The Meaning of ATA

What does the Association of Teaching Artists mean to our field?

A few years ago my colleagues and I were in the midst of a sensitive and somewhat drawn-out negotiation of a teaching artist union contract. I needed some outside perspective, and when I came upon the Association of Teaching Artists, I called Dale Davis. We had a long conversation about issues surrounding intellectual property, similar situations that other teaching artists had faced, and ramifications of parallel contracts in higher education contexts. We didn't necessarily nail down the answers, but Dale took the time to help me ask the right questions. And if there's one thing that we as teaching artists are called to do – in our ongoing quest to find balance in art-making and educating – it's ask the right questions. 

I am grateful that I could make that call, and like other colleagues who have written this week, I am thankful that ATA provides a mechanism for sharing best practices – for encouraging emerging teaching artists – and for asking the right questions that continue to deepen the professionalism of our field. 

Please consider joining me in donating today!

You can make a check payable to ATA and mailed to:The Association of Teaching Artists155 South Main Street Fairport, New York 14450-2517

Or online, at:  http://www.teachingartists.com/membershippay.htm

Sonya RobinsonDirector, Artist Corps New Orleans

ATA Provides A Forum

This is my first year as an ATA Board Member. When asked to join the ATA Board, I said "yes" for several reasons. I have been a teaching artist, continue to work with teaching artists and have the greatest respect for the profession and the myriad of creative skills that teaching artists share with the students they work with.

ATA provides a forum to share information and advocate for the profession. Especially in these difficult economic times, we need a place where our voices can come together. Because I want to make that voice a little stronger, I will be contributing to the ATA appeal and encourage you to do the same.

Sharon Vatsky, ATA Board Member

The Dancer or the Dance?

A recent article in Education Week trumpets "Schools Integrate Dance into Core Academics".

Hurrah...I think.

I mean, yet again, we are presented with a shining example of Teaching Artists working extremely hard to prove the art's worth and value as a tool to augment a failing educational system’s “core” curriculum.

Johnny still can’t read.

The Achievement Gap is a chasm.

But Arts Integration works! 

Hurrah.

If we can change nothing else, I propose we at least change the term “arts integration” to ARTIST INTEGRATION.

Let's give credit where credit is due.

Is it the art, or the ARTIST that makes the difference?

Is it the DANCER or the Dance?

Is it our art-form that increases levels of student engagement and makes for a better learning environment, or is it us?

Maybe these Teaching Artists are just good teachers?

Perhaps our habits of mind, and the fact that art is a form of communication, make some of us really effective in the classroom?

If the thing formerly known as arts integration is effective, then perhaps  students in teacher training programs should be studying how Teaching Artists operate? We could model best practices.

Also: US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan urges states to cut expensive masters degree bonus programs from the budget. According to an Associated Press article  “Duncan told the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday that master's degree bonuses are an example of spending money on something that doesn't work.” At the same event, billionaire Bill Gates said "My own state of Washington has an average salary bump of nearly $11,000 for a master's degree - and more than half of our teachers get it. That's more than $300 million every year that doesn't help kids.”

OMG. I thought they wanted us to enter the world of higher education. I'm so confused!

Push

Like I said last time, I think that Teaching Artists will enjoy the high professional status of plumbers only after we can manage to do two big things:

First, I think that we have to wholeheartedly embrace the idea of accountability in our work. That means we have to have a group of representatives draft a set of core standards and a list of professional competencies that we can all hew to and hate on.

Sure, we’ll bicker, but they will be there, our high standards, uniting us and broadcasting our professional identity as Teaching Artists from sea to shining sea.

And they shall know us  by our jargon.

We have so many terrific starting points for this national conversation. We just need a union, some snazzy letterhead, and an interview with the Wizard.

Secondly, we have to create effective and affordable Teaching Artist training programs that are separate and distinct from the MA programs that train and certify regular classroom teachers.

These Teaching Artist training programs should definitely be in universities, or wherever, I don't care, just as long as they don't cost emerging TAs an arm and a leg, and graduates can get a paper at the end that qualifies them to teach in a public school and earn an actual salary.

Public education is where arts education belongs.

Third, I know I said two, but this is my holiday appeal, so, THIRDLY, we have to get serious and coalesce into something that looks like an actual profession.  The research says we aren't managing to make a collective living in this field we care so passionately about.

According to the previewed results of the Teaching Artist Research Project, the average TA made $17,000 last year.

Seriously.

Stop laughing.

It's true, and it's just ridiculous.

