Lois Hetland Considers the Current Climate for Arts Education

What are some of the common trends that you see developing as you visit diverse learning environments across the country?

Upside: Dedicated, courageous, curious teachers, administrators, and kids; kids benefiting from arts learning by becoming autonomous, self-reflective, complex, flexible, self-motivated thinkers; low-achieving students engaging deeply and developing appreciation of and skill in thinking and language through art experiences; increasing connections of arts curricula to contemporary art practice and less to “surface” or “trivial” art activities; more out-of-school art programs in communities and museums; people willing to stay dedicated in the face of overwhelming obstacles; local funders and wealthy individuals recognizing the value of the arts and supporting them financially; continued federal funds for arts research; more critical friends and action research in schools; teachers eager to improve and find ways to be more effective

Downside: teacher, parent, child, and administrator frustration with and exhaustion from lack of support, lack of professional community, and lack of connections to their field as artists and art educators; fear and anger at the threat of programs being extinguished; fear and anger at the threat of having to choose between artist-teachers and teaching artists as a cost-saving issue; fear and anger at inadequate art supplies, technological access and training, teaching schedules, class sizes; teachers feeling despair, devalued, misunderstood; lower-income kids getting less arts and turning away (being turned away) from school success; misapplication and misunderstanding of research paradigms, data collection, research design (mono-method paper and pencil high-stakes testing, teaching to the test, ignoring education of the person)