How Far Have We Come In Ten Years?

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for the invitation to have a public conversation around these issues and for setting up a framework. You've posed some challenging questions and I'm afraid I'm going to have to use your own Dale Davis, Executive Director of ATA, as one of my lifelines right off the bat.

Dale posted an interesting historical document on ATA's yahoo list serve last week under the heading "Are We As Teaching Artists Ready?". Since the holiday is upon us, I'm going to let that post serve as my doorstop of an answer until I get back to my laptop on Monday.

Here's a quote and the link.

Class Acts 99: The Artist’s Voice in Arts Education, was a four-day participatory, professional conference for teaching artists. Produced by ArtsConnection, and held at ArtsConnection’s Center and public schools throughout New York City, Class Acts 99 gave participants a chance to focus on the skills teaching artists need to address today’s issues of pedagogy, partnership, and standards, and provided a forum for teaching artists to respond to changes in the field. A panel of policy makers, arts administrators, and teaching artists set the stage by addressing the question, "What do you expect of a teaching artist today?

The conference attendees produced a set of recommendations for addressing critical issues that reads like a roadmap. Dale prefaces her post with another provocative question "How far have we come in almost ten years?"

There's a good question to ponder over the weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Michael