Why are we training people to be Teaching Artists through these MA programs if there are no decent jobs for them? How are emerging TAs supposed to be able to pay off their massive student loans while earning $17,000 per year?

We need to do some community organizing. Studs Terkel didn't hate unions, and that's good enough for me. Capitalism, you might have noticed?

So, if we are going to survive, I think we should pool our resources and get what all the other professions have: plush national and regional offices with overpaid administrators, and lobbyists whose sole job is to make darn sure that Teaching Artists get what we need to get and stay middle class. I am referring to the holy grail of American middle class existence: A living wage, a pension plan and affordable health care. Face it, this may be the last period in American history that these things are in any way attainable and I think we need to move fast as a group, or we’re toast. 

This holiday season, and until our Bastille Day arrives, please, join something nascent that has the feel of a movement. Join and give your time, expertise, and cash for the collective good of Teaching Artists everywhere. It's for your own good.

You’ve got so many choices:

Teaching Artists Organized is in California.

The Association of Teaching Artists is in New York.

Chicago Teaching Artists Collective is in the middle. At least, they were earlier in the decade. Chicago, are you there?

Please, give to ATA this holiday season.

Give an amount that's significant and meaningful to you.

Next Time on ATA Blog: "It's A Trap" In which I express the creeping feeling that our love for arts integration means we'll always be second-class educators.

Also: Let's Push Things Forward - The Streets

Charge

I am a professional Teaching Artist. I work in a variety of contexts. Like most veteran TAs, I've taught all over: universities, public schools, private schools, classrooms, libraries, cafeterias, gymnasiums, basketball courts, mobile “temporary” classrooms, hallways, stairwells, lobbies, amphitheaters, black-box theaters, outdoor theaters, dance studios, art galleries, offices, prisons, women’s shelters, community centers, storefronts, churches, church basements, regular basements, parking lots, sidewalks and in the street, among other places. 

I still don't know how this thing works.

I have facilitated classes for everyone from infants to seniors. I've taught in English and Spanglish, and something that felt like charades. I dutifully went to school, and I have an MFA that cost too much money. Over the past few years, perusing Craigslist, I’ve seen TA jobs that offered anywhere from $10 per workshop, to $15 per workshop, to $20 per workshop and less. Over the last ten years, I’ve had gigs that paid me something like the following range of fees: zero dollars, $30 per workshop, $45 per workshop, $80 per workshop, $150 per workshop, $175 per workshop and hundreds of dollars per day, all to do what I consider to be, basically, the same kind of intellectual and physical labor.  

I have been a volunteer, begrudgingly, and only for people, and causes, and organizations that I really trust, care about, and admire. I rationalize this by reminding myself that people rarely ask a plumber to volunteer. We have too much respect for a plumber's training and expertise, and expect to pay for it. I would like to think I’m in a profession that as valuable and respected, but I’m pretty sure I’m not because plumbers usually get paid up front.

I think that Teaching Artists will achieve the status of plumbers only after we can manage to do two big things. 

I'll talk about those tomorrow, or like, whenever I can get to it.

In the meantime, give a donation to ATA before the end of the year, please. Give an amount that's significant and meaningful to you.

Enough About Me

For the past two years or so, ATA blog has been, for me, a sort of diary. Sometimes I get serious and write about the hows and whys and ways in which we teach and my favorite books. Often, I just post links to my favorite music videos and complain about how hard it is to make a dollar and a dream.   The issues I write about arise from my experience as a community-oriented teaching artist, and from my strong belief that art is probably the answer, no matter the question. This blog is advocacy, but it’s also kind of an ongoing art project.

I usually begin by acknowledging the truth, which is hardly ever easy, at least in the beginning. The current reality, for many of us, is that we have full artistic lives, we teach part-time, we probably have inadequate training as teachers (at least in the beginning), and we are, generally, poorly compensated.[1]

We arrive in the classroom through many different doorways, some of us by necessity, some of us because we feel we are called to teach.[2]

We do our work in a variety of contexts—schools, church basements—and, although many of us have advanced degrees in education or art, many of us don’t. Many of us learned, or are learning, how to teach on the job. In a supposedly professional field, this reality raises big questions:

Is the professional artist with no advanced degree, certification or background in education really qualified to teach?

What are the qualities of effective teaching and what basic skills, competencies and understandings should a professional teaching artist possess?

This blog addresses these questions over and over and over again because the terrain keeps presenting new challenges. As Dale Davis, ATA's Executive Director often requests, please contribute to ATA, and email your thoughts, comments and links to things that TAs might use. Your input helps make ATA a resource for teaching artists who, "qualified" or not, are out there doing the work.

