Teaching Artists Organized (TAO) A project of Community Initiatives
NEW NEWS (read below for Old News)____________________________________________________________________________________________
Interview with New York State Association of Teaching Artists director (full story started in the June TAO Newsletter Dale Davis is the executive director and one of the original founders of the Association of Teaching Artists (ATA) of New York state, a professional organization that came into being 11 years ago and which today links a community of 1,000 teaching artists around the state. With a modest annual budget of $17,000, provided primarily by the State Council of the Arts along with donations, ATA is among the earliest professional associations for teaching artists in the nation.
More than ever today, Davis says, the role teaching artists play in arts education needs to be publicly understood and supported. "TAs have always been vulnerable because we are invisible," she points out. " We need to make our professional issues public. And we need to make clear we are not in competition with teachers or arts specialists!"
In an effort to broaden the conversation, ATA's governing board is looking to form a national board and has plans to hold a national teaching artist conference in 2010 in NY state. The agenda could include an issue Davis finds most irksome: Professional development unrelated to pay equity. "There is no professional career ladder for teaching artists. They take endless professional development courses, but it does not at all affect what they are paid."
ATA has a listserv for Teaching Artists that reaches beyond New York state, even connecting internationally. A lively blog by teaching artist Michael Wiggins is updated daily on the ATA site and appears on Facebook (address below) . For more information about ATA and its listserv, check out the ATA Website at http://www.teachingartists.com/.
The Association of Teaching Artists was founded at a Summit in Poughkeepsie in April 1998. Teaching Artists, arts administrators, and leaders in statewide arts funding came together at the request of The New York State Council on The Arts to consider the need and feasibility of forming an organization of Teaching Artists. The Artists Summit group met again in June 1998 in Troy and developed and adopted a mission statement, goals, and the name of the new organization. ATA was incorporated in September 1998 and officially introduced to the Arts In Education field at the annual statewide Arts In Education conference, Common Ground, in October 1998.
With support from the California Arts Council, Teaching Artists Organized has been engaged in a similar conversation and process here in California, meeting with like-minded teaching artists, arts providers and arts councils from throughout the state. Participants have convened twice in the last two years. Next steps call for a working committee to write a plan for a statewide network, refine it with feedback from the field, then adopt it along with a shared mission statement and set of working goals.
Davis’s advice: “Don’t promise the world and not deliver.” Message received.
Despite being in business for more than a decade, ATA still struggles with issues that sound familiar to us: what are the artistic and education standards for TAs? “If we don’t set them ourselves, others will do it for us.” Where have we heard that before? “Should there be a credential? In schools, credentials matter.” While stressing that teaching artists are not in competition with credentialed teachers, Davis sees a need for some kind of standards system and terminology to emerge. “For that matter, what are the credentials for the head of a cultural organization that’s putting artists in schools?” ATA did a survey of its associates and discovered most had master degrees. “But I’ve known TAs who don’t even have a bachelors, and they are fine teachers
Other burning issues for ATA include lack of intellectual property protection. “You design a unit, it can be used by others for the next 10 years, with no acknowledgment of the origination. “Our most filled workshop was about copyright and intellectual property. Our next most successful was about special education. The ones that really fill are the business issue workshops.”
ATA starts every year by contacting all the cultural organizations that receive state arts council funding and asking them if they will need teaching artists in the coming year. This information goes onto the ATA Website (updated regularly) and into their listserv. ATA makes annual awards to honor exceptional TAs and an administrator of a cultural organization. They also hold an annual Common Grounds conference for the arts education field in New York state.
Serving as executive director of ATA is a part time job for Davis, who also works as Executive Director of The New York State Literary Center, an organization she founded in 1979. “We work with adolescents at the highest risk of educational failure. This is how I have come to know Judith Tannenbaum and The Beat Within, both San Francisco treasures!” She founded the Center based upon a pedagogy that evolved from her experience working as a teaching artist. In 2006 she founded The New York State Arts in Correctional Education Network to facilitate dialogue and collaboration among arts organizations, artists, and correctional education programs and to support artists and arts organizations with the knowledge and training needed to better serve correctional education.
Of her ATA work, “It can eat you up!” But she’s never too busy to answer the most frequent question she gets from the field: “How can I get started?” -- By Belinda Taylor
Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership Launches Nation’s First Teaching Artist Certification Program with The University of the Arts, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
PHILADELPHIA (May 1, 2009) – Recognizing artists as a vital component in Pre K – 12 educational reform, The University of the Arts and the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership (PAEP), in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, will begin offering a first-in-the-nation Teaching Artist Certificate through the University’s Continuing Studies Division this fall. “This program was created in direct response to President Barack Obama’s call for a corps of trained teaching artists to work in community sites and collaborate with educators in schools preparing students for success in the 21st century,” said Erin Elman, Dean of Continuing Studies at The University of the Arts.
