Can you repeat the question?

Over at the NYU Educational Theater blog, the valiant Dennis Baker, who is a grad student and a working TA, shares and reflects on a meeting he attended at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC).

NJPAC has an extensive residency program in the schools, the goals of which they are apparently reevaluating. Teaching Artists were invited to discuss the shape of the elephant commonly referred to as Arts Integration vs. Art for Arts' Sake.

Dennis reports:

"...the schools are questioning the importance of paying for the students to learn acting/theater techniques. This lead into questioning whether NJPAC should offer a more arts integrated program where the teaching artists go into the classroom and use theater skills to teach subjects in history, science and English classes."

It's a big question, and apparently an eternal one, because we keep hashing it out.

We keep coming back to it.

Like moths to a flame.

Ouch.

The Second Coming

Maria Johnson is a Brooklyn-based freelance flutist and teacher. Over at Maria's Blog, which is a cool place to hang out, there is much rejoicing over the arrival of Eric Booths' new tome The Music Teaching Artist's Bible: Becoming a Virtuoso Educator.

Reviews for the book are positive and the website of Oxford University Press is strewn with breathless testimonials from people like Bill Ivey, Steve Seidel, Richard Deasey and Robert Lynch, among others.

It's $99 (hardback) or $24.95 (paperback) from Oxford University Press.

I'll be reading.

Related: Eric Booth's Teaching Artist Guidelines (PDF) http://tinyurl.com/dy48dt

Unrelated: Monty Python

On the Road

As you may recall, the Kennedy Center and Daimler Financial Services have selected ten schools across the country for a project called On Location: Spotlight On Your Community. Each of the ten schools gets a media equipment package, and both students and teachers will be trained in storytelling, filmmaking, editing, and producing video stories.

Lo and behold, they're off!

The Daimler-sponsored On Location bus and its team of professional Teaching Artists are on the road. You can follow them on their cool blog, which needs updating, and on Twitter, where I find I am one of 8 followers and nobody is saying much. Also, there's no video up, yet. Seriously, I have been looking forward to following this project since last year and I can't wait to see what the students produce. Hurry and post some stuff before Daimler goes under.

Meta: So tedious is this day. As is the night before some festival to an impatient child that hath new robes and may not wear them.

Give Me Strength

Judy Shintani, California-based "art facilitator for all ages", keeps a blog called Kitsune.

This week, she shares and reflects on a recent visual art class for Elders:

I enjoy facilitating an Elders’ art class in San Francisco every Friday. For the past 6 weeks we have been focusing on mandalas. I discussed the sacredness of the circle symbol in many cultures, in nature, and in religion. We designed rose window mandalas based on the cathedral stained glass windows of Europe. We made shield mandalas to give us strength.

There is a terrific slide-show of some of the work, which involves leaves, petals and other gorgeous organics. Also, note in her description of the class that she is not working solo:

For the eco mandala inspiration, my two high school aids presented a report on Andy Goldsworthy and showed how he used things found in the environment, nature, to create installations.

Let's go where she is.

Nonn' Erubescite, Reges

Tom Daschle in Washington.

Barack Obama in the middle.

Jessye Norman in Thebes.

Living the Dream

Over at Carla Ching's Minutiae & Flux I found a brief review of Target Margin's newest Off-Broadway production, Ten Blocks to the Camino Royale.

"...an early version of O’Neill’s Camino Real. It reminded me that fantasy is an important place to run around in. Beautifully acted and realized. In the cold, in hard times, it’s important to remember the dream life. Sometimes, questions are answered there."

Many professional Teaching Artists moonlight as professional actors.

Neither of these careers comes with a guarantee of a living wage, health care or a pension.

How long can we survive?

Who will take care of us when we're old?

Meta: Carmen Maura (La Ley Del Deseo)

Apply Yourself

VSA arts is seeking proposals for exhibitions to be produced in 2009-10. The deadline for receipt is coming up on February 20, 2009, which is like, you know, tomorrow.

Anyway, VSA arts is committed to expanding the understanding, development, and appreciation of contemporary work by artists with disabilities. Curators are encouraged to incorporate the work of artists with disabilities into their exhibitions. Individual or group proposals may be submitted.

If you're a curator, but you feel like you don't know enough working artists with disabilities, just wait...or try harder.

Upriver

Arts Alive is a terrific regional newsletter that presents cultural events and opportunities for and about artists in Columbia and Greene Counties in upstate New York. The Greene County Council on the Arts and the Columbia County Council on the Arts pool their resources to publish this excellent resource and you can download it on their website as a PDF.