Go Teach!


Also: The Trammps - Disco Inferno

[1] Teaching Artist Research Project http://www.nea.gov/research/Workforce-Forum/PDF/Rabkin.pdf

[2] Teaching Artists and their Work http://www.teachingartists.com/Association%20of%20Teaching%20Artists%20Survey%20Results.pdf

The Great Beyond

"Somehow, understanding goes beyond knowing. But how?"

This thrilling question, which I am pondering now, and probably forever, is posed by David Perkins in an 1993 essay which you can read in its entirety here.

As you may recall, my new advocacy campaign is based on the idea that Teaching Artists achieve professional status only when we embrace the idea of accountability and find effective ways to integrate it into our planning model. Of course, many of us are already doing this successfully and have done so for decades, usually within schools and cultural organizations that provide the time, money and kind of administrative support necessary to document and assess our work.

The focal point of the discussion is the concept of UNDERSTANDING. There are many seminal books on the subject, including Understanding By Design. Indeed, talking about teaching for understanding is a cottage industry. But I can't afford to buy all these books and seminars. I just want to do good work and get paid a living wage.

Therefore, I shall begin to organize my random thoughts into a nice manageable list of do's and don'ts, or Yamas and Niyamas, mostly Niyamas.

I warn you, this may take some time and there will be detours. Please send me your thoughtful comments and suggestions.

Ok, here goes!

1. DO try your best to create delightfully challenging experiences that move students toward a deeper understanding of specific concepts.

2. DO be really specific about what you are hoping students will know, understand, or be able to do when they are done working with you.

3. DON'T do random things in your workshops that are unconnected to your desired outcomes. It's a waste of time and kind of unethical when you think about it. This does not mean you can't be creative. In fact, disciplining your mind to envision everything you want to say and do in the workshop means that you have to be more innovative and flexible. Also, teaching then becomes more like a partially improvised performance, and you can achieve the same kind of rush you get onstage, just don't go overboard because it's not all about you mister.

4. DO provide multiple ways for students to engage with the knowledge, understandings and skills-sets the workshop has been planned around. Don't set up just one narrow door, because everybody is different, and if you don't believe me, ask Howard Gardner.

5. DO make rubrics because they are infinitely adjustable tools that you can use for planning, assessment and eventually evaluation.

6. DON'T confuse Assessment and Evaluation when you are planning. These are two different things. Assessment is more about observing and identifying where someone is along a continuum. It's a conversation starter. A grade kind of says "we're done here".

In the next few weeks, I will continue to post about these things, but I am traveling, so don't judge me if I miss a day.

Also: ATA is on Facebook. Where are you?

Also: Joni Mitchell - Help Me

Something to Talk About

In a recent blog post, Teaching Artist, and author, Rabin Nickens asks "Can we talk arts advocacy?"

This article gives me the thrill one gets from swimming in the zeitgeist. It is peppered with interesting observations, suggestions, and links to online conversations about things like formative and summative assessment. These are all things I adore, and want to know more about.

At one point, Ms. Nickens quotes a blog post by theater artist Bora Koknar, who writes: "Instead of focusing on the ‘soft’ skills we can anecdotally show we improve such as creativity, critical thinking, empathy, ability to make judgments etc, we need to speak the language of the policy makers." 

Hurrah!

Ms. Nickens' final paragraph frames the issue quite nicely:

"Ultimately, I don't think that arts educators are from Mars and everyone else is from Venus. We already speak the same language in terms of our mutual desire to effect positive change and development in the lives of young people. (S)haring specific evidence of how our work impacts academic achievement will only facilitate understanding and benefit the children and families we serve."

Read the rest of the post here.

Also: Shirley Bassey - Where Do I Begin?

Yea!

Young Educators in the Arts (YEA) had their first big public event last Thursday, and in keeping with their mission to support individuals in the early stages of a career in arts education, the fledgling collective hosted Edward Clapp,  editor of the new anthology 20Under40. David Shookoff, of the NYC AIE Roundtable introduced the event, and live updates were posted on YEA'S Twitter feed by TA Dennis Baker.

FYI: Teaching artists can follow the subject line #artsed on Twitter to get tweets from arts educators all over the country.

Also: The Fab Four - Sgt. Pepper

Speak Now

Teaching artists who work for non-profits that receive funding from New York State might want to pay attention to the budget crisis in Albany. The fiscal year has ended and begun, still, there is no budget agreement in the state capital.  As has happened in the past, the arts are on the cutting block. Governor David Paterson's proposed cuts to the New York State Council on the Arts are looking to be somewhat severe, as in apocalyptic.

