Arts Education – Robert Bettmann

There’s a Famous Saying II: Arts Education

There’s a famous saying that goes: ‘those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.’ In the art world I’ve recently encountered two different applications of the maxim. In the last post I wrote that through humor we crease the harsh edges of truth, lubricating our cultural forgetting.

The maxim applies also to our understanding of challenges faced by 20th century art forms, including Modern Art, Jazz Music and Modern Dance.

Ever since I began dancing (in the 1990’s) “modern dance” has been stumbling over what to call itself – part of a larger struggle to figure out how to maintain the soul of a reactionary art form now integrated into the mainstream. (Can something I just created be “modern” if something modern was created a hundred years ago? )

The American composer William Billings once wrote that “every man should be his own carver.” The revolutionary spirit embodied in that statement is incompatible with the maintenance of the arts industry, and we don’t do ourselves any favors pretending that it isn’t. Artists are/need to be trained. Agrippina Vaganova, famous for founding ballet’s Vaganova Technique, was exceptionally attuned to the importance of well-rounded study. Juri Slominsky in his 1945 article “The Soviet Ballet”, described Vaganova’s insistence that,

“Prospective ballerinas and their partners study the history and theory of the theater and particularly the ballet, they become familiar with the history of painting, delve deeply into every style and epoch…. What is demanded of the ballet dancer today is a standard of culture that would permit him not only to independently solve choreographic and scenic problems in the spirit of historic and artistic truth, but also to actually take part together with the authors in the creation of the performance, to assist them in their tasks and to perceive their blunders and fallacies if such there be. To do all this, the dancer’s knowledge must be on a level with that of the choreographer and the author of the libretto. He must be able to understand perfectly the tasks put before him by the choreographer and not only dance well in the traditional style.”

Technique and composition are best taught alongside history. Too many of our teachers lack the training to do this. As we lament falling audience attendance we should consider how arts education, at every level, has failed to adequately encourage the growth of perceptive artists, and audience.

We’re best served working within the system, but if we’re not prepared to challenge today’s failures we encourage a race to the bottom that fails the artists of tomorrow. As with education reform in general, preserving players within the system is less important than ensuring that a system exists to truly serve students.

In the portrait at the top of this post the subjects are seen only distantly, in the mirror at the back of the room. The painter himself, their children, dog, and attendants are more clearly in focus. Finished works of art are indistinguishable on the walls. All this to say that in the art world those who don’t study history are unable to repeat it; the next generation of Velazquez’s can only emerge from a system that values truly rigorous arts education.

Growing understanding about Arts Education

I believe there is growing momentum toward a real commitment to arts education. At this point it’s just words. Eventually it would have to turn into policy. But the words are encouraging.

From the DC Advocates Site:

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan circulated a letter calling for support for rigorous arts education programming two weeks ago. The letter stated in part, “At this time when you are making critical and far-reaching budget and program decisions for the upcoming school year, I write to bring to your attention the importance of the arts as a core academic subject and part of a complete education for all students. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) defines the arts as a core subject, and the arts play a significant role in children’s development and learning process. The arts can help students become tenacious, team-oriented problem solvers who are confident and able to think creatively. These qualities can be especially important in improving learning among students from economically disadvantaged circumstances. However, recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results found that only 57 percent of eighth graders attended schools where music instruction was offered at least three or four times a week, and only 47 percent attended schools where visual arts were offered that often.” See more here, and see the original letter here.

From my interview with Agnes Gund, MOMA chair emerita for OvationTV:

Rob: Over the course of your career you have worked tirelessly to support not only fine arts, but education, and arts education. Do you think public schools should be required to provide arts education for all students? If so, what kind of arts education programming should be required?

Agnes: I believe very strongly that every elementary school, junior high school and high school student should have a good, solid music and visual arts curriculum. From pre-kindergarden on, each child should experience these subjects. If we track children that are involved in solid, well-constructed and well-taught programs from the start of their school years, we will see that they gain skills and applications that transfer to other areas in their lives. When complaints arise that the arts are frivolous, they stem from the fact that art classes arent always taught as broad, deep and important subjects.