Not only, but also: The Hudson Opera House is a multi-arts center that offers a year-round schedule of arts and cultural programming, community events, classes, exhibitions, and more. All of this takes place in a 19th century building that is being renovated to its former glory.

Meta: In 1609 Henry Hudson made his historic journey up the Mohegan River on an exploratory mission for the Dutch, which was bad news for the Iroquois and good news for the Hudson River School of Art.

Take the Special

The NYC DOE Office of the Arts and Special Projects (OASP) is charged with supporting universal access to arts education through ArtsCount, an initiative that tracks and reports student participation in arts education and holds schools accountable for meeting New York State Instructional Requirements for the Arts. OASP also put together all of those nifty Blueprints for Teaching and Learning in the Arts. Arts Count has identified "Arts Education Liasons" in most of the NYC public schools and painstakingly typed their names in tiny print on this spreadsheet. For the list to be of any use, you'll need the school number and a magnifying glass.

We TAs should probably read all of this stuff if we want to be taken seriously by friends like these.

Short Film: Det Perfekte Menneske (Jørgen L.)

You Always Hurt the Ones You Love

According to the New York Times, this is a great time to be a veteran public schoolteacher:

Valerie Huff, a math teacher at East High (in Rochester, New York,) a tough urban school, made more than $102,000 last year.

“A good salary? I wouldn’t disagree with you,” Ms. Huff said. “Took me a long time to get there.” She started teaching in 1978 for $11,250 a year and, in those early days, worked a second job, bartending, to make ends meet.

But in the late 1980s, teacher salaries took a jump across the country, and they just kept improving, to the point that now, with the economic collapse, a lot of people who sneered at teachers, wish they had it so good.

Health insurance? “My health care is free,” Ms. Huff said.

Security? “Long as there’s kids, I have a job.”

Public schoolteachers are our natural allies in the struggle for a living wage, health care and a pension plan. I think we should follow their shining example and join hands with them, if they'll let us.

This is not a pipe dream. Remember, it happens at Lincoln Center Institute. I have no idea how.

Of course, we'll have to professionalize our field a bit. We'll also need to make sure cash-strapped districts aren't thinking about using underpaid TAs to outsource some of those high salaried public schoolteachers' jobs.

I don't know. In this time of budget cuts, I think to really convince public schoolteachers that we are not a potential threat to their job security, we'll probably have to lie.

Bite the Hand

Americans for the Arts announces that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is set to get $50 million through the Economic Recovery Bill and NEA Chairperson Dana Gioia wants you not to worry, he's got your back.

In a statement released on January 22nd, 2009 we are assured that arts organizations are going to get what's coming to them:

"Arts organizations have been hit enormously hard by the current recession. They've seen their support drop from corporations, foundations, and municipalities. This infusion of funds will help sustain them, their staffs, and the artists they employ."

Further down in the NEA press release we get this:

"A review of NEA grants for FY 2008 revealed that for every $10,000 of grant money, 162 artists benefited. This number does not include the arts administrators involved in these projects..."

Wait.

I am not a mathematician, but I do own a calculator and it tells me that $10,000 divided by 162 artists = $61.72 per artist.

So for every $10,000 in grant money 162 artists benefit to the tune of $62 each.

Fine. It is the depression and I will take your $62, but I have two more questions:

1. How much are the arts administrators getting?*

2. Whose hand do I bite?

*According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, arts administrators in performing arts companies earned an average yearly salary of $89,370 in 2007. Those working for museums and similar institutions averaged $87,520.

Opportunity In Crisis!

As usual, we have to move fast.

From DALE DAVIS, ATA Executive Director:

The Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is the legislative vehicle which will carry the stimulus package money into our schools. Unfortunately, ESEA, the precursor to No Child Left Behind, lacks specific language to guarantee that Arts Education will get its fair share. According to Bill Cleveland, one strategic move is to push for new language to be inserted into ESEA in order to ensure that Arts Education and Teaching Artists will not be left out in the cold.

Bill Cleveland's strategic recommendations, which are outlined below, benefit Teaching Artists. They benefit the education of all children in this country. We need to spread the word and become advocates for ourselves. We can't afford lobbyists and we do not, as of yet, have a national body to represent Teaching Artists specifically, so we must take up the ball.

FROM BILL CLEVELAND:

Strategies for including Arts in Education specific language into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA)

In the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) that was amended to become No Child Left Behind and is the prime vehicle in the Recovery Bill for Education spending, I found a section that deals specifically with Art Education. It is Title V Part D Subpart 15 section 5551 of ESEA (see below). If we can convince a Representative or Senator to drop $300 million into the Recovery bill referencing this part of ESEA it would open the door to ARTISTS WORKING IN SCHOOLS!

