The Results

The Teaching Artist Research Project (TARP) is perhaps the most significant ongoing study of its kind ever conducted, and it's all about us.

At a recent gathering hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts, a few early pieces of data were presented by project director Nick Rabkin, including these:

• 69% of the respondents were women
• The Median age is 44
• Mean income from teaching is about $17,850
• Mean total personal income is about $36,200

The rest of the presentation is posted here.

In the news: President Barack Obama gives a speech announcing that he has decided that more soldiers must be deployed to Afghanistan.

Also: Shirley Bassey - Don't Cry Out Loud

Recruit

From the New York Times today:

Sean D. O’Neil, a 22-year-old who stood shivering outside an Army recruitment office in St. Louis, said he was forgoing plans to become a guitar maker for now, realizing that instruments are seen as a luxury during a recession. Mr. O’Neil, a Texas native, ventured to St. Louis for an apprenticeship but found himself $30,000 in debt. Joining the Army, his Plan B, was a purely financial decision.

Military forces are meeting or exceeding their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004.*

* 2004 was a very bloody year in Iraq.

Mark Twain Stood Here

Utica, NY.

For 19 years, the Arts in Education Institute (AEI) of the Stanley Center for the Arts has been offering arts integration and aesthetic education for the benefit of teachers, teaching artists and students. With help from funders, including NYSCA, they seem to be fostering an oasis dedicated to community building and process.

The institute programs performances and exhibitions and relies on a roster of local teaching artists to help regular classroom teachers link artistic experiences to larger educational goals. If you want to get involved, Coordinator Serena Belmont has all the answers at (315) 724-1113 or sbelmont@cnyarts.com.

Meta: Samuel Clemens wowed Utica on his tour of the lecture circuit in 1870. In a letter home he describes how he transfixed the crowd and brought the house down by doing nothing:

I stood patient & silent, minute after minute...till my roused good-nature passed from my heart & countenance to theirs along a thousand invisible electrical currents & conquered their reserve, swept their self-possession to the winds, & the great house "came down" Like an avalanche!"

Recently, I reread Clemen's sly piece The War Prayer.

It felt timely and just a bit painful.

A Desertful of Roses

Since 2003, the Teaching Artists of Mobile Mini Circus have reached more than half a million children and teachers in 16 provinces of Afghanistan. 

After the jump: How circus is blossoming in Afghanistan (youtube)

Meta: The Ghazal is a delightful form of poetry.