas.

Art educators and advocates who support the NCAS cite their renewed focused on abstracting the educational process for art away from concrete skills like painting and drawing. Instead, the new standards are meant to increase the focus on teaching broader skills – such as, analytical thinking and visual problem solving.

“Are artists skills, intellectual skills? I truthfully find it kind of frustrating to teach art skills, especially to the younger kids,” Clements said. “Because they struggle. For a lot of kids, drawing is something they struggle with. Painting is something they struggle with. And they tend to be dissatisfied with what they do. So I’m trying to work more about the process of art, artists, why artists do what they do, what do the kids think about the art – you know, sort of arts culture and history. It’s always evolving. Everything I do, and I think most art teachers do, is always this constant evolution of thinking and working and developing ideas.”