To my mind the tack should be that the arts are a proven strategy for the retention and academic advancement for high risk students. There is an existing highly professional experienced community of artist-educators across the country who are shovel-ready to go in and make a difference in even the most difficult school environments. All that would be needed in terms of legislation is a short paragraph inserted in the Department of Education section of the Bill. Something along the lines of:

Inserting language on page l58 line 13

"Provided further, That $300,000,000 shall be for Arts in Education Programs under section 5551 of Subpart 15 of Title V of ESEA. This funding shall remain available through September 30, 2010."

WHAT CAN WE AS TEACHING ARTISTS DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Contact your Congressional representative and ask for his / her support for the recommendations for language to be inserted into the Elementary and Secondary Education Acto of 1965 (ESEA.)

Contact Representative Louise McIntosh Slaughter, Co-Chair of the Congressional Arts Caucus

Contact Arts Caucus Members of the 110th Congress.

Write an e-mail or letter to your senators.

Make a phone call to Capitol Hill!


Thanks to Nick Rabkin, Michael Nolan, Bill Cleveland, Arlene Goldbard, and Linda Frye Burnham for alerting us and keeping us informed ! Now we, the 15,000 to 20,000 Teaching Artists in this country (Eric Booth,"The Emergence of The Teaching Artist, Art Times, May 2003) and those who support our work have an opportunity to have our voices heard!

Yes we can!

Dale Davis
Executive Director
The Association of Teaching Artists
ddavis@teachingartists.com
www.teachingartists.com

IMPORTANT LINKS

(1) National Campaign to Hire Artists to Work In Schools
Community Arts Network, December 11, 2008

National Campaign to Hire Artists to Work in Schools
212 Elsie Street
San Franciso, California
Email:mikeydavis@gmail.com

(2) National Campaign to Hire Hire Artists to Work in Schools on Facebook

(3) Americans for The Arts Policy Brief to Obama's Transition Team

(4) San Francisco Arts Commission Inside/Out Blog
Campaign to Hire Artists In Schools, Nick Rabkin

(5) The Reading Room, Community Arts Network
The New, New Deal Part 2 - A New WPA for Artists: How and Why,Arlene Goldbard

Live From New York

It is the weekend.

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If you want me to write about something, email me here.

Live it up!

Common Ground

COMMON GROUND is New York State's annual arts-in-education conference. This year, it will be held from March 25-27 at the luxurious Crowne Plaza Hotel in Albany.

Workshop listings are here and we note that on Friday, March 27th, Laura Reeder, Executive Director of Partners for Arts Education, will be leading a session titled Budget Treasure Hunt: Aligning Existing Resources for Arts Education Partnerships. Since new funding streams are as rare as butterflies in January, I predict it will be standing-room only.

If you are worried about expenses, I also read that there are some TAP grants available. I have no idea what TAP stands for but they have extended the deadline for applications to February 15th.

REGISTER NOW!

Listening Party

Do you know about the Storycorps oral history project? I love it and I can't stop listening. It's too much fun.

Storycorps' mission is to honor and celebrate our lives. Since 2003, they have helped more than 35,000 everyday people share and record life stories. All of the stories are preserved at the Library of Congress and you can listen to them on public radio and the web. It's one of the largest oral history projects of its kind and you can bring it to your community by renting a recording kit or getting them to send a team, which is kind of expensive. It's an amazing community building tool and, as the people at the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training keep telling you, community building is fund raising or something like that. I can never stay on topic.

Audio: Lillian Howell, 89, remembers moving from Ohio to Virginia during the Great Depression. Listen

The Never Ending Story

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Paul Krugman wants to know why the administration of President Barack Obama has not said a word about one of the main reasons people cast their bread upon the waters--the promise of guaranteed health care.

He ends with the clarion call of "Health care now!" and I feel like I'm 17 again.

Also: Fractured Atlas has been offering artists health insurance resources and much more since way before it was cool. You want freedom? Join today.

Meta: Annie L. on the youtube.

Health Care is a Right

Do you have health insurance?*

No?

I bet your boss does.

Like a swiftly turning planet, like a wheel within a wheel, you think:

Healthcare is a right, not a luxury. But there's a reason it has been set up this way and who knows why healthcare is tied to employment? I'm not a historian. It goes all the way back to the time before there were unions and before that even and the simplest answer is that people don't care enough about other people even if they are sitting there possibly suffering right in front of them. If we did care about each other, we'd all have health insurance. But we don't, so we don't. Do we?

