Monday

It is Monday.

I have no idea how this happened.

I am reading Chapter 5 of Asking Better Questions. The authors propose three broad categories of questions. The book, which totally qualifies as a classic teacher resource, also suggests that instead of asking "What type of question should I ask?" it is probably more practical to ask, "What do I want this question to do?" Download and read Chapter 5 here (PDF).


Also: The Mamas and the Papas - Monday, Monday

Quack

I think today might be your last chance to see Theaterworks USA's Click, Clack, Moo at the Lucille Lortel in the Village. Tickets are free and it goes up at 10:30 AM and at 1:00 PM.

I saw it, and my one word review is "Hilarious."

All day long Farmer Brown hears "click clack moo, clickety clackety moo..." The cows are typing and protesting their working conditions! The world premiere of a hilariously "moo-ving" new musical about compromise, based on the award-winning book by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin.

JULY 21 - AUGUST 28, 2009
All performances are at the Lucille Lortel Theatre,
121 Christopher Street, between 7th Avenue and Hudson Street.

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETING INFORMATION

Gosh, they were all so funny.

The Cow. The Chickens. The Duck!

The Duck.

Seriously, rush. Experience the Duck.

About the Weather

Happy Hurricane Season!

It's Friday.

I am on Twitter.

ATA is on Facebook.

Maybe you'll visit.

Plus: From Florida, Professor Stanley Fish worries about the demise of American culture, again.

Also: Outkast - The Whole World

Radical Love

Over at Unlocking the Classroom, I am following a series on Friere and the concept of love, as it relates to doing the work of a Teaching Artist.

In my experience, when someone starts talking about love in the classroom, people get nervous--which is kind of the point of the essay:

How appropriate is it that we, as teaching artists, theatre practitioners, actors, and educators explore and create our own vocabulary of love? Or are we too, ashamed of something that appears to be too gushy, silly, or emotional?"

I write this paper is because I want to know what love means for Freire, other educators, and me. Perhaps my exploration of my own definition of love will help you to agree, disagree, and ponder the meaning and concept of love within your own educational practice.

Must read.

Something To Talk About

As you may recall, the University of Chicago Survey Lab is carrying out a large scale survey of teaching artists in specific cities. The Teaching Artist Research Project (TARP) is supposed to "deepen our understanding of the lives and work of teaching artists" in order to inform policy-makers.

In a recent email reminder, TARP says:

Despite all of the interest generated by the Teaching Artist Research Project, we have heard from surprisingly few of you. We know that teaching artists lead hectic lives, but we keep encouraging you to take our survey about your work for very good reasons. TARP will help us understand your perspective on how to shape new strategies to expand arts education and train teaching artists so that they work best for artists. So, please give us fifteen minutes of your time now..."

The study sites are Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Providence, and eight California communities.

Did you answer?

Environmental

Grist has been publishing environmental news and commentary since 1999. They call themselves a "beacon in the smog." Their website is sleek, cheery and filled with useful information about environmental issues, including sections on food and art.

I think they must be from Seattle.

A recent post presents an educational comic strip developed by the coal industry for school children.

Good for a laugh.

Shorts

Wow.

Occasionally, I will exclaim about a book or some other piece of art that I think is astounding.

For instance, Caryl Philips' short story collection, Crossing the River, opens with this amazingly economical line:

A desperate foolishness. The Crops failed. I sold my children. I remember."

I kept reading.

Also: A cartoon short about economic, social and cultural rights is posted on the website of Amnesty International.

Literary Events

Last week, when we were doing an informal listing of the best short stories around, I failed to mention the Moth--New York's most alive, live literary event.

I went, and I can report that the storytellers were unbelievably good.

Also: Listen to the Moth podcast.

Or: Host a Moth in your living room.

Culinary Arts

I think cooking is an art form, but I never see chefs at any of the industry meetings.

Anyway, sometimes you get peckish.

If you are really hungry, don't visit Zen Can Cook.

It's too delicious.

Vacation

When a TA goes on vacation, it's because they saved their pennies.

We don't usually get vacation days.

Or health care.

Or a pension.

Or a guaranteed amount of work.

Anyway, Jones Beach is free and it's named after a pirate.

New ATA Board Members Announced

From Glenn McClure, Board Chair, The Association of Teaching Artists

I am proud to announce the new class of the Board of Directors of the Association of Teaching Artists!

Tina Lapadulla- Arts Corps of Seattle, Washington

Jeanette McCune- Kennedy Center, Washington DC

Godfrey Simmons- EPIC Theater in NYC

We have not only have added some top-notch talent to the Board, but we have also expanded the Board's membership to include a vital national perspective that is vital to our current services. Though ATA was born with a small band of Teaching Artists in New York State eleven years ago, we reach Teaching Artists across the nation.

Our listserv, the resources on our web site, Facebook, and the blog reach beyond US Borders to include teaching artists in Italy, Belgium, Pakistan, Australia, and more. ATA's new class of board members represents the leadership necessary for ATA to continue to expand and support the needs of our burgeoning profession.

Continue to let us know what you are thinking and keep sending entries for the listserv. We continue to build this profession together with Teaching Artists and those who support them in every corner of the world. I look forward to seeing what we can build together in the coming years!

All the best,

Glenn McClure
Board Chair
The Association of Teaching Artists

Now or Never

A special report at Edutopia lays out the case for saving Arts Education.

I found out on Twitter.

The Panacea

In the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the indefatigable Nicholas Kristof and company put in an extensive report on the new crusade for women's liberation.

"The world," says Mr. Kristof, "is awakening to a powerful truth. Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution." According to the article, addressing more resources toward freeing women from brutal oppression may be an effective way to solve other intractable, global problems, like poverty:

"Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism..."