The research-based certificate program is inclusive of visual, performing, literary, media, and crafts and aims to build the knowledge and capacity of artists to work alongside teachers and arts specialists in Pre K – 12 classrooms and community settings to create and implement best practices residency programs that support learning in and through the arts.
“Establishing this certificate program is a major milestone for an emerging field,” said national arts education consultant Eric Booth, who co-founded the Art and Education program at Juilliard and will serve as the first chairman of the Certificate Program’s National Board of Advisors. “Until now, artists with a passion to include teaching artistry as a committed career component have had to piece their training together and learn on the fly. This new program provides America’s first comprehensive training offering, and establishes a new standard of professionalism for this burgeoning field.”
The program is designed for practicing artists interested in building a knowledge base and capacity for bringing their skills into the classroom. “This exciting new certificate program will foster a new generation of Teaching Artists,” said Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Executive Director Philip Horn, “a generation who, in partnership with educators, will bring the unique benefits of arts learning into today’s classrooms and educational settings.”
Through PAEP’s status as regional arts in education partner with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, this innovative program is able to draw upon the leadership, expertise, and resources of the statewide network of arts in education partners. The University of the Arts’ unique position as the only university representative of all of the visual and performing arts provides the scope and breadth necessary to launch a program of this magnitude. “We’re rolling out this program locally with plans in place to offer it statewide through online, distance learning and by building affiliations with institutions of higher education across the state,” stated Pearl Schaeffer, CEO of the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership.
Students will not only receive their certification from The University of the Arts but will also be granted alumni status providing many of the unique opportunities for alumni that the University has to offer. Deadline for fall 2009 enrollment is Tuesday, June 30, 2009. For more information, course descriptions or to request an application, please visit www.uarts.edu/ce, email ce@uarts.edu or call 215.717.6095.
The University of the Arts is the nation’s first and only university dedicated to the visual, performing and communication arts. Its 2,300 students are enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs on its campus in the heart of Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts. The institution’s roots as a leader in educating creative individuals date back to 1868.
The Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership (PAEP) promotes learning in and through the arts working in collaboration with education and arts communities. PAEP builds excellence in arts in education practices through residencies and professional development programs and is a regional partner with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Arts in Education Division serving southeastern PA.
Thanks to Wayne Cook of the California Arts Council for forwarding this article. Let us know if you have other interesting news worth sharing.
Old News
Haas Fund awards grant to TAO! Teaching Artists Organized has received its first operating grant, $10,000 from the Haas Fund as seed money for our start-up phase. The Haas money will subsidize the largely volunteer activities of current TAO staff, working toward a minimal infrastructure that will allow us to provide the services you've told us you want: advocacy, convening, professional development and other basic operating costs.
Many thanks to Frances Phillips, Haas Fund Arts Program Officer, for her support and belief in our mission and proposed range of services. The grant offers tangible evidence that our cause -- to advance and professionalize the role of teaching artist -- is important and worthy of support in the eyes of funders.
"We are thrilled to receive this early acknowledgment from the Haas Fund," stated Jill Randall, TAO advisory board chair and a teaching artist at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. "It convinces me that we are on the right track in our efforts to build professional support for teaching artists in the Bay Area. Our new workshop series (see below) represents just the sort of thing we want to offer on a regular basis."
Fingers crossed: we have a grant proposal pending at the San Francisco Foundation, and will know in March if we passed the first round.
Teaching Artists Journal TAO associates can subscribe to the TA Journal half-price --$22 per year --by signing up through TAO. As soon as we have 8 more sign-ups, we can activate your subscription. Make out your check to TAO, and mail to the address below.
OLDER NEWS
Volume 1, Issue 2 August 2008 Teaching Artists Organized (TAO) is now officially “a project of the Community Initiatives Fund (CIF) of the San Francisco Foundation,” giving TAO access to the benefits of being a 501(c)3 and providing fiscal administrative support as well. This means CIF can receive and disburse money for TAO. As of the moment, there are no funds, so it’s not a burning issue, but we will be receiving some support soon to plan and facilitate a statewide gathering of organizations that support the work and training of teaching artists ( more about that in a minute).