Breathe.

If you are a freelancer, the government considers you to be "self employed." Which means you're on your own. You have to pay your own taxes and beyond that you have all the rights of a migrant worker. No one owes you anything, including healthcare. Of course, migrant workers are totally worse off than professional Teaching Artists, what are you babbling about? Anyway, there's no point in arguing about degrees of suffering when you're suffering and if you keep muttering about this they'll find it unpleasant and then they won't ask you back.

So hush.

What to do? What to do?

Ok. You're smart. You're working. Go to the Freelancers Union website and get a cheap insurance plan because you can't walk around all uninsured and anxious.

Ah. Sweet security.

How could you have ever walked around without this? You risked bankruptcy and death. How immature of you. So it costs like $400/month. How many workshops is that? Yikes. Need more work. Now, when you're in your next planning meeting try to focus on the art. Don't think about what will happen if you don't get enough work this month to pay that new insurance bill. Set those outcomes. Smile. Nod. Suggest clever activities. Rent! The printer just broke, student loans etc...Don't think about it. Stay positive. Negative people get sick. You heard it on Oprah. If you do get sick, you will go to work anyway. If you take a sick day, you won't get paid. Then you can't pay your health insurance. What is the actual definition of irony? And always remember, this is your choice. You chose a life in art and you have to pay for it. The flexibility of the part-time gig or the freelancing life comes with a price. Potentially, it could be your actual life but look what you get in return...art. Congratulations and don't get sick, don't get sick, don't get sick .....because your friends will have to throw a party to pay your bills and they won't feel much like dancing.

If you get tired of worrying contact the Freelancers Union or the Actors Fund.

They can help.

The Actors Fund is a not-for-profit human services organization that serves all professionals – and not just actors! - in film, theater, television, music, opera, and dance.

Their Health Insurance Resource Center (HIRC) connects artists to health insurance and affordable health care.

Find more about the program and get links here.


The Freelancers Union/Working Today offers low-cost health insurance plans for people like us. It's amazing and, if you can keep it all together, it's yours for the keeping. Just don't get sick or you won't be able to afford it.

Meta: Find Rufus here and below:

*According to this report on the National Arts Policy Database, artists are slightly, but not substantially, more likely to be uninsured than the general population...It is widely estimated that over 46 million Americans are uninsured. Individuals who are younger (19 to 32); self-employed; have lower incomes; are sicker; and those without dependents in the households are most likely to be uninsured.

Le Cirque? Fantastic.

The American Youth Circus Organization (AYCO) promotes the participation of youth in circus arts. Colleagues who attended last year's AYCO Conference report an earnest and committed leadership and an emerging organization that has great potential.

AYCO's website has many links to resources and information including an online bulletin board and a searchable database of performers, teachers and companies. Their most recent conference was in 2008 and I bet they need help producing the next gathering or whatever it is they have planned because envelopes do not lick themselves.

Clowns sometimes, envelopes never.

Meta: CHAPLIN!

See the World

How are your ideals holding up?

Idealist.org is hosting a Global Volunteering Fair on February 5th from 6:00 - 9:00 PM at the Barnard College in the LeFrak Gymnasium at 117th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. The address is 3009 Broadway and you can get there on the #1 Train because February 5th is a Thursday. If it were a Saturday you would probably be stuck on the train for like an hour cursing the MTA.

The idealists also maintain an International Volunteerism Resource Center which offers strategies and options for serving abroad, or emigrating or fleeing the country or whatever you want to call it.

Il Dolce Suono

The exciting news, according to The New York Times, is that:

"The economic stimulus plan that Congress has scheduled for a vote on Wednesday would shower the nation’s school districts, child care centers and university campuses with $150 billion in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education’s current budget."

My heart takes wing, but here is the problem.

I think I work in the field of "Education" but I'm mistaken.

We are professional Teaching Artists. Our field is categorized as "Arts-in-Education" or "Arts Education" or whatever is popular or accurate at the moment. I'm not a linguist.

Arts in Education versus Education.

It's a small distinction, but an exclusionary one as far as funding is concerned.

So we are out of luck unless we start yelling for our piece of the Education funding pie right now. The organizations that represent the field of Education will get the money and we will get the boot. There's going to be a line of wolves at the table and everyone loves pie.

Join something:

Americans for the Arts

NYC Arts in Education Roundtable

Association of Teaching Artists

Also: The Fifth Element is Love.