Now, would be time to voice your opinion about the Governor's proposed 40% cut to NYSCA local assistance funding.

This Is Our Youth

Hipsters, and early-career teaching artists of all ages might be interested to know about Young Educators in the Arts; the latest in youth movements. YEA's first big public event is this Thursday, April 29th. Arts educators, TAs and arts administrators who consider themselves young, or new to the field are invited.

Details are below:

Emerging Leaders in Arts Education: Needs, Networking and Next Steps

Presented in association with the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable

Thursday, April 29, 2010
6:00 – 8:00pm
Bowery Wine Company
13 East First Street
New York, NY 10003
$5 for non-members (RSVP to yeacollective@gmail.com)
Free for members of the NYC AIE Roundtable (Register with the Roundtable:http://nycaieyea.eventbrite.com/)


Are you interested in the future of arts education? Join the YEA and the NYC AIE Roundtable for an informal networking mixer, happy hour and discussion for arts administrators, teaching artists, teachers and students (individuals new or relatively new to arts education strongly encouraged to attend). We will be joined by Edward Clapp, editor of the upcoming book "20 Under 40: Re-inventing the Arts and Arts Education for the 21st Century" (http://www.20under40.org/), who will share some of his experiences and what he has learned from collecting essays from young and emerging leaders in arts education from around the world.

Space is limited! RSVP to yeacollective@gmail.com ASAP!
Find YEA on ning: http://youngeducatorsarts.ning.com
Follow YEA on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yeacollective
Friend YEA on Facebook: YEA Facebook Page

Also: The Fab Four - Revolution

Transform Society

Teaching Artists with a mission to work for positive social change might be interested to know that NYU's upcoming conference on applied theater starts tomorrow.

Full details and links are below:

NYU Forum on Citizenship and Applied Theatre

Dates:

April 23-25, 2010

About the conference:

“To be a citizen is not to live in a society. A citizen is one who transforms society.” –Augusto Boal
The goal of this forum is to facilitate a dialogue on citizenship and applied theatre contexts through exploring the field of arts-based community engagement. The forum will also investigate the perceived boundaries and barriers for artist/educators committed to understanding the roles and responsibilities of citizens in both local and global communities. Questions to be interrogated include:

• What is a citizen artist?
• How can drama provide a forum to explore ideas of global citizenship?
• How do we prepare future theatre artists/educators in the applied theatre?
• How is theatre being used to rehabilitate people in prisons, health facilities, and elsewhere?
• How do we assess participants' understanding and awareness in applied theatre work?

Schedule

Pre-Conference Event

Friday, 4/23
12:00-2:00 Tactical Culture Workshop
A workshop and discussion led by Gallatin Professor Stephen Duncombe
and UC Davis Professor Lawrence Bogad with members of the Eyebeam
Center for Art and Technology's College of Tactical Culture on how to
effectively develop ideas and strategies for creative activism.
Co-sponsored by Gallatin's Community Learning Initiative.Co-sponsored by Gallatin’s Community Learning Initiative.
4:00-5:30 Gallatin Arts Festival 2010
"Chaos and Order: Art as Survival". Anticipate and Incorporate! Surprise and Symbolism in Tactical Performance ~ A talk by Professor Larry Bogad, UC Davis
A presentation and exploration of the theory and practice of guerrilla theater, media interventions, creative disruptions and pranks. What is the role of imagination and creativity in the organization of social movement campaigns?

Location: Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts, Gallatin School, 1 Washington Place - free and open to public. Visit http://www.gallatingalleries.com/shows/gaf/ for more information. 

Friday April 23, 2010

6:30 PM: Forum Registration
7:00 PM: Opening Remarks and Roundtable
Saturday April 24, 2010

9:30 AM: Registration Continues
10:00 AM- 11:30 AM: Keynote Panel/Plenary
11:45 AM- 1:15 PM: Presentations (Concurrent Session 1)
1:15 PM- 2:30 PM: LUNCH ON YOUR OWN
2:30 PM- 4:00 PM: Plenary
4:15 PM- 5:45 PM: Presentations (Concurrent Session 2)
6:00 PM: DINNER ON YOUR OWN
7:00 PM- 9:00 PM CAT CLUB Get together
Sunday April 25, 2010

8:30 AM: Registration Continues
9:00 AM- 10:30 AM: Presentations (Concurrent Session 3)
10:45 AM- 12:15 PM: Presentations (Concurrent Session 4)
12:15 PM- 1:15 PM: LUNCH ON YOUR OWN
1:15 PM- 2:45 PM: Presentations (Concurrent Session 5)
3:00 PM-4:30 PM: Plenary and Closing Remarks, Frederick Loewe Theatre

Costs

Conference Participant/Presenter $150
Student/Performer ** $50
One Day Conference Participant $100
**Performers from accepted presentations of work may attend their session free of charge. If performers wish to attend any other portion of the conference they must pay the performer rate.

