Mentors and Teaching Artists

While every lesson plan and curriculum packet we develop counts in our growing body of work, we need to constantly adjust, re-invent, re-create each experience from school to school and classroom to classroom. In fact, this adaptability and our willingness to respond to the unique needs of the teachers and students in front of us is what makes teaching artists different from the "one-sized-fits-all" approach to education in the last decade. This presents a problem when we approach training from a "one-sized" viewpoint. As Americans, we tend to look for systemic solutions. The replaceable parts of the Industrial Revolution have found their way into many aspects of our culture. What about those chunks of the human experience that are not, and cannot be standardized?

The mentor/apprentice relationship continues to be a successful model for teaching artists. I have used this in my business for many years, and it continues to be effective. While we strive for a common educational language across schools, states, disciplines, and philosophies, we need to constantly renew our commitment to flexibility and critical thinking. We need to develop skills that allow us to take a well planned lesson and adapt it to the individual needs, goals, and resources of the individuals in our classrooms. This is done best, by observing master teaching artists, working side-by-side with them, and eventually flying solo. I find that the master/apprentice relation works between veteran and new teaching artists, but it also can work between veterans that want to learn something new. This approach encourages those of us who have been in the field for a long time, to refresh our skills and our imaginations by sharing our effective tools with other teaching aritsts.

I encourage teaching artists to work with their cultural organizations to develop and support mentor/apprentice relationships. If a cultural organization is not available, start informal groups of regional teaching artists that can work on convenient schedules and workable deadlines.

I believe that there is a place for sequential training of training artists, but it cannot replace this powerful experience of the mentor and the apprentice.

Glenn McClure