Acting project director Sabrina Klein (Creative Education Consulting) and acting advisory committee chair Jill Randall (Shawl-Anderson Dance Center and Dancers Group) signed the papers with Community Initiatives Fund of The San Francisco Foundation. This sponsorship moves us closer to our goal of becoming a full-fledged member service organization; we intend to launch a membership drive in the fall. Initially, member benefits will include a monthly newsletter, regional networking opportunities, information about jobs, informal brown bag lunches in our new office and more. Speaking of which…
TAO has an official office space!
Okay, really, just a desk in an office, and some chairs. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a place we can meet, keep files, and set up a work station. The address is 3179 College Avenue (buzzer #3 at the door), Berkeley, 94705, at the corner of Alcatraz. We inaugurated the space with the August meeting of the TAO steering committee.
Partnering Successfully with Schools Today
A Teaching Artist Institute 3-Day Training Curriculum
From the 2007 Alameda County Office of Education Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership, Alameda County Arts Commission, California College for the Arts, and the California Arts Council 2007 Teaching Artist Institute You can order a spiffy full color spiral-bound copy for $22.68 plus s/h, or download it for FREE! Preview it at www.lulu.com and type TAI in the search box. ª
Past Calendar & more…
September 27 -- Expo for Independent Arts
An outdoor expo & resource fair for artists and musicians, Dolores Park, 11 am-6pm. FREE. TAO will have a table there for information, so drop in and say hey, or better yet, volunteer to help staff it!
October 3 – Arts Day in California. Make some noise, fly above the radar!
October 6 – Theatre Bay Area Annual Meeting. Go to www.theatrebayarea.org for information.
October date to be announced – Brown bag lunch and networking opportunity in SF. All teaching artists & arts providers invited. Date TBA in next newsletter.
Jill Randall, Dale Albright and Belinda Taylor met with John Killacky at the San Francisco Foundation last month to outline TAO’s goals and efforts to bring a fully-functioning service organization for TAs into being. They received a warm reception, and were invited to apply for funding in the fall. This doesn’t mean TAO will get funded, but it is a positive sign.
Frances Phillips on behalf of the Haas Fund, has also agreed to accept a proposal for seed funding for TAO. Again, accepting a proposal isn’t the same as making a grant, but it means our ideas and aspirations are being taken seriously. It also means we’ve got some work to do to start deciding what “membership” in TAO will mean. Jill Randall, Mary Sutton and Belinda Taylor are heading up our membership committee and will report at our October Brown Bag lunch.
Statewide meeting on Teaching Artists’ Professional Development
The California Arts Council has granted $10,000 to the Alameda County Arts Commission to host a major convening of teaching artist support organizations from around the state this November. TAO was asked to plan and facilitate the meeting; ergo, our first funding. The topics for discussion will include professional development for Teaching Artists, professional standards for TAs, credentialing –an admittedly controversial topic -- and other issues, including models for regional partnerships and creation of a statewide network in support of TAs.
This will be the second CAC-sponsored convening of this group; the first was last November with the goal of articulating the growing role of the TA in schools as arts learning has begun returning to the classroom.
TAO will collaborate with the Alameda County Arts Commission, San Francisco Art Commission, Sacramento Arts Commission, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and the California Arts Council to plan the meeting. The San Francisco Foundation has graciously offered their conference room for the November 6, 2008 gathering. ª
Honing your teaching artist skills (tips for the new TA parent!)
By Rica Anderson, Education Program Administrator, Cal Performances and parent of baby Tamsin, born April 26
Theater
· Long Night’s Journey Into Colic
A series of monologues set in the wee hours of the morning, whispered to crying, insomniac baby as a silent TV flickers in the background. Pacing the floor and rocking in a chair, the caregiver-actor performs a stream-of-consciousness piece touching on memories, absurdist musings and repeated comforting phrases accented by long pauses and light snoring. One part Beckett, one part O’Neill, three parts infomercial.
· Pantomime Playhouse
Forget striving for a subtle, layered performance. Ever wanted to play scenes way over the top while indicating broadly? Now’s your chance to indulge as you chew the scenery out of “Good Night Moon” and other children’s books. No “less is more” for baby, bigger is best, and frankly, pandering to this audience feels great.
Dance
· The Jiggle Dance
This structured improvisational duet uses bouncy movement that builds in intensity depending on duration and volume of baby’s crying. The dance is often accompanied by desperate shushing sounds or lullabies sung at the top of one’s voice.
· Toy Trippin’
A purely improvisational dance set into motion as the caregiver-dancer trips over a baby’s rattle and is pitched into a minefield of soft-looking yet surprisingly painful educational toys. Types of movement: Lunging, weaving and wild hopping with a crash-bang finale that ends on the floor. Vocals include: A series of “Ows” and loud swearing, followed by apologies to baby. ª