Contact for more information:

Dr. David Montgomery, Program in EducationalTheatre, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, & Human Development, New York University, Pless Annex, Room 223, 82 Washington Square East, New York, NY 10003; applied.theatre.forum@gmail.com

National Child Abuse Prevention Month

By Presidential proclamation, April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

The announcement is reprinted below:

A PROCLAMATION

Our children are our most valuable resource, and they need our support to thrive and grow into healthy, productive adults. During National Child Abuse Prevention Month, we renew our unwavering commitment to protecting children and responding to child abuse, promoting healthy families, and building a brighter future for all Americans.

Every child deserves a nurturing family and a safe environment, free from fear, abuse, and neglect. Tragically, sexual, emotional, and physical abuse threaten too many children every day in communities across our Nation. Parents, guardians, relatives, and neighbors all share a responsibility to prevent these devastating crimes, and our government plays a critical role as well.

My Administration is committed to helping future generations succeed. We are focused on engaging parents in their children's early learning and development, ensuring the safety and well-being of all families, and creating opportunities for all Americans. We are also partnering with Federal, State, and local agencies to better coordinate early childhood services and improve the lives of young children and their families.

Together, we can ensure that every child grows up in a safe, stable, and nurturing environment, free from abuse and neglect. I encourage all Americans to visit: www.ChildWelfare.gov/Preventing to learn what they can do to stop child abuse in their communities.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 2010 as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities that help prevent child abuse and provide for children's physical, emotional, and developmental needs.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.

BARACK OBAMA

Futurists

From the Teaching Artists Union, we have received word that the School of the Future is now.

Cool. Why wait?

Not to be confused with that other school of the future, TAU's SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE is an art project and the "launching pad for the art movement of education."

More information is below, and on the group's website:

THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE
The School of the Future is an artist-run school for teaching artists. The school focuses on teaching artists as experts in the study of information through performing and visual arts; it serves as the first site devoted to the resourcefulness and adaptability of teaching artists. Each curriculum developed for the school is an art project, making the school a group show. The projects will be designed to use art as a learning process that activates and considers the site of the school.

The portable school building is fit with movable walls, so no barriers will remain between after school educators, professors, and substitute public school teachers. The school term is a process of discovery where the students and teachers refine this model of school from within the transparent school walls, engaging in a large collaborative artwork that analyzes, critiques, and pushes school out of its big brick buildings.

School of the Future opens this July in Bushwick’s Sgt. Dougherty Park for a month of programming. Starting in February, an open call for curriculum asks artists to consider the site of the school as an art project that they can engage a specific student body to perform.

The School of the Future is a project of the Teaching Artist Union—a group of NYC artists who consider teaching a part of their art practice. Principal Cassandra Thornton and Head Librarian Christopher Kennedy (Institute of Applied Aesthetics) are also supported by TrustArt, OpenSpaceAlliance, NYC Parks Department and the Association of Teaching Artists.

Site Visit Sunday January 24, 1pm
Join us on Sunday for a site visit to Sgt. Dougherty Park, the site for the SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE. The park is located on the corner of Meeker Ave. and Vandevoort Avenue. It is bordered by the BQE, Staples, and Con Ed property, in a wonderful industrial wasteland. Since projects at the school will respond to the site, please attend a group site visit or go solo, but please feel obliged to learn the park.

Also: Tron - Light Bikes w/ Jeff Bridges

Lest We Forget

The Association of Teaching Artists (ATA) is a non-profit professional organization whose mission is to strengthen and serve Teaching Artists from all disciplines in New York State. The Association of Teaching Artists strives to create a community of professional Teaching Artists by: Empowering the practice of Teaching Artists' as a profession; Providing a network for communication and the exchange of resources; Shaping the field of Arts in Education; Providing advocacy, training, and professional development; Publicly recognizing distinguished achievement.