The excellent blueprints developed for music and art by the New York City Department of Education demonstrate how seriously and academically enhancing these subjects can and should be. Serious study of the arts allows children to master important principles and vocabulary, to experience creativity, to understand perspective, line, mass, color, dimensionality, sound, range – all the different mediums and methodologies of the arts. These understandings help children express themselves and gain depth in many subject areas.

The arts also teach children how to collaborate. Even when projects are not direct collaborations, children look at their neighbors painting or sculpture, listen to the instrument or voice of another, and they gain ideas and insights. They learn to share projects, to create work together. Art production often involves such teamwork and collaboration, habits of mind and activity which are incredibly useful throughout school and into adult life. Art is intellectually stimulating as well. Children should be taught about works of art within a context of words, images and histories, so that they can better see and comprehend the world through them.

The serious study of the arts, in short, can increase imagination and creativity, inspire communication with others, and increase foundational knowledge. But it has to be a serious study of the arts – sturdy, intelligent and continual.

You can see the rest of the interview here.

Arts In America: Webisode Two

Here is the third in a series of five posts I’m creating for OvationTv.com:

On Thursday May 21st, 2009, the University of California Press in association with CORE: and Ovation TV hosted a panel discussion to consider the issues documented in Bill Ivey’s book, Arts Inc. Gaynor Stachan-Chun, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Ovation TV, moderated the discussion with Mr. Ivey, Agnes Gund and Robert Lynch. Ovationtv.com is posting video clips from the event, and discussing the issues raised. Read my intro blog post for the Arts In America series here.

In this clip Gaynor, Bill, and Agnes discuss arts education. Despite overwhelming research showing the positive impacts of arts education on student retention and achievement, arts education is very loosely mandated on the federal level. Each state oversees its own programming. The Arts Education State policy database details the paltry commitment we have – as a nation – to public arts education. Because there is no national mandate for arts education, efforts by governors, mayors, city council-members, and private individuals like Agnes Gund have tremendous impact.

In 1977 Agnes Gund founded New York City’s Studio in a School Association, in response to budget cuts that virtually eliminated arts classes from New York City public schools. For some, that would be a life’s work. Gund’s extended bio is a highlight reel of the development of modern arts programming. In interviewing Mrs. Gund, and thinking about arts education, I kept thinking about why we so desperately need her.

Here’s our interview:

Rob: In this clip you discuss the validity of arts education programming even for non-artists. Arts education programming has been linked to falling dropout rates and rising test scores, amongst other benefits. With No Child Left Behind there’s a major emphasis on standards of technical competency. How do you think we should measure success in the delivery of arts education?

Agnes: Measuring success in the delivery of arts education is, admittedly, a difficult task. It is much easier to use tests and compare scores in arithmetic, reading or writing; 2 + 2 will always equal 4, and grammatical rules dont change. It is harder to set a measure for art or music or dance, which are far more interpretive and subjective and personal.

One way to provide a measure is to evaluate schools that have arts programs against those that dont. There have been studies that show that schools with arts programs do, in fact, produce higher test scores and lower drop out rates and generate more parent involvement. These results are heartening, and while its impossible to know whether they are due to the arts programs alone, it surely is true that schools with music resounding from their rooms and innovative art on their walls create an atmosphere that stimulates curiosity and creativity. If you talk to the principals and teachers in schools like this, as I have, you learn how arts programs help their children thrive in other areas of study as well.

There are other ways of learning about the value of the arts – like watching Issac Sterns wonderful film, “From Mao to Mozart,” or speaking with working artists who have experienced the arts as students and as teachers. Chuck Close, Dorothea Rockburne, Richard Serra and the late Elizabeth Murray, to name only a very few, all benefited from both studying arts and from teaching it to others. Teachers and principals, artists, schoolchildren, all testify to the ways arts education broadens horizons, increases potential and self-worth . Taking an art class in school doesnt mean that a student will become an artist later in life. It does give that student a broader perspective, a keener sensitivity to the worlds realities, a way to express fears and hopes and dreams.

To see the rest of the interview, click here.