In Diapers

The New York Times' Alison Gopnick delivers an editorial in support of experiential learning approaches. The writer points to new research on the behavior of young children and babies:

"Three recent experiments show that even the youngest children have sophisticated and powerful learning abilities. Last year, Fei Xu and Vashti Garcia at the University of British Columbia proved that babies could understand probabilities. Eight-month-old babies were shown a box full of mixed-up Ping-Pong balls: mostly white but with some red ones mixed in. The babies were more surprised, and looked longer and more intently at the experimenter when four red balls and one white ball out of the box — a possible, yet improbable outcome — than when four white balls and a red one were produced."

Also: Everything But the Girl - Apron Strings

Hear the Bells

In the ongoing "debate" over health care reform, people who already have excellent health care are signaling that ditching the public health care option is not a deal-breaker.

“The president is going to continue to try to persuade everyone of the great value of having a true public plan,” said this Democrat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid discussing strategy publicly. ”But at the end of the day, I believe he recognizes that there are other, arguably less effective, ways to achieve greater coverage, more choice, better quality and lower cost in our system.”

Instead of a new government health insurance plan, which is what so many of the public in question thought they were promised, it seems likely that a network of low-cost health care cooperatives will be the proffered solution.


I think they mean group insurance plans like those available through membership in the Freelancers Union/Working Today.


Also: Peter Paul and Mary - If I Had A Hammer

From the Start

Hurrah, it's Monday!

Quick, before the shock wears off, ART!

Nearly anything will do.

How about a collage?

Or a poem?

I found this lesson plan on collage at Art Blueprint from Studio In A School. It's designed to help second-graders begin to experiment with the layering and placement of colorful shapes. After reading the description, I can't wait to start.

Description:

The unit begins with students making observations about an Eric Carle collage illustration. Youngsters note that the figure is composed of several shapes; they explore making a balanced composition of shapes. After making observations about collages by Alex Katz and Romare Bearden that feature a figure in an environment, students create a collage that incorporates a figure in a setting. The unit concludes with a display of work accompanied by signage.

Also:

TWO FIGURES IN A DENSE VIOLET LIGHT

I had as lief be embraced by the portier of the hotel
As to get no more from the moonlight
Than your moist hand.

Be the voice of the night and Florida in my ear.
Use dusky words and dusky images.
Darken your speech.

Speak, even, as if I did not hear you speaking,
But spoke for you perfectly in my thoughts,
Conceiving words,

As the night conceives the sea-sound in silence,
And out of the droning sibilants makes
A serenade.

Say, puerile, that the buzzards crouch on the ridge-pole
and sleep with one eye watching the stars fall
Beyond Key West.

Say that the palms are clear in the total blue.
Are clear and are obscure; that it is night;
That the moon shines.

-- Wallace Stevens

The Birthday of the World

The next winner of the award for Best Short Story writer is Ursula K. Le Guin. On the author's website, she describes her short story collection The Birthday of the World:

These seven stories share a pattern: they exhibit in one way or another, from inside or through an observer...people whose society differs from ours, even whose physiology may differ from ours, but who feel the way we do. First to create difference — to establish strangeness — then to let the fiery arc of human emotion leap and close the gap: this acrobatics of the imagination fascinates and satisfies me as almost no other.

Ms. Le Guin, is a myth-maker and a poet, she also pens award-winning novels for young adults. Her book, Powers won a Nebula award in April of this year. She's delivered 100 short stories, 22 novels, 7 poetry collections and 12 books for children, so far. At 79, she has earned a reputation as a writer's writer. Her extensive personal website offers free information and resources, both for readers and for aspiring writers.

Since she has already won 5 Nebula Awards, 5 Hugo Awards and a National Book Award, this one should come as no surprise.

The Farm

Over at Community Arts Network, arts advocate and thinker Arlene Goldbard delivers a third installment in her nifty series on national service initiatives. The article, which was published in July, is lengthy, which means I won't be finished reading for about a week. I have skimmed it though, and I can tell you that Ms. Goldbard does a fine job reporting on some of the most worthy volunteer and artist corp initiatives percolating all around the country.

As she advocates, persuasively and relentlessly, for the return of the Works Progress Administration, Ms. Goldbard always reminds me of all the great artists that benefited from the program, like Dorothea and Zora. I am also reminded that low-paying survival jobs with no workplace protections and few guarantees are basically what we are talking about. Long after her time doing field recordings for the WPA, Zora Neal Hurston died in abject poverty and obscurity. She probably wasn't able to save any money while she was in her 30s because she didn't have a real job.

To her credit, Ms. Goldbard crisply points out that, for the most part, the efforts she profiles "fall short of sustainable fulltime salaries for artists working in public service," but, she says, they are "widely perceived as steps on the road toward that goal."

Anyway, if we're all going to volunteer for a living, then I think the administrators who run these worthy National Service Initiatives should also be unpaid volunteers. After they've paid their dues, they can join Mckinsey & Company and make all their lost earning potential back again, with interest.

The artists will have all that useful experience to put on their resumes.


Also: Animal Farm - George Orwell

Sci Fi

Octavia Butler's Bloodchild and Other Stories is our next notable book.

For those who missed yesterday's episode, we are on in the middle of a week-long series, featuring the best short stories around. There are no prizes, just praise:


Octavia Butler writes Science Fiction parables.

Disturbing, yet hopeful, stories with a feminist perspective.

How's that for summer reading?

Jamaica

Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL) is hiring Teaching Artists to teach some things that I would love to learn:

Bollywood
Tango
Zumba
Capoeira and Afro-Brazilian Dance
Yoga
Ceramics

The starting pay rate $40 per hour, depending on experience.

Jamaica, in Southeast Queens, is a transportation hub, and one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city.

Also: Om Shanti Om - Deewangi Deewangi