Video: Martin Luther King Jr. on Love and Non-Violence

Also: Marvin Gaye - Everybody Needs Love

Eric Booth: Why I Support ATA

Why I Support ATA

by Eric Booth

I just snail mailed my support check to ATA in thanks for all they do.

A few years ago, I was in a discussion at Harvard Project Zero about whether teaching artists should try to create a non-profit national service organization. We thought about what those service organizations actually do, and what it takes to sustain them, and it kept not adding up as a the right next step for our growing field. We asked ourselves, "What is it that we really need, and how can we provide that without creating another institution that doesn't feel like 'us'?"

The answer that arose was that for now what we needed most was information, ways to communicate with one another, and a responsive lead group that can prompt us as needed. We need time to authentically grow into what we want to become. At that time I realized that the ATA was doing exactly what the field needed, and doing it well. If we can support it well (and we haven't done that well to date--our ATA leaders work heroically without adequate support), we can grow authentically to become what we want to be as a field. Thank you ATA--my check is in the mail.

Eric Booth


Editor's Note:

Contributions to ATA are tax-deductible, and may be made here.

Thank you.

Why I Support ATA

Why I Support ATA

By Phil Alexander

The soloist enchants us, while the choir provides us with incomparable depth and richness.

The poem delights us, while the book creates an entirely new universe for us.

The sculpture engages us, while the museum opens us up to brand new understandings.

The lesson teaches us, while the whole course transforms us.

Simply put, collective action reaches us deeper and lasts longer than individual experiences.

ATA is the embodiment of collective action, it's a collective voice, a unified chorus of individuals who often cannot be heard. The incomparable listserve , the ATA website, and the blog are just a few of the most obvious tools in which ATA collects and shares the voices of teaching artists. The
board and staff of ATA are committed to hearing the needs of teaching artists, and sharing your concerns with the world at large. We have plans to provide more opportunities and events for teaching artists in the future, such as the first Teaching Artists conference, but with assorted financial challenges, everything must be reconsidered and no opportunity is secure.

During this period of appeals and gift giving, it's hard to claim that one cause is more worthy than others. So I'm left asking this question: What will be heard, if ATA"s voice is silenced?

Philip A. Alexander, Ph.D.
Senior Program Officer
ESP Office of Partnership Support and Research
www.espartsed.org


Editor's Note:

Contributions to ATA are tax-deductible, and may be made here.

Thank you.

Support ATA!

A Note from ATA Board Member Georgia A. Popoff

Support ATA

The messages on the listserve are such a value to the community of teaching artists who are members of this forum. The information that ATA Executive Director Dale Davis provides daily creates a tool for constant professional development and opportunity for us all. The listserve, with the daily comprehensive blogs by Michael Wiggins, the various links to so much to support each of us in pursuit of our careers as artists who teach, all of these aspects of the service that ATA provides to each of us are extremely valuable.

If each member of the listserve donated just $10 to ATA in some way (the Pay-Pal option on line, a check sent via standard mail, etc.), ATA could increase its budget by 50%, leading to greater longevity and more that could be provided.

Please consider ATA as one of the organizations you will include on your list of gifts this season. It is a gift that will offer each of us a daily return.

Georgia A. Popoff

Poet & Teaching Artist
Board Member - Association of Teaching Artists

Our America

Thanks to El Machete, I have had my awareness raised about an issue that is undoubtedly affecting young people we work with in New York City schools--deportation.

Did you know that some of our young people are considered "undocumented", and that these children face deportation the minute they turn eighteen? Teens who have spent their entire lives in the United States are subject to arrest and criminal proceedings--the purpose being to send them "home" to countries they might not even remember.

A related article in the New York Times notes that immigrant students have recently taken high profile advocacy roles around this issue, risking much.

A group of young filmmakers responding to this issue have produced a CD of topical songs, sales of which will benefit the production of their issue-oriented movie "Papers".

Finally, A recently issued report from a New York State review panel says our system of juvenile prisons is broken, with "young people battling mental illness or addiction held alongside violent offenders in abysmal facilities where they receive little counseling, can be physically abused and rarely get even a basic education..."

Art Is Work

Art Work A National Conversation About Art, Labor, and Economics is a web page, a newspaper, and an exhibition.

The forty page newspaper features writing and images by artists, art workers, curators, interns, volunteers, writers, and activists who have been invited to examine how the current economic crisis impacts artists' creativity and earnings.

Produced by Temporary Services, the newspaper is freely distributed in places like Brooklyn.

You can also visit the project's website and download a copy of the newspaper here.

The exhibition at Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio is scheduled to close on January 15